NATURE Poem: Albatross, by Emma Wells

* Inspired by Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’.

On broken wing,
I turn in circles,
rhythmically repetitive,
lost in clouded notions,
a ghost puppet bird
clasped by a mariner’s mind:
one that is doomed, misjudging,
all too ready to dispense death,
brandishing a shotgun
in ancient-thinking hands.

I tried to help,
guide his crew to safety,
finding free passage:
an aerial guide
in times of tumultuous tides,
yet, I paid a fine,
the highest price
for libertine wings.

Shot, barely buoyant,
I try to cling on
to a ring of life
buoying me skyward,
but it turned –
oil-slick –
too slippery to anchor
with no land, rock or perch
or awaiting saviour
flying a flag of avian victory.

Only blood-red rivers
wave beneath my feathers.

I am cursed,
maimed my man,
exploited then broken
by his greedy clutch:
taking too much
when giving nothing,
no coins to Mother Nature,
to pay his sea voyage.

Now, in dusky shade,
I hang around his neck,
an inverted Christ,
a crucifix of despair,
bearing blighted pearls.

A long,
sad,
white
tear.