Hilton Head Island: the ocean that’s out there and a poem

 

Above are two screen shots taken this morning at the Earth Wind Map.

https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-60.15,-2.78,410

The top one shows the wind, or rather the lack of wind, presently between Hilton Head Island and Bermuda.  When I mentioned to Carol the absence of a pattern to the wind in these waters, she said, “Then why do you want to sail that ocean?”  I replied, “Because it is the ocean that is out there.”

I still expect to leave on Monday although the situation will not be much changed.  I am certain of few things.  One of them is that you don’t get closer to your destination tied to the dock.

The second image is of a Category Five typhoon, Surigae, with winds of 155 knots about to wreck havoc on the Philippines.  When I first noticed it six hours ago, it was a Category Four.

Eric sent me a poem he wrote and gave me permission to share it.  I thank him.  Eric is a Canadian who lives in Montreal.  He wrote the poem in French and, knowing that I no longer read that language well, also provided an English translation.  Expecting that most of you are like me, I put the English first, but recalling that Robert Frost reportedly said, ‘Poetry is what is lost in translation’, I include the original French.

For my friend, Webb

Can albatross become gulls 

Without lying to himself and go against his nature

Replace your epic journeys to distant horizons

Against the gone and coming between close regions

Do the memories of the great escapades

Can fill the void of the great outdoors

 

Old withered feathers 

Carries with them the remnants of all adventures

Fragile Witnesses of The Memories of yesteryear

From a whiteness turning slowly to gray

And the sky getting darker

When the sight also darkens

And that it gets less sharpend

Make the bird realize that the time that remains

Dominates dreams and distance from his youth

 

Later memory will replace air

Memories will be the new lift

Writings will replace life

And in the mind will fly the bird

Who once shared his story

 

But one day the albatross will fly even further

By this space and time

The great drunkenness will come back to him

Reborn at the Monastery of the Sea

Will replace the cradle of the earth

Pour mon ami Webb

 

Est-ce que l’albatros peut devenir goéland 

Sans  se mentir a lui-même et aller contre sa nature

Remplacer  ses voyages épiques vers de lointains horizons

Contre des allés et venu entre contrées rapprochées

Est-ce que les souvenirs des grandes escapades

Peuvent remplir le vide des grands espaces

 

Les vieilles plumes flétries 

Porte avec elles les vestiges de toutes les aventures

Témoins fragiles des mémoires d’antan

D’une blancheur virant lentement au gris

Et le ciel devenant plus sombre

Quand la vue elle aussi s’assombrie

Et qu’elle se  fait moins perçante

Font réaliser a l’oiseau que le temps qui reste

Domine les rêves et la distance de sa jeunesse

 

Plus tard la mémoire remplacera l’air

Les souvenir seront portance

Les écrits remplaceront  la vie

Et dans l’esprit volera l’oiseau

Qui un jour partagea son récit

 

 

Mais un jour l’albatros s’envolera  encore plus loin

Par de là l’espace et le temps

La grande ivresse lui reviendra

Renaître au monastère de la mer

Remplacera  le berceau de la terre