To the Lost Explorer

By Lynn Ockersz

There you lie in the frozen deep,

Abandoned over the millennia,

One among numberless sailors,

Left to die in wrenching disasters,

Nameless, forgotten by history,

But who gladly gave up your life,

Nay, even walked the plank,

For the high vocation of exploring,

Fleshing out contours of geography,

And discovering exotic countries,

But at this juncture in history,

When owners of wealth and capital,

Are beginning to see in the universe,

Yet another big business proposition,

It is to you our unsung explorer,

That women and men of conscience,

Bow their heads in reverence,

For uncovering the once unknowable,

And for giving knowledge for its own sake,

A new, entrancing dimension.