LXXXVIII

Am I not to sail round the world with Sebastián Elcano aboard the Victoria?

Am I not to sail round the world with Sebastián Elcano aboard the Victoria?
Will I never steer a Roman trireme beyond the Pillars of Hercules?
Won’t I cut through the sea, windward under the banners of the Tigers of Mompracem, led by Sandokan, my turban-donning commander?
Won’t I fill my knapsacks with guano on the Ballesta Islands, or with sea salt on the Caicos?
Won’t I be charmed by the green eyes of Amphitrite?
Will I never set sail towards the pearl banks off Bahrain, or the Borneo coast brimming with swallow nests, or towards the Orange River mouth and its diamonds?
Won’t I keep company to golden winged Iris as she sets Aeneas’ fleet ablaze?
Won’t I choke on burning tar fumes?
Won’t I collect red sea anemones off the rocky coast in Tabasco?
Am I not to go under with Robinson Crusoe, and the surf, won’t it drag us away till Juan Fernández Islands?
Won’t I sleep all wrapped in Mercator’s hydrographic charts, for me to dream I land along with Admiral Gaspard de Coligny on his ephemeral Huguenot America, the same day Ponce de León chose to name her “Pascua Florida”?
Am I not to voyage with Christopher Columbus to the West Indies, or with Marco Polo to the legendary Cathay?
Am I not to plow the seas with Darwin aboard the Beagle, bound to the Galápagos? Or aboard the Mayflower with the Pilgrims from Plymouth?
Won’t I enjoy the sight, from my sealskin kayak, of polar porpoises rolling over and jumping, won’t I behold the string of islands from Japan till Kamchatka, with their fifty blazing volcanoes
Am I not to indulge in mint, rosemary and wild thyme perfume along the Mediterranean seaboard?
Won’t I be dragged into the violent whirlpools by the Brittany Sea basalt cliffs, or into the vortex of the Bay of Biscay, sucked underwater by the rip current, so I can play in the green mire of the diatom algae, or pluck beaming phanerogamae off into bouquets, and chat with radiolaria mineral skeletons?
Won’t I be heading to Treasure Island with Long John Silver?
Am I not to be a member of the Brethren Purveyor and the Sea Beggars Guilds?
Won’t Captain Nemo lavish Pacific hake on me, seasoned with garum and sevruga, killer whale milk and kelp jam?
And what if the sea lets me down.
What if she forgets me.
Then, should the sea not embrace me in my journeys and my travels, my forays and my pilgrimages, should she altogether refuse to take me from nowhere to anywhere, then I’ll be the one carrying the sea along with me.