Colette once wrote: “Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you’re a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff’s worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.”

i am mostly a writer, a storyteller by Colette’s definition. Hopefully, my book, which should enter the penultimate stage of production within a week, will acknowledge i can be an author as well. The below struck me in the middle of the night. i believe  after i did some morning edits, it puts me somewhere between a writer and an author:

i steamed upon the lonely sea;
i was alone and free
among 300 or more of the sea
who were just as alone as me.

the mistress of the sea
whispered to me:
with her dark blue waters
lapping white along the hull;
the huff and roar of steam
blowing aft of the open bridge;
bringing quiet when facing the wind,
the bow gently pitching and yawing
with the wolf moon blazing its path
along the rippling sea to me,
the mistress spoke to me:
an inner calm claimed me
for the mistress of the sea;

i steamed on a lonely sea.
i was alone and free
with the mistress of the sea.