"In the hold" ii

Disemployed Mariner, Gdansk, The New York Times

The Angelic Conversation, Derek Jarman

We came here for the cure

Of quiet in the whelk's centre,

From the fierce, sudden quarrel,

From kitchens where the mind,

Like bread, disintegrates in water,

To let a sun scour

The brain, as harsh as coral,

To bathe like stones in wind,

To be, like beast or natural object, pure.

Extract, Crusoe's Island

Derek Walcott, Collected Poems, 1948-1984