Wake in a Bottle

I keeps a list of things I wish I could bottle. Nerve is near the top of mine.

In 1977 I was nineteen, and Ted Turner was everywhere. He was at the helm of Courageous, taking the America’s Cup. He was in the papers as the Mouth of the South. Soon he was beaming news around the clock while the networks slept. Later came the bison and the open West: the same wild stride, from the rail to the prairie.

In perfumery, the trail a scent leaves behind is called sillage. In French, it means the wake of a boat. Some people leave one too.

(Ted Turner died this past May, at 87. This is my wake for him.)

…

Head Turner

Ted Turner, head-turner, salt on his skin,
Seventy-seven, he sailed the Cup in.
At the helm of Courageous, Captain Outrageous—
I was nineteen, and his nerve was contagious.

Kicked out of Brown, so he wrote his own script:
News around the clock while the networks slept.
They called it the Chicken Noodle, laughed at the gamble—
Chicken Noodle Network? Now who’s in shambles?

Then the bison, the prairie, the wide-open West,
A man off the leash who would not take a rest.
From the rail to the range, that same wild stride—
You gave my restless dreams a place to ride.

Ted Turner, head-turner, still turning mine,
Salt on my skin now, the West in my spine.
Courageous, outrageous—leave a wake, leave a trace.
I’d bottle that nerve, if I could find the base.

— no.bi