Method and Madness

Out of the salt air, the Saltire, the face against the wind is not to be deciphered. We are crossing the water, more water than you can ever imagine on a battered (and therefore cheap) liner that is older than all of our parents. In the wind from over icebergs we always think we know the direction we travel. For a moment I cannot remember whether we are travelling East to West or West to East. It does not seem to matter at times like this. The journey is so much more important than the destination. You may think that is an analogy (or this being the rant of a poet maybe a metaphor). It is calmer today than yesterday and that is why we are up here in the wind a hundred feet above the ocean watching the ship tear the green water to turbulence that seems to stretch back to the port of our departure - it was New York I think. She stands in the shelter of some part of the superstructure, keeping her thoughts from me, an ocean between us and under us.

Tales of an ocean-going liner are poured out from her portable typewriter until the people in the neighbouring cabin, bash on the wall. She goes round and disarms them in a second. They are fellow Americans, from Boston on their way to do Europe - so we are travelling West to East. I am going home. She promises to stop typing but I know she had finished anyway and wants to go on deck again, maybe to dance or maybe to make me cold again. The birds whirl about the ship, large birds to be out here or are we nearly home or back in Europe. I sense the distance from completion and hear bagpipe music in the dining room.

We go down there and find one of the crew playing for some holiday or other. Now I want to just think and write something in my head but now we have commitments, actions requiring smart clothes and small-talk. Never talk about anything serious or you will be chalked up as some type of activist and these days that is a sign of madness. We know all about how mad the world is don't we? We really are the sanest here; the further you get away from home (and here by home I mean inside your own mind) the more uncomfortable you feel. When I was younger I didn't feel safe to be let out of the house but reflecting on things has made me saner. We have to dance now. My poem has flown away and is just out of reach on that topmost bar - it could be mast but ships do not have masts these days do they.

She never sleeps entirely happily. There are some dangerous things going on in that comfortable head. You cannot tell by normal senses. I seem to get some magical edge to the dreams she has as I lie awake waiting for her to join me. The world is so happy out here and in there lie dreams of nature and the unconscious existence of animals and plants. I think she is a tree with a mind, stuck immobile in the ground but wanting to walk away and see what is round the corner. For years she will sit with the same view of the world and then one-day some spirit will come down and offer he a glimpse around the corner. She will sell her tree-soul to get that view and when it comes, there is nothing more than what she already knows. No gift of omniscient knowledge of what it is all about, just more grassland stretching to the horizon. It is a beauty she already knows and now she must accept a great price for this.

I doubt my own ability here. I try to help her but it makes me as mad as she says she is. This must mean that I am madder than she is for she is sane. This ship is mad. The captain is mad. I think he is going in circles. I will note down where the sun rises and sets and reaches zenith and then I will know. I feel we are never going to reach land. Can you go around the world and not see land? Could you tell whereabouts on such a path you were simply from the weather? It is darks outside. I scan the horizon for lights. Maybe that is a ship in the distance. Or might it be Cork? Is Cork on the coast. It must be. The night must end soon and where will the sun be. It must be straight ahead but when will the light reach the horizon I can see? A paragraph of questions that you cannot answer for me for I am your only window on this world. I am your agent here and you are mine there. I cannot make you do things and you cannot make me do things. This is a no-way conversation. I cannot say go to the next page because it would be meaningless. Go there anyway.

She stirs on the bed and at this moment I see lightness on the horizon. The Demons are leaving. A calm floats down and we are together again. I cannot write what I see because I do not see it but somewhere here there is some real energy leaving this room. Like you cannot describe fire in any real terms, I cannot describe these nameless things. One was puce I think, and groaned to itself but the noise did not reach my ear. Can we cure this night-time illness? You cannot provide medicine for something that has no physical presence. This is the last gasp of Ariel exploded all those years ago and left to diffuse through the atmosphere. We all breathe in Ariel and he does us no harm. Like the radio that passes through us at all times, Ariel is here and he has taken this woman from me.