Eighty Eight: I

I. Sic, meus vita pro vestri.
[Thus, my life for yours]

He loved the sea and salted air
A sailor's son by birth.
His watered eye and distant stare,
He lived for sea, not earth.

His breath for mine, the bargain went.
I'll live upon the swell.
I will fulfill his years unspent
and raise him out of Hell.

He took a wife in early life
And she bore him a son.
To honor him, I'll love again
To end what he'd begun.

I signed aboard a ship today
She moored in Spanish bay.
The grey gulls circle, calling me.
I hear the cry: "Be free."

Eighty-seven lives I've lived.
Mark eighty-eight today.
For Felix, I my debts forgive,
and take the sailor way.

From this day, I am Vitus Meriwether of Swansea.
I do this for Felix. My charge. My brother. My friend.
You will know peace.