Homecoming!

📷 ISO 100 | 600mm | f/7.1 | 1/500 sec

A sailor's journey ends.

Steel sharks return where hearts have stayed.

At last, above the waves, the moor is made.

Sea legs stagger, chasing ground that does not move,

As the shore and soul begin to groove.

Nothing breaks the surface of duty like the sight of home—

Where the lungs, long pampered by filtered submarine purity,

Gasp with delight at smog-thick air and gasoline humidity.

Where bulkheads give way to open skies,

And wind, not from ducts, but from weather that too often lies.

The quietude of sonar becomes traffic's blight,

The glow of the gauges replaced with city light.

From reactor hum to croaking frogs,

From silent drills to chatty jogs—

It's chaos, it's color, it's blessedly flawed,

And every bit of it feels like applause.

Welcome ashore, sailors—your rhythm may still roll,

Though the horizon now stretches far beyond control.