Margaret Atwood - Margaret Atwood - Death Of A Young Son (1840) lyrics

He, who navigated with success

The dangerous river of his own birth

Once more set forth

On a voyage of discovery

Into the land I floated on
But could not touch to claim

His feet slid on the bank

The currents took him

He swirled with ice and trees in
The swollen water

And plunged into distant regions

His head a bathysphere

Through his eyes’ thin glass bubbles

He looked out, reckless adventurer

On a landscape stranger than Uranus

We have all been to and some remember

There was an accident the air locked

He was hung in the river like a heart

They retrieved the swamped body

Cairn of my plans and future charts

With poles and hooks

From among the nudging logs

It was spring, the sun kept shining
The new grass

Leapt to solidity

My hands glistened with details

After the long trip I was tired of waves

My foot hit rock the dreamed sails

Collapsed, ragged

I planted him in this country

Like a flag