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                           THE YACHTS
 
 
           contend in a sea which the land partly encloses
	   shielding them from the too heavy blows
	   of an ungoverned ocean which when it chooses
 
           tortures the biggest hulls, the best man knows
	   to pit against its beating, and sinks them pitilessly.
	   Mothlike in mists, scintillant in the minute
 	   
	   brillance of cloudless days, with broad bellying sails
	   they glide to the wind tossing green water
	   from their sharp prows while over them the ccrew crawls
 
	   ant-like, solicitously grooming them, releasing, 
	   making fast as they turn, lean far over and having
	   caught the wind again, side by side, head for the mark.
 
	   In a well guarded arena of open water surrounded by
	   lesser and greater craft which, sycophant, lumbering
	   and flittering follow them, they appear youthful, rare
 
	   as the light of a happy eye, live with the grace
	   of all that in the mind is feckless, free and
	   naturally to be desired.  Now the sea which holds them
 
	   is moody, lapping their glossy sides, as if feeling
	   for some slightest flaw but fails completely.
	   Today no race.  Then the wind comes again.  The yachts
 
	   move, jockeying for a start, the signal is set and they
 	   are off.  Now the waves strike at them but they are too
	   well made, they slip through, though they take in canvas.
 
	   Arms with hands grasping seek to clutch at the prows.
	   Bodies thrown recklessly in the way are cut aside.
	   It is a sea of faces about them in agony, in despair
 
	   until the horror of the race dawns staggering the mind,
	   the whole sea become an entanglement of watery bodies
	   lost to the world bearing what they connot hold.  Broken,
 
	   beaten, desolate, reaching from the dead to be taken up
	   they cry out, failing, failing. their cries rising
	   in waves still as the skillful yachts pass over.
 
 
				   William Carlos Williams