The Captain And The Butterfly Book 2 Poem by Falfalla Ardroy

(The Butterfly to The Captain)

Aboard this ship I have avoided the dancing
Not because I do not like to dance.
But because we only dance together in private
For fear of displaying the fire between us.
Tonight at dinner you begged me to come
To the Captain’s Farewell Ball.
I come only because you plead but I know
That it will be agony for me to watch
You hold all those other women.

The Captain’s waltz begins
And I can see them all straining to be anointed.
I am sitting with the Toorak dowager,
And her boring banker son.
There is also Lydia the grazier’s wife
Still accompanied by dust and horses.
There are two of the Sydney girls and
The men they have collected on board.
On my left sits your trusted Carlo.
It has not been said, but I understand
that tonight his duty is to guard my honour
and protect you from the green-eyed rage.

You stand and I can hear the intake of
feminine breath across the room.
It is no wonder. You are so very beautiful.
Your eyes are warmer tonight, your step
Seems lighter and the worry lines are gone
from your brow and from around your eyes.

You move toward our table and
the dowager puts down her glass.
Lydia sheds her stole and the Sydney girls shuffle.
For me there is cavernous longing
which keeps me still for
I know you will not dance with me in public.

As you walk toward us my eyes close
Against the tears of anger
that you can be so cruel as to
choose someone sitting close to me.
Carlo nudges me and I look up
to see your outstretched hand and hear you say
In your strong clear master’s voice
“Will you dance with me and wear my ring, my Queen?

(The Butterfly to The Captain)
It is the day of disembarkation.
At dawn, I stand on the foredeck
And watch with awe as you guide this
beautiful vessel into Circular Quay.
So this is why all ships are “she”.
Watching you as you stroke her, you coax her,
you command her, and you love her
into doing exactly what you want of her
it feels as though I am watching you
as you master me.

Last night we lay together in tenderness and pain
Knowing what this day would bring.
As we parted you told me to be last to leave the ship
and asked me to wait for you at Customs
although it could be hours before you were free.
And it was – three and a half long hours
but merely a tick of our eternity.
Then you are beside me and take my hand.
We walk the Sydney streets without circumspection
We lunch together and hold hands across the table.
You say you feel nineteen and I say
that would make me a cradle snatcher.

We go to an Anglican church and
Kneeling together before the altar
We exchange the crosses we wear
And your friend David
generously, graciously celebrates the Eucharist for us.

I see you on the boat deck, uniform gone,
for on this voyage you are a passenger.
I am standing on the Quay joined to you only
by this trail of invisible red silk ribbon
and the kisses we blow each other.
As your great white ship slowly floats away
my tears begin to flow, and you salute me.

A sword is piercing my heart,
There is molten lead where my knees once were
My hands are shaking and fire is scorching my throat.
I lean against the railing for support
And watch you until you are out of sight.
I cannot move. My body is not my own.
My love, my Captain, my King,
I am dying until we are together again.

(The Captain to The Butterfly)
Now you are away from me
I must write in English
I can no longer rely
on you to create English poetry
from my stumbling broken words.

It was a mistake to come on this voyage.
I should have stayed with you in Sydney.
My heart was breaking to see you sobbing.
I have never felt so weak, so old.

From Sydney to Lautoka I slept and read.
Keats and Neruda and Ardroy.
You are in illustrious company, my love
But now you are a poet you deserve to be.

I left the ship at Lautoka and spent a
day on our island. I walked the beach
that speaks of the Refiner’s fire
Which burnt our clay together
Carissima Falfalla, I ache for you,
your voice, your touch, your eyes, my centre.

(The Captain to The Butterfly)
It is your birthday and
I hold you in my spirit arms
And kiss you with my spirit mouth
And dream of an island sun which
will bless all the birthdays to come.

The company is in turmoil.
They need a senior man in Saudi and Jordan
where there is trouble. Curse my seniority
Curse upon curse, upon curse, upon curse.
I am to be Acting Port Captain in Jeddah
while they search for a replacement.
At the very name of Jeddah
The goose is walking down my spine.
Can you wait while I do this one last thing?

(The Captain to The Butterfly)
The desert sun burns brightly black.
Here there is no colour,
There are no movies, no Mass,
I cannot even wear your cross.

There is no Highland Park,
No French champagne, no Drambuie
Not even any vermouth on ice
There is only bitter, bitter lemon.

And there are no women.
They tell me the women do exist
Under the great black tents they wear
But I cannot see them.

You know, Carissima, that I am yours
But I am a man, I am an Italian,
I am Michelangelo, I am da Vinci,
I am Verdi and Vivaldi,
I am Mazzini and Garibaldi
I want passion for my soul
And feminine beauty for my eyes.
Carissima, are you well enough to
come to me?

(The Captain to The Butterfly)
Yesterday you came to Jeddah.
The desert sun was burning bright
But you overpowered it with
Your glowing moon of silver light.

Forgive me carissima, my innocent.
Because I was late those black hearts
At the airport humiliated you.
I should never have asked you to come.

You lay trembling in my arms all night
And I cursed my selfishness.
This hell is no place for my Queen
It is no place for my family.

And now you have gone.
The silver moonlight you
Left in my apartment is fading.
This place is breaking my heart.

(The Captain to The Butterfly)
My love, my life
My heart is breaking for you.
My heart is breaking for us,
I am so sorry I cannot come to you.
My mother, my sons, my duty, my heart?
I hold you in my spirit arms
And pray that you will be well.
For the rest I cannot speak
For now the word is gone.
Soon I will come for you.
‘Nshellah.

(The Captain to The Butterfly)
Carissima, my darling, my light, my life.
This was a day like no other.
You met me from the train wearing
the cream silk we bought in Suva
covered by your scholar’s gown.
The orchid I sent you in your copper hair
What an exotic vision among the dreaming spires.
At the sight of you my body sheds twenty years

Today beneath the Byrne Jones windows
you stood in the pulpit where Tagore once stood.
And yet another light shone from you.
You read from Whitman on miracles
I sat entranced by the velvet of your voice,
the depth of your learning,
and the beauty of your heart.
I know “Of Life, Love and the Scottish Psalter”
Was a sermon meant for me and I am so proud.

At last we escape from lunch at the Master’s table.
For someone with a romantic view of Oxford life
it was such a disappointment.
Where was the ceremony, the élan, the wine?
The English have such boorish manners
They do not honour their women.
I expected the Master to surpass me in
What you call urbanity and yet
he is a parsimonious tyrant.
Do not let him bully you my love,
For I will kill him if he does.

But now we are free and you
take me by the hand and show me places
I know only from books.
The Bodleian and Balliol, Magdalen and Merton,
Christchurch, the Camera and Carfax.
To walk where once walked
Ruskin and Berlin, Lawrence and Hopkins,
Lewis and Swinburne and Southey,
With my Queen as my cicerone.
What joy, what privilege.

Punting on the Cherwell I remember our day
On the island.
Again I marvel at your strong young body
And the authority of your will
As you insist that this is your ship,
That you are the captain
and I am the passenger.

No longer can I call you English butterfly,
My lovely, my dearest scholar priest.
Here is where you belong,
from the pulpit you must make your mark
for the suffering world needs your insight.
Would there, I wonder, be room for
A tired old Catholic sea captain
in your congregation?
Will it be I who follows you to Siberia?


(The Butterfly to The Captain)
Light shining through the Byrne Jones windows
Martineau’s marble effigy benignly overseeing,
I am surrounded by old and dusty tomes,
the collected wisdom of long revered heroes
and challenging new acquaintances.
For a moment I think that I could forsake all
womanly preoccupations and spend my life
in this ivory tower among the dreaming spires.
The excitement of the mind goes along way
to filling the aching caverns of the heart.
But then, a sound, a smell, a thought,
a memory in my limbs, a light behind my eyes,
and your absence convulses through me.
Hours pass, the crying subsides.
Nothing lasts forever, and you are not here.