Bedtime Story Island

 The age of graying clouds and falling rain steeps

Mounting waves that slid Davy’s sloop: Quintessence

To oblivion’s edge

But then ascending to the creaming furl

The mizzen shuddering, then snaps;

The racing, westing wind hurled the feebled pole to heaven.

And Davy bows his head, sobbing, laments the driving engine

That charters his life; driving him from

 firmed earth; his glittering isle of birth.

Searching! Searching for the mirroring land of his father’s

Bedtime stories.

For four days and nights old Davy sobbed

While a devil’s finger stroking the cleaver tucked in his belt

On the fifth day patching blue and reddening herrings

Piercing a vision in Davy’s head

Lifting his heart he tore his shirts

Knotting them round his neck

Three dozen shirts of purple and pink

Fluttered from Davy’s neck to stern and bow

He stood at the mast-head, head held high

Waiting; seeing out the doldrums above the equatorial line.

When a squall hit hard and off they raced

Old Davy’s neck stretched over the port

Tacking westward to the setting course

 made from a tiny memory tucked in a warm north bed

 Father whispered of a Mirroring Isle down south,

 Yes! Davy exclaimed, that’s what his father had said,

With a radiant smile

The Isle was close to a cluster of reefs in a darkening bluing sea

Where sharks, stings and whales encircled

 Guarding treasure that lay within.

On a south latitude far to the west near a vast land

Of forests and grassed plains smudged with fat cows

And green beaked parrots squawked all night

and men with blow pipes lured baboon

But of the Isle Father pursing lips refused to say

what its hidden depths enclosed.

Davy’s head stretched in the oven sun to the south and westing as the air would want

His voice had closed and lips cracked wide but the vision kept his smile alive.

On the tenth day Davy’s bones bleaching and skinning alive

 Eyebrows knitting; heart bursting with thirsting

 And a belly rumbling to a wobbled horizon

He clung on; fastening to the old mast’s template

Fever-pitched and screaming he braced the south-westerly

Tacking to a northern star; he prayed at dead-night for a celestial blessing.

The shirt-sails ripped, swerving and whining

as gustings whipped and keeping the course true

“This sorry sight making all religions divest pride

 and warring nations putting grievances aside

 and racists, feminists, all ists quieted at long last”

Yes! Davy thought in a fevered mind; Father’s smile was steering Quintessence 40 years now,

 Since bedtime story time, staring at father’s eyes.

Next morning, reddening dawn and sleeping moon and no breath at all;

Then a flock of migrating birds swooped at the skeletal mast

The leader of the v-squad had landed on Davy’s head, then washing his eyes with a salty wing

 fresh dew drops from north clouds

 dripped on Davy’s nose and slowly southerly met his lips

 Tasting golden and pure as life itself.

His cracked lips stung, then softened and salt encrusted eyes and lids soothed as more dew fell

Then the leader rose and swooped into the sea returned with a herring trapped in his beak.

Landing again, Davy watching slyly

 his mouth salivating, guts violently erupting. 

Leader gulped the herring then once more flew to the sea and again dined on Davy’s head.

On the fifth time his breast filled out

leader gulped once more but throat constricts

 the hapless herring spat out; landed in Davy’s mouth.

Leader satiated rose and squawked

 and the circling band of migrants duly formed the v

 whirled to the northing summer lands.

Renewed Davy stretched and sinews bulged along the neck

the rigging old but strong

Only two ragged shirts left.

Clean eyes perused the sea for the mirror Isle and reefs.

He unlashed himself as the winds died

 swam about the sloop hoping for a sign with a cheerless laugh.

This is a wild goose

Chased by a ruining life

 to end the harvest years, he thought

while scraping barnacles from port-side.

The stars had clasped his view of southern lights

and planets too! Saturn and Mars clearly marked

The compass showing Davy’s bearing

 ever close to icing southern waters.

This remembrance displaced foreboding

 and cheered, Davy  renewed the search.

Indeed the sun was horror bright but fires tempered slight

 from blisters of the north

Antarctic Winds cooled; seas darker blue and menacing.

‘The world is real,’ Davy gasped.

To starboard the screech of seagulls; oh my Lord there must be land

For 3 hours he screened the way

Then a dot, a line of pencil

 and tiny crashing waves;

Oh the reef!

He lashed to the mast foot and the remaining shirt flapped

and in the squall he screwed his torso to tack

 to port and head for the Bedtime Story Isle.