The Tale Of The Bonnie Rose

(Fee's Halloween Challenge)

After three hundred years lost at sea

The Bonnie Rose, she ran aground

Been caught in a storm on Halloween

Not ship nor crew ever found

Though her sails were slightly yellowed

And her wood had lost its sheen

She seemed no worse for all the years

Though in the drink she'd surely been

Moving closer I heard a groan

From within her weathered hull

Then from her deck, some shrieking cries

From the skeleton of a gull

The crew was still upon her deck

Their clothes faded, tattered and torn

Swabbing her down and wiping her rails

And replacing ropes that were worn

Way atop of the tallest mast

In a crow's nest, on the high

Still perched a sailor, at his post

Telescope perusing the sky

Toward the aft the Captain stood

A patch slung across one eye

His right hand molded to the helm

In his left a bottle of Rye

Beneath the deck a creaky door

Exposed the galley down below

Upon the table a jack-o-lantern

Still held a candle's glow

Wisping through the musty air

Sailed the ghost of Halloween

Each year he came onto the ship

By one mortal to be seen

He ordered me to convey the tale

Of the fate of the Bonnie Rose

And how the ghost of Halloween

Held that ship at his dispose

I wandered through each inch of her

Through every hall and every room

The entire crew was still aboard

This had become their living tomb

They were committed to a watery grave

Held deep within the sea

Each Halloween she'd run ashore

And will for eternity.

A sailor told me I must go

Or join the fate of the crew and ship

So I quickly stepped onto the shore

As Bonnie Rose began to tip

A shipman rang out twelve long bells

A mournful chorus I did hear

The Bonnie Rose just slipped away

Swallowed up for another year

Sherry Heim

October 29, 2008

Copyright © Sherry Gail Heim 2008