A lifeboat from the Titanic, about to be picked up by the R.M.S. Carpathia.To mark the 101st anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, the City Room comment stalwart known as Lifeboat No. 6 has bestowed upon us a mini-epic: a long, traditional-form haiku of 20 stanzas, each representing one of the lost liner’s 20 lifeboats. We salute him.
Titanic’s Lifeboats
Lifeboat number one
of Titanic’s twenty-odd
rescued just twelve souls.Lifeboat number two
loaded at threatened gunpoint
seventeen lives saved.Boat three went to sea
with thirty-two of sixty
and a small dog, too.Crowded number four
the final boat of too few
Widow Astor’s here.When five was lowered
the Chairman’s frantic orders
nearly drowned them all.Onboard number six
Molly grabbed an oar and rowed
helmsman and lookout.Lucky boat seven
the first to leave, dropped half full
to an empty sea.Beside boat eight:
If you stay, Husband, I stay!
Her maid went instead.Number nine was where
a lover hid his mistress
in an open boat.Suspense in boat ten
from the sinking ship above
a baby dropped down.At boat eleven
two children already aboard,
their mother held back.Twelve boat descended
A knife! Give me a sharp knife!
A dozen ropes snarled.Unlucky thirteen
drifted beneath boat fifteen
nearly smithereens.Boat fourteen had guns
and a man wearing a shawl
but later saved six.Full fifteen was packed
people stacked and freeboard lacked
toes and skulls soon cracked.Sixteen proved most sweet
for two-score third-class women
of richer fortune.Collapsible A
had collapsing canvas sides
that promptly collapsed.B Collapsible
went down upside down, reversed
Death was not confused.C is for Chairman
and for the Collapsible
in which he was Cursed.Collapsible D
was how a father sent home
his two kidnapped sons.
Via Wikimedia Commons Collapsible Boat D approaching the Carpathia on the morning of April 15, 1912.