Poetry in Motion

As we cross the Tropic of Capricorn back into the temperate zone, and the air gets cooler and fresher, I see a sight that caught my imagination since I first read about it in a poem. No, it was not "a host of golden daffodils", nor a "light through yonder window break"ing or even "the wheels on the bus" that "go round and round".

It is a sort of "immortal bird", but it is not Keats' nightingale. Instead it is his kinsman S.T. Coleridge's:
"And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow"

Not one but two glorious albatrosses had joined us, soaring along our boat from stern to bow, then turning back to the stern and wheeling again to speed along past us. All day long these large but delicate white birds with black edged wings that barely had to beat kept up with us, back and forth, accompanying us like feathered pilot boats. By mid-afternoon there were four of them. These seabirds seem capable of expending no energy whatsoever while flying, and can travel 10,000 miles in a single journey!  They also regularly circle the globe and can make the trip in about 46 days.

Now we use the phrase to wear and albatross around your neck as a metaphor for bad luck, but that is only because of Sam's poem, after the ancient mariner spinning his rime killed one and was forced to wear it around his neck for penance. The albatross in fact was felt to be a sign of good luck and killing it took all the good luck away.

They drink salt water and every once in a while dive for something to eat, but they only seem to land in order to breed. So do they find a rock to sleep on somewhere? Or head 'home' each night? The general consensus is that they sleep on the wing, but that is a difficult theory to test. So where then did my four beacons of the air go so suddenly in the late afternoon? On the top deck? To the Lido Buffet? To get a pedicure at the spa?

I count myself lucky to have seen them at all.

when  and then suddenly, were gone.