Here Was A Kind Of Countryman

[to the tragic story and aftermath of Donald Crowhurst]

nothing to salvage from the wreck;
only the waters ruffling over
a kind of country submerged

or what stood for one.
the placeholder.
and his place gone.

the ship pristine.
but not the mariner
and whose is the puzzle now.

somewhere a jeweled discovery awaits
of a land where to try is never to fail.
where to sail is always unfurled

under a bright sky with no need
of warnings.
but here is where

certain stories were brought low;
the self made myths dissolving
after the blow of consciousness revealed

what even now we cannot feel,
not knowing the whole
except that in the soul,

suddenly, with no premonition,
the inhabitants started awake  hearing
the church bells toll

over all the island
and no remedies opposed.

and the artifacts with hushed
aspects we examine afterwards
as though handling

time itself, come undone,
the scripts of a foundering logic,
the sea, the sun

unwitting witnesses
to what we still cannot fathom.

mary angela douglas 10 august 2016