Saturday, March 10, 2018

Message in a Bottle

In June of 1886,
A German sailor tossed
A bottle with a message
Overboard, where it got lost.

The ship, en route to Indonesia,
Left from Cardiff, Wales,
The bottle an experiment
To track the currents’ trails.

A woman walking on the shore
This January glanced
Upon the sand and what she saw
Immediately entranced –

An old glass bottle poking through
A stark Australian beach;
She brought it home and found inside
A scroll that she could reach.

She dried it in the oven
And the message was revealed,
One hundred thirty-one long years
From when it first was sealed.

It merely told where it was from
And asked for its return,
So scientists could analyze
Its journey and could learn.

A message in a bottle
Has a singular mystique,
Like a hole cut in the fabric 
Of the past, where we can peek.

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