Nothing like it
Standing at the stern of a ferry
The wake fanning out a ‘Selamat Tingaal’
To Ternate and Tidore
The Spice Islands.

We are crossing the Moluku Sea
Nothing like it
As the evening mist rises from the gentle waves
And electric light illuminate a shore village
The twin volcanos rising from the sea
>Nothing like it
And knowing I will never be here again.

Out in the deep waters
Nothing like it at all
The waves rise and fall
The ferry slips up and down
The pistons pound out power
Driving the Ternate Star into the black night.

Till the wind picks up
Nothing like it at all
Stronger and stronger.
Rain hard rain slaps the deck
The troughs become pits
The ferry slams into each wave
Countless shudders wild through the ferry
The passengers get sick.
The sailers laugh
Like it’s an old friend
Like it’s nothing like it all.

The one-armed first mate has a pirate face

The Bugis warns, “Don’t get sick. Only two cure. Land or drowning.”

Lying in Ahmed’s bunk

Each descent into the trough

The wood planks creak

As if playing a coming-apart symphony

The ferry ploughs westward to Sulawesi

I go back on deck

Holding on tight to the railing.

Ahmed smiles out of the dark

A gold tooth gleaming in the 40 watt light.

Nothing like it at all.

No moon, no stars, only a black as black sky
A blacker sea with white spindrift
Speeding on the wind
It howls out a banshee’s song.
“Come sleep with me.”
Rain slashing sideways
“Will we make the shore?”
Nothing like it at all.

Hours pass
The wind shrieks with the voice of a siren
To come home
To the depths.
After the ferry sinks
Screams
Waves
Less screams
More waves
Darkness as I sink beneath the surface
Nothing like it at all
I go back to the cabin.
No prayers
Sleep
One dream
My hands gripped storm-smashed jetsam
My body bobbing in the middle of the Moluccan Sea
Then drowning
Deeper sleep
Nothing
Nothing like it at all.

I rise with the dawn
To a calm sea
On deck the sailors huff on kreteks
Ahmed offers one
The smoke tastes of Ternate
Land lays low to the west
Sulawesi

Within two hours
My feet on earth.
I turn my back on the sea
Happy to have not gotten sea sick
Happy to not have drowned
Happy to have feel the mercy of the sea
Happy to be alive

Nothing like it at all
Nothing like it at all
The sea.