I’ve been reading – and listening to – one of my favourite poems: Robert Hunter‘s “Flight of The Marie Helena”. I got a cassette copy back in 1985, when it first came out, and played it so often that the tape wore out. Fortunately I found an MP3 version a few months ago. ((But if it were re-released, I’d buy a copy in a heartbeat.)) I love the strange and gently surrealistic journey that Hunter invites us on…
The Marie Helena glides upon
the bright white ocean of
our second day.
Everyone aboard her is
a stowaway. There were
no tickets for the passage.
… and the way he returns to the real world:
After a week’s unfolding
many things have changed.
It is time now to
change them back again.
It is still true, in spite of
the flight of the Marie Helena,
still true, that it rarely,
very rarely, rains in dreams.
Mmmm. That was a good way of putting the world on hold for 37:30. Of course, the world may have something to say about that!
Tossing my wristwatch
into the snapping sea,
my timepiece is returned by an
indignant wave, rewound.
Indeed.