Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SARK OF THE LEEWARDS, by RICHARD BUTLER GLAENZER


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SARK OF THE LEEWARDS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The wreck of all that's solid, big and fine'
Last Line: "again the choice was mine, all mine! Amen."
Subject(s): Fate; Sailing & Sailors; Destiny; Seamen; Sails


"The wreck of all that's solid, big and fine,"
The skipper groaned. "Ten years ago, to dine
With Sark redeemed whole months in ports like this.
I never met a man so grand with dreams. . . .
Jove! When he talked, his eyes would send out gleams
Brighter than island fireflies. But his wife,
She'd squat there like a Carib-stone. No word
From her; just sullenness that sneered 'Absurd!'
Yet she was handsome in some nameless way. . . .
And now he's drinking, slacking, slipping down
To God knows what; still, miles above this town.
Tell him I sent you. Patois is his forte --
One of a score. He'll lend you any books
You need, and -- don't confuse him with his looks!"

The townsfolk bored me, so I looked up Sark
One night. The weeds around his bungalow
Blotted the path. The garden seemed to grow
Haphazard; branches struck my face, one sweet,
Too sweet, a frangipani's. The whole porch
Was snarled with vines. No lights. I flashed my torch,
Made out the door and knocked. A shuffling step,
And I was greeted with a slattern's "Well?"
A reddish wrapper was the woman's shell:
Her face I never really saw; her voice,
My business stated, rasped me with a "There!"

A finger as abruptly pointing where
A shadowy figure lounged. I coughed. It rose
Yawning, advanced, said thickly: "I am Sark,
If it is he you want." It was so dark
I all but missed the hand whose firm, strong grip
Denied the fumes whose presence proved him weak.
I hedged. No use. "Decent of you to seek
Me out like this. Come, try this Berbice chair!
The skipper sent you? Good! The skipper's friend
Would be amicus certus in -- the end!"
This with a mirthless laugh. "A smoke? a drink?"
My cool refusal made him laugh again,
This time like sunlight when it braves March rain.

The woman did not linger. I was glad;
I would have never stuck it if she had,
And suddenly I felt his need cry to me
And knew that I must listen, though I fear
Mixed with the wish to help was that to hear.
His eyes -- the skipper was correct -- they blazed;
And I, I listened, startled, shaken, dazed
By all the splendors -- more than speech was his --
By all the rocking splendors which rolled out
Funneled with flame, a gold-spun water-spout.
Such was his force, his swinging speed, his height,
Reaching from silt to star -- until he broke
And sucked me down to share a stifling smoke
Through which dragged heavily his final words,
Pitiless, shameless, hopeless, first and last,
As if a god had turned iconoclast:
"She? It's the old, old story. Man's conceit
Hankers for what it fails to understand, --
The fascination of Fate's ampersand.
But, Fate, remember, is the weaker self
Made master of the will. So what I got
Is what I destined; what I am, a sot,
Only my own velleity in terms
Of liquor. For the choice was mine, and then
Again the choice was mine, all mine! Amen."





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