DAY 28: SPOONS, SWANS AND SMALL SACRIFICES
Kadek holds a photograph of his children.
“My son laughs like this,” he says,
pointing at two small faces in sunlight.
He smiles; I nod. Frances leans in.
The camera clicks.
Breakfast over. Kadek removes our plates.
Napkin swans perch beside our forks.
He reminds us which dishes are gluten-free.
We fumble, slosh some coffee, laugh.
Kadek laughs too, softly, like our clumsiness
is part of the ritual.
Lunch arrives: fresh fish and chips.
Kadek sets it on our plates.
“Day of Silence in Bali,” he says.
He can’t go home, must stay here and work.
I watch him.
Afternoon: Frances and I attempt watercolour.
The sea keeps moving faster than we can paint.
Kadek lounges on his bunk,
switching languages with a visiting crew member.
He whispers a story about palm trees.
I listen. The story fades.
Evening. We play backgammon.
Godzilla stomps across the board,
displacing a stray napkin.
We laugh. Kadek grins.
Frances nudges me. “I know it’s his job,
but he seems to enjoy this.”
He folds another napkin swan,
rubs my stomach for luck, shakes my hand,
formal but kind, as if I were his grandfather.
The sun gone, coffee cooling.
A napkin swan tilts in the fading light.
Frances laughs at something.
Kadek watches. I sip the last of my drink.
I knock the spoon onto the carpet.
Kadek scoops it up instantly. No words. No judgment.
The napkin swan leans into the fading light.
DAY 40: WHEN THE FURNITURE STARTS WALKING
The wind tips loungers
into prayer shapes.
My towel flings itself from the chair,
then sulks in the corner,
sensing what’s coming.
Corridor prints tilt and blink
like witnesses.
In my cabin, dresses sway
from ceiling hooks,
bracing for impact.
The pool water sloshes,
a captive pacing a cell,
trying to pass for calm.
At breakfast, a woman sits opposite
in an orange lifejacket,
face pale above the foam collar.
My fork grinds at eggs
on a dull white plate.
I pretend to chew.
What would we taste
if we admitted fear?
Someone laughs too loud behind me.
No one mentions
the sea hasn’t finished with us yet.
The ship’s band tunes up
like the storm never happened.
Their instruments strain
to stitch the day back together
with melody alone.
Upstairs, the map shows a single speck
adrift in indifferent blue,
between the storm we survived
and whatever waits ahead.
The crew move as if nothing happened,
their nerves untested.
I take notes on how to stay calm
when the furniture starts walking
and my own body goes with it.
DAY 56: DRAGONS, SPARKS AND HOTEL GLOSS
Four days from Woolloomooloo,
the watercolour gang hunched over palettes,
summoning light across the harbour.
I keep thinking of that finger wharf,
standing like a star
on its red carpet,
timber gleaming with new purpose
insisting on attention.
You could smell the grant money,
heritage pounds built into its beams,
rusted gears displayed like relics,
determined to be admired.
Frances paints beside me,
sure as morning tide.
Her brushstrokes are declarations,
mine stammer out excuses.
I tell myself I’m exploring,
mostly thinking about
what the wharf looked like
and how not to mess it up.
At school I painted dragons,
blood and fire smeared on paper,
while the teacher welded sparks
next door, deaf behind his visor.
Now I’m painting wet-on-wet,
sun bleeding into water,
colours colliding, spilling.
The rebooted wharf sighs,
posing in its hotel gloss.
Ten minutes and I’m done.
It looks okay, not great.
The wharf rolls its eyes
like a teacher convinced
I’m not trying hard enough.
DAY 66: INTERRUPTION
Another thing I like about this ship
is the Promenade Deck, my stage
for a windswept epic,
gazing out like some untroubled romantic hero.
The ocean is disappointing
flat, repetitive, fading at the edges.
The wind won’t let me hold the moment,
it keeps barging in, yanking my shirt
like a hawker demanding attention.
I laugh
at how seriously he takes himself.
I stagger down the deck
like a paper bag
all drift and crumple
cornered by wind
muttering nonsense
about God and the tides.
Just when I’m ready to give up
and go back inside
the wind eases
doesn’t apologise.
I stop walking
let the silence catch up.
The sea flattens its waves
the wind hesitates.
The air softens
like someone almost saying
they don’t believe in love any more
but still want to keep holding hands.
DAY 76: GREEN CATHEDRAL
The air is thick
like sweat on a tenor sax.
The language won’t be English
but something between bebop and birdsong,
a rhythm Miles might have hummed
if he’d been raised by rainforests.
Our guide, in linen shirt and dark glasses,
snaps her fingers; the forest responds:
branches sway in five-four time,
roots laying down basslines
beneath our uncertain feet.
We follow her deeper,
into a green cathedral
where vines scribble chord changes
no one has written down.
Her voice drifts between verses,
low contralto bending the air:
Bohemian Rhapsody,
not the Queen version,
but the one Coltrane meant to play
and lost before morning.
It sounds like pollen,
memory soaked in brass,
and for a moment
the canopy sways in tune.
Then the sky cracks:
not thunder, but a hi-hat flung sideways.
Rain falls with intention,
each drop a note without permission,
each rivulet a solo breaking off the beat.
We’re not drenched. We’re tuned
to a key we never knew we carried,
our bones humming the harmony.
We are what’s played:
reed, string, snare, silence.
The breath before the downbeat,
the mistake that becomes the miracle.
Even silence holds us
like the last phrase of a ballad,
unresolved and better for it.
DAY 90: WHAT THE FLYING FISH FORGOT TO TELL US
On deck, coffee gone lukewarm.
I can’t tell if that’s comfort or regret,
half-warm, the temperature
of indecision.
Then bright bodies break the surface,
not fleeing the water,
just escaping it,
silver commas
the sea forgot to erase.
Bodies hurled against gravity,
each a flicker of resistance.
For a second the deck breathes with them.
So do I.
Then the sea closes.
I hold my cup,
its chill settling into my hands,
everything solid
undone by motion,
by what briefly chooses air.
Rodney Wood is retired, lives in Farnborough. After a world cruise he wrote a poem a day for each of the 102 nights. He’s been published in various magazines and co-hosts an open mic in Woking. He blog at https://rodneywood.co.uk/
