Albatross

Often, just for the hell of it, the crewmen

kill albatrosses, those big seabirds,

our travelling companions who lazily follow

the ship as it slips over the sea-chasms.

We had scarcely set sail before

those kings of the azure, those easy targets,

stupidly brought their vast white oarlike wings

to draggle along beside the ship.

A dead bird's wing is rubbery when broken.

How soon the beautiful becomes grotesque!

One sailor prods its bill with a cutty,

another staggers, apeing the dying bird.

A poet, like this king of the stormclouds,

frequenter of tempests, this easy target,

is left to die while the whooping fades

his giant wings twitching, in parody of flight.

14.2.90