Sea Virus

"I knew I should never have gone below but I did,
and the fug of bilges and wood caught me aback.
The sheets of my heart snapped taut to breaking,
as a gale stronger than longing filled the sail inside me.
To be shot of land and its wood smoke!
To feel the keel cold in a current!
To see the mast inscribing water like a restless pen writing a fading wake!
Its true, I'm ruined.
Not even peace will do to keep me ashore now.
Not even you."

- Gwyneth Lewis (The first national poet of Wales)