hug anyway.
“I wrote another poem,” he said, pulling a crumpled piece of
paper from his trousers. He read to her:
Albatross my friend, come hither, come close.
Most loyal of birds, your desperate hunger,
Safeguards my boat as we search for the coast,
Of royal green land, gold, silver and amber.
Lonely at sea, lonely are we,
My crew of the damned, hemmed in by salt water,
Could offer me up the highest of tea,
Not knowing that it is not this that I’m after.
Oh for a touch of your silky white feather,
Your wingspan could lighten the darkest of latitude,
But it goes against nature that we be together.
By what reckless design might I alter her attitude?
I think that Icarus touched the sky like a bird,
And so for that moment of terrific bliss
Shot hot through the heavens, as he tumbled back seaward
He laughed as he wept: No mean folly, this.
Now lifeless and flightless, I wear you around me,
Coilings of conscience, fates intertwined
Like fibers in roots twisting up through a dead sea,
Our journey is lost. You, gooney, are mine.
“I don’t understand it,” she confessed.
“It’s about limits. The limits of nature.”
“I like the sweeter ones you write. What’s an albatross?”
“It’s a sea bird with long wings.”
“My father called my mother that once. It made her cry. Are they
bad?”
“They were signs of good luck for sailors at sea,” he answered,
“They flew behind ships and ate the fish thrown up by their wake. If
one flew behind your ship it meant good sailing weather ahead.”
“So my father was saying that my mother was good luck,” Lily
concluded, “Then why was she crying?”
ABYSSINIA
204
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