Where Are All The Ruddy Men?

a poem

William E. Norton, Sailing Ship--off Coast of Maine, 1876, oil on canvas

Where Are All The Ruddy Men?

Where are all the ruddy men,
those well acquainted men
with fire, and axe, and sword
whose hands have known
the halyards of ships
that sail to distant shores?

Where are the salt men
whose backs break under sun,
with sea and earth and
all manner of mirth 
tucked beneath nail
and hand and bone?

Bring back the days
where men of valor roam,
who stand tall and firm,
towering as the redwood tree,
wild as the wild beasts
when wild calls its need,

But bridled, for the days
when wildness must be meek;
men of restraint 
with gentle hands
equipped to carry both
the sword and the lamb.

Goodness, and good cheer
roll from off their tongues,
echoes of the deep song,
a sonorous loamy thrum
to spur the dawning sun.

Give us back those men
who speak of things
too wonderful to know. 

The dwelling place of light,
the storehouses of the snow, 
those mighty men of old
whose lips are honeyed
with the name above names all.

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