USS Coronado Is Not The Pequod--No Ahab On Board

    Iditarod is over, March Madness is approaching, still way to much chaos in the political world, still potential chaos in Ukraine.  Time for this poet to take a new tack (good sailing term and links to the photo). The above photo is not a refugee stealth boat from a Bond film, but the USS Coronado, one of the first of  the new class of stealth destroyers now being commissioned, albeit due to budget issues, slowly. The ship has not just intercepted a drug runner or a boat of illegal aliens, but rather is joining off the coast of Dana Point, a whale watching excursion boat. If I were a whale and had Dragon Software (flukes and fins too bulky to type with) and an underwater computer, this is the poem I would have written. Hope you enjoy it.

If I were a whale, be it grey or even the rare white

The USS Coronado would have been an unnerving sight

No matter how deep I could dive no matter where I might hide

With all that sonar pinging when spouting she would be there by my side

Ahab with his wood oar powered dories equipped with rope and a harpoon lance

I would fear not, for as a whale of speed and size I would have a fighting chance

But this ship has harpoons of missile that will not miss

With 50 knot speed any chance to ram would be dismissed

If by miracle my flukes were fast and my approach hidden in her wake

A might thud on a metal hull complete with a two thousand Excedrin ache

But the Coronado was here only for her watching  sailors to treat

And as a fellow master of the oceans to greet

Her intentions must have been noble, her motives true

Alaska and its bounty beckons ;no time to in court to the Navy sue

© March 12, 2014 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet