DRIFTWOOD

Gnarled yet beautiful, The discarded

that floated on torrents past its cousins

Fashioned by whims and fancies

of a fickle yet gentle hand, The wasted

that escaped petrification and ruin

and fell upon a pebbled shore 

That wide expanse bearing discarded trophies 

strewn amidst sparkles

Scarred yet enchanting, The forsaken

that chose to break away from decay

and allowed nature's knife to sculpt

its rotting form into stunning masterpiece, 

The abandoned, torn between the moon and the sun

Those celestial gladiators caught in a struggle

to churn the sea for millennia

and bequeath recognition

Eponymous heartwood, the castaway

That enigma that left terra firma 

and became a buoyant pelagic reef

A habitat both benign and beneficial

A peculiar barnacle blanket

with pockets for hidden carcasses,

Little windows of cloaked secrets

amidst ripples, swirls and whorls

Dead yet alive, The ignored

that found a new calling, a new stage

Becoming the ghost of a shipwreck

Or a window to another place

Opening hideaways in its body

a skeleton with discretion

It doesn't say much anymore

but it need not, of that it is sure

Beached logwood burning bright

It holds nothing yet is admired

The voyager that decided to go with the flow

Short on beauty but high on mystique

Waiting to change the scenery

for those that drift by

Until Woodfall, A journey to the deep

Sinking to fascinate no more