It is the star to every wandering bark

As atoms time atomic clocks
And currents clock the seas,
The rhythm of the motor locks
Our own astronomies

Which otherwise would tear apart
The lap and slip of tide
With the arbitrary stop and start
Of the sky’s celestial drive,

The tropic beat of fanning blades -
Guidebooks to the Stars -
Whose aimless spellbound drifting trades
Another world for ours:

Expect no vision from those starcrossed eyes,
Bewitched by every passing spark -
Blinded, every shudder multiplies,
And waves grow larger in the dark -

But the throbbing of the blood,
Like music of the spheres,
Steadies the arhythmic flood
Of our disastrous ideas,

Setting watches in the night
With heaven’s second hand,
Trimming our theodolite
To bring the lightning back to land.