Wednesday, April 21, 2010

852. SAILING

SAILING
Circumnavigate the globe, Magellan,
do it once for me; circumnavigate the
globe, Magellan, tell me what you see.
-
'I see the mist over the cemetery at
Grinnell - hanging low and clinging,
it cedes nothing. As thick and harmonious
as it is itself, it covers the very death
it conceals. I see the gulls and the terns
of eternity sailing ertswhile over western
seas rounding 'round this rounded globe,
perhaps, for you, then once for me.
For - other than that, why do they fly?'
-
Circumnavigate this globe, Magellan, oh
do it once for me. Circumnavigate the globe,
to tell me what you see.
-
'I see the steeple and the chapel in some
Hampshire wooded glade, the crotch of
endless mountains, and the valley in
the shade, and the child with his clover
staring straight the sunlight bright,
and the clutches of mother and father,
their tangled love within the night -
and these are each momentous things,
as embers burning bright. I have rounded
now this globe for you, but did I make it right?'
-
No, no, that was not a stipulation! 'I am drinking
cups of my own lost world. Whatever I do is stupid.
I cannot heed, I cannot genuflect (the Padre we had
brought along, Lord, I have thrown him overboard).'
No, no, let this situation heat up! 'I am frozen in a
mannered fear that keeps me steady, enamored,
here, and oh! there must be simpler things than this.'
-
Before the time I was born, if I was born at all,
was no more than an incendiary bas-relief
smoldering, and now I am ready, myself, for
a newer season of things - the matter-mark of
a modern man! I think I will circumnavigate
the globe, new Astrolabe in hand.
-
'Remember, you, how I have rounded shores
of far, illicit things - all hope and all surprises,
and the disappointments which they bring. Beware
then, 'ere you go, beware that western wind! It
can lead you where it wants to. You can never win.'
-
Ah! How like a thesis play conveniently proving its point
this all is coming to be. My words still wear the husk of
their ideas and all is not just for beauty and show. Nor
am I out to but prove a point. I illuminate instead
the experience of living today. And I am now
exploring on an inland sea.

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