Travelling the South Sea, Mick eventually finds a new home in a tiny island. This is my version of how he came to the Trobriands, and while the title song was written about a rocky little island off the coast of Brittany, the lyrics are perfect to express what Mick's newfound island means to him.
The song is originally in French, written and performed by a Breton folk singer, Maxime Piolot. It is called "J'ai découvert une île" ("I discovered an island"). The original lyrics can be found at the end of the story, if anyone is interested.
When the ship, solid and heavy,
Was ripped apart upon the reef,
And I thought I was lost
Without a plank to save me
I discovered an island
That protects and reassures
An unadorned shelter
Where my wounds can heal
When the ship was sinking
Like a disabled titan
In a chaos of broken wood
And tangled sails
I discovered an island
That protects and reassures
An unadorned shelter
Where my wounds can heal
When the ship was swept away
Like the sun, when night descends,
Leaves the sky for another world
Full of silence and deep waters
I discovered an island
That protects and reassures
An unadorned shelter
Where my wounds can heal
October 1941
The glowing ball of the sun had just sunk below the horizon, leaving a multicoloured canopy of cloudless sky behind, gorgeously mirrored in the quiet surface of the Pacific.
The Calm Ocean was living up to its name this evening and lay vast and still and magnificent.
Only yesterday the mighty sea had shown its fierce side when a violent rainstorm had whipped the tall slender stems of the palm trees and waves twice or three times my height had furiously lashed the sandy shore that now stretched so peacefully before me as I sat on my porch, placidly smoking a cigarette, winding down after a day of intense, gratifying work.
I loved this place both ways. The torrential downpours of the rainy season held as much appeal for me as did those perfect balmy nights when everything was quiet except for the rustling of some little rodents in the bushes, the odd flapping of a bird's wings and occasional scraps of singing or animated conversation I could hear drifting over from the village if the wind was right, like it was tonight.
I smiled indulgently at the alien melodies interspersed with ululating cries. The natives' traditional songs still sounded somewhat shrill and strange to my Western ears.
Today, they were celebrating the arrival of a new baby.
The child's father, Keyala, a slim youth of perhaps twenty years, was one of my best pearl divers. He had been very excited about his baby daughter and had half invited me to join their celebration when we had come off the boat earlier today, but I had declined politely, citing work I had to do. I knew he had just wanted to be nice.
Keyala had looked rather glad about my answer and nodded eagerly, asking in a knowing tone, "Trader man's work, write down things on paper?" He had watched me once or twice as I weighed and measured my pearls and jotted measurements and price estimates down in the thick old ledger that served as my inventory and account book, and he had appeared quite impressed by my columns of numbers.
"Uh-huh. Gotta take care of those pearls we found today."
"Important work, yes?"
"Very important", I had replied and squeezed his shoulder before I left the beach with my bag pleasantly full with the day's yield. Our trip to one of the most promising pearling spots on the reef had been quite successful, and it had been him who had found some of the best specimens. "You did a great job today. Now go have fun. And say hello to your lovely lady for me."
He had set out for the village with an excited spring in his step and a big proud grin on his face, and I had walked home to take stock of the day's finds. Having noted its diameter and weight, I had carefully wrapped each pearl in my trademark French tissue paper before putting it into the small sturdy wooden box I'd take with me when I went to see my agent.
I had finished my cataloguing around the time dusk started to descend. Leaving my scales and the ledger on the table, I had gone outside to enjoy another perfect tropical sunset, a sight that never failed to impress me although I had been here for so long.
Lounging in one of the old wicker chairs, I studied the darkening firmament as I finished my smoke and opened a bottle of beer to sip slowly. The fan-shaped outlines of the tall palm trees were still visible, towering, fringed silhouettes against the inky blues of sea and sky. Further inland, the soft warm glow of a bonfire was shining dimly through the grove that separated my house from the village. The natives' lively celebration was obviously still in full swing. They were certainly having a good time over there, to judge from the noise they were making.
I, meanwhile, was content to spend the evening, like most evenings, on my own.
I didn't socialize much with the handful of other expatriates on the island except for the occasional drink I shared with Gerry, the Irish adventurer, a man of undefinable age and profession who was astonishingly resourceful in coming by supplies of all the things that were hard to get on the island. I had long before decided better not to ask any questions as to where all the stuff came from and just be grateful when he got his hands on something I wanted or needed.
It was quite nice to chat a bit about banal subjects once in a while, but if I was honest, I was happiest when I was alone.
Gregarious Gerry, who couldn't get it into his head that I actually loved those solitary nights on my porch with just the sea and the moon for company, had begun to call me the Lonesome Trader. I laughed it off good-naturedly. I didn't mind getting teased, for the nickname did fit, and I had actually never felt less lonely.
I didn't have a wife or a girlfriend, which was another thing Gerry pitied me for.
There had been a rather blunt come-on from one of the native girls at some time, but the local women simply were not my type, I didn't want to risk my good relationship with the natives by hitching up with one of their women, and besides, I didn't feel any need for a female companion.
I knew Gerry had a girl on one of the neighbouring islands and that she had friends who'd be only too ready to do it with a foreigner in exchange for a few small coins or cheap knickknacks, but I had no desire for gratuitous sex without love. And I wasn't sure if I'd ever be ready to love a woman again.
Not a single day passed without me thinking of Nell, but I had learned to smile at the good memories and not to dwell on the bad ones too much, trying to live in the here and now as best I could.
Sure, sometimes I mused about what could have been – all we had dreamed about: the wedding, the cottage, a family, all those things I had ultimately come to feel were not meant for me.
Sometimes I shed some silent tears for her on a night like this, but the bitterest sting of the loss was gone, blunted by the time that had passed.
It wasn't strictly true that time was a healer. The deep wound Nell had left me with was still there, a painful void in my heart I had never been able to fill, but it was bearable now, like some old scar that flares up once in a while but otherwise leaves you with just a faint dull ache that becomes so familiar you don't even realize any longer that it's there.
The unhurried pace of life on the island was what had aided me most with calming down, getting settled, letting go of my guilt and my grief and ridding myself of the urge to move on permanently that had driven me around the globe.
It hadn't happened fast nor had it been easy, but by now I had come a long way from the restless, rootless sailor who had first arrived here.
The island had offered me the chance to make a fresh start in a place where no one asked me any questions, where no one wanted commitment from me, where nobody was particularly interested in me, and I had gladly seized this chance.
I had been in this place for longer than anywhere else since I had sold my grandparents' house, for more than three years, and I had no intention to leave anytime soon.
I had found my place in the world. And what a beautiful place it was.
This tiny speck of land, surrounded by turquoise water, had almost all I'd ever wanted.
I had my house, I had my boat, I had the sea.
I even had a job I loved. It paid no riches but enough to guarantee a comfortable existence. I didn't need much, and anyway, the best rewards it gave me were of the kind money couldn't buy. The pleasure of working with my hands. Swimming, diving, navigating in the splendid blue-green tropical waters. The excitement of cracking open a shell to catch that first glimpse of the coveted creamy shimmer of a perfect pearl. Truly being my own master for the first time in my life.
The only material luxury I'd treated myself to was the wind-up gramophone Gerry had organized for me, no doubt through one of his shady channels, and a few records I'd obtained from various sources. I liked to put on some music late at night, when I would close the shutters and light a small lantern on the table, listening, a little wistfully, to dancing tunes and love songs and classical pieces.
Sometimes the music made my feet itch to take a few steps of a waltz or tango and my arms long for someone to hold, just for the duration of the dance, but these notions usually passed quickly.
More often than not, listening to music lifted my spirits and helped me dispel the brooding moods that frequently came over me at that hour and kept me from sleeping.
About once a month, I took the mail ship to Port Moresby to see my agent there. Otherwise I stayed within the archipelago, sticking to the main island in my first months, eventually venturing over to some of the smaller islands to try and strike some deals with their inhabitants. Those were a lot warier of strangers than the people of Kiriwina, where I lived, and it was difficult to convince them I hadn't come to rip them off. At some point they came to realize I could be useful, as I was able to provide some coveted goods like fishing hooks and knives and eggs, and they began to accept me grudgingly, but they remained somewhat leery of my intentions and a little hostile.
The natives on my own island were a rather friendly bunch, and I had the impression they were quite fond of me, especially the young men who worked with me. Some members of their families had taken to gathering on the beach and wait for us to return. By now, their welcoming cries of "Mister Mick!" had become an integral part of our pearl-diving trips.
We didn't mingle socially – both me and them had little interest in such a thing, being just too different in many ways. Outside of "business", I generally left them alone, and they left me alone, but we respected and liked each other, which was more than I could say for most of my fellow Westerners on the island.
I cared neither for the high-handed Commissioner and his stuffy complacent wife nor for MacGregor, the Scottish missionary who seemed to think he was doing the natives a big favour by imposing Christian beliefs and Western clothing on them.
There had also been a schoolteacher nun for a while, a woman I had loathed deeply. With her pointedly pious face and her ostentatious attitude of saintly indulgence, she had made a big show of devotedly enduring the horrible visitation of having to teach scantily clad savages. Her method of saving their souls and curing them of their sinful heathen customs and loose morals consisted of making them recite prayers and frequently whipping their little hands or bottoms with a thin cane.
Sister Mary Aloysius hadn't been on the island for a full week when she and I had clashed viciously over my "fraternizing" with the natives – she was convinced I had an "unhealthy" relationship with at least one of the women – and my refusal to attend the prayer meetings she was busily organizing. I had made my opinion of her abundantly clear without mincing words and simply walked off when she launched into a hissy fit, spluttering and screaming abuse. Henceforth, I had given her the widest possible berth.
She hadn't stayed long, luckily. There seemed to have been some kind of run-in with the Commissioner's wife that led to her hasty departure.
She was never replaced. MacGregor himself tried his hand at teaching. I wasn't sure how successful he was, but at least he didn't use the cane as much as the frightful Sister had.
I shuddered as I remembered that dreadful woman. This kind of behavior always made me wonder who were the actual savages, the natives or those who felt called upon to "tame" them.
What right did these self-styled saviours have to make them change their beliefs and traditions, and why on earth did they have such issues with a bit of naked skin, or with people who, God forbid, actually enjoyed having sex, just for the pleasure of it?
Arrogance and overbearing superiority had never been something I bore well, but I had come to develop an even deeper disdain for people exhibiting these traits since I had made my home here. I was not afraid to express my feelings quite markedly if necessary, which was why I wasn't too welcome a guest in the small circle of expats living here. Outspoken, solitary and closer to the natives than to my own, well, race, I was definitely considered a misfit among their exclusive ranks.
Ranks that were going to grow very soon, I realized, recalling how I'd run into Gerry this morning and he'd mentioned he was sailing off to pick up a couple of guests: a professor of anthropology and his wife who wanted to spend some time on the island to study the famous sexual behaviour of the natives.
I wasn't too tickled about the prospect of their arrival, for I knew the type only too well.
A couple of years ago, a team of three or four people had shown up on one of the smaller islands to do some important research. They hadn't lasted much more than two weeks before they capitulated before the weather and the bugs and the scary natives who'd – accidentally – destroyed part of their equipment.
I could picture the newcomers quite clearly, an ambitious academic stylishly dressed in squeaky-clean, brand-new tropical gear, hoping to make the discovery of his life, accompanied by a dumpy middle-aged woman who'd quickly make friends with the Commissioner's wife. I pictured a dull fortysomething at the Commissioner's tea table, daintily dabbing at her sweaty brow under a stiff perm, holding forth about how primitive everything was here, how dreadfully hard reliable servants were to come by in this place, and how glad she'd be to return to her civilized life, where she'd probably brag shamelessly about how bravely she had faced all the hardships her husband had inflicted on her for the sake of his career.
No doubt the Commissioner and the missionary would make a big show of welcoming them and showing them around.
Let them if they felt the need. I wasn't going to take part. I'd seize the opportunity of another day of fine weather and go out pearling with my crew. I'd meet those people early enough, I thought, determinedly knocking back the rest of my beer and getting up to lean on the porch railing.
The light had diminished to a narrow strip of deep blue above the horizon, and stars began to glitter in the dark velvet sky upon which hung an almost full moon, pale and regal.
The wind seemed to have turned, for I couldn't hear the sounds of the celebration any more, although the light of the fire was still flickering through the palm grove. I only heard the gentle lapping of the water down on the shore now.
A rippled silver path of moonlight was cast on the surface of the sea, another sight I had seen often enough that I might have taken it for granted, but it never ceased to enchant me.
I got up and was at the ocean's edge with a few long strides, sitting cross-legged in the sand that was still warm, listening to the sea, watching the play of the light on the water. To the right, the dark outline of my boat was visible against the backdrop of the moonlit waves.
I had bought her from the man who had been my master for the best part of a year and taught me all I needed to know about the pearl business. Henk, the burly Dutchman, who'd decided about my future with a question he had meant to be a jest.
1938
Childers, Mac and I were the last to leave the Helen of Troy one mild September day, heading for the little tavern Mac loved to go to every time we came to Port Moresby. It was tucked away in a nondescript side street and didn't look like much, but it had a nice screened porch at the back which offered a lovely view of the ocean, and it was a perfect place to sit and kick back over a few drinks.
After a glass or two, Mac started telling some of his wild tales. The unsightly little man who had awakened my interest in the Helen when we chatted at the Mermaid's bar had turned out to be a colourful character who had led an adventurous life. If only half of what he told us was true, it was a miracle that he was still alive. I took his stories with a grain of salt, but I loved them nevertheless, and he loved that I loved listening.
Childers usually sat by with an indulgent half-grin, puffing one nasty-smelling cigarette after the other. I had no idea what kind of stuff he put into them, but I had learned very quickly to decline if he offered me one. Sticking to my own roll-ups had proved a lot safer. His were a serious health hazard.
I put one of mine into my mouth now as we sat in the rattan chairs around a lopsided table, waiting for our drinks to be served, lit it and sat back, smoking slowly, enjoying the pleasant warm day and the lovely panoramic view of the palm-lined beach.
The young waitress arrived with her serving tray, smiling shyly with white uneven teeth as she put three tall glasses on the table and scurried away quickly.
We clinked glasses ceremoniously and drank to the week off ahead of us. We wouldn't be sailing until Thursday, and it was my first little break from work since I had joined the Helen'screw. I hadn't made my mind up yet what to do with my free time and idly wondered what sights might be worth seeing in or around Port Moresby.
Mac had other plans and asked Childers in his broad Scottish accent, "You comin' along with the mail ship tomorrow mornin'?"
"Nah." Childers grimaced as he shook his head, tapping some ash onto the ground. "I've been to your islands often enough. Not much to see except almost-naked savages and palm trees." He yawned ostentatiously. "Gonna have a good time on the town, I think. Look in on Lily and see what she's got on offer." He grinned lewdly. "But maybe the youngster wants to come with you. You know, I quite liked the place when I was there for the first time. It's just that it gets boring after the second visit."
"Good idea." Mac took a large swig of his drink and pointed at me with a stubby forefinger. "You wanna see the most beautiful place in the world? I'll show ya. It's awesome, believe me. No matter what ol' Childers here says. The man ain't got no taste. Let him go to his clap house instead and catch some ugly disease. Me and you are gonna take the mail ship in the mornin', ain't we, me lad?"
He had made me curious enough with all his rhapsodic tales from the Trobriand Islands, and I nodded. "Why not. I want to see for myself if that place is really as drop-dead gorgeous as you make it sound."
The small steamer chugged through incredibly turquoise waters as unhurriedly as its crew of five men went about their work. I offered to help with the tasks at hand, but the captain, an old pal of Mac's who had greeted us cordially as we stepped off the gangplank, wouldn't hear of it. "You're my guests, you and old Mac over there."
So I went to stand in the bow of the little vessel, soaking up the sunlight, savouring the touch of the wind on my cheeks and forehead. I closed my eyes for a while, thinking of nothing, just let the breezy air rush by.
When I opened my eyes, the islands had come into view ahead of us, nothing more than scattered little dots on the surface of the ocean at this moment.
I couldn't take my eyes off the archipelago as we approached it and more and more details emerged from what at first had just been an indistinct green blur of rainforests above white strips of beach and the vivid gemstone blues and greens of the sea.
A sudden surge of happiness bubbled up from somewhere deep within.
The sight of the islands had awakened something inside me, a true appreciation of beauty, a faint residual belief in the good in life, which had been dormant for so long that I had thought it lost.
Once we had arrived and I had seen a good part of the island, shown around by Mac and his friend the pearl trader, I understood what the old sailor saw in this place. It was a small paradise, mostly untouched by the modern world.
The best – and the decisive – part of it all was when Henk invited me to join him and his native helpers for a day of pearl diving. It sounded very intriguing, and I was quite excited when I climbed into one of the narrow canoes just wide enough for Henk and me, so much taller and broader than the natives, to sit in.
The small group of us, five or six canoes all in all, paddled out to the reef until Henk raised his hand, signaling everyone to stop.
I couldn't see anything special in the spot we'd arrived at, but he told me, "This is where the best ones are found. Just wait and see."
Several of the lithe young men got ready to dive into the waves, staying under water amazingly long. One after the other reappeared with pearl shells in their hands, proudly passing them to Henk for inspection.
"Can I have a go, too?" I asked on a whim.
Henk gave me a puzzled glance, but said, "Sure, why not. Mind the corals, though, those edges are much sharper than they look. You don't want to come back all cut up."
I laughed off his concerns, quickly stripped down to my shorts and dived headfirst off the boat. The salty water stung my eyes, but I had no trouble keeping them open anyway. I was overwhelmed, almost startled, by the colourful landscape of corals spread out before me, a mute, majestic submarine world. I even saw the odd gaudy little fish weaving through the intricate maze.
I could have stayed down here forever to admire this lavish show of stunning beauty.
As I looked around, trying to take it all in at once, I spied a large grey shell stuck in a chink between the corals, just like those I'd seen the young divers bring up, and grabbed it a second before I had to surface for air.
Henk had obviously begun to get frantic and was leaning over the far side of the canoe, scanning the waters. When I tapped him on the back, he jumped so badly that he almost made the slender boat capsize. "Jesus, mate, I'd thought you'd drowned down there. How long have you been under? Two minutes? Three minutes? How on earth did you do that? You're almost as good as my boys here."
I shrugged. "Got lots of practice when I was younger." I showed him the shell. "Look - is this any good?"
"Appears fine to me. Big one, too." His eyes lit up in appreciation.
I smiled and went under once more, this time swimming a little farther along the reef, keeping my eyes peeled for more shells.
By the time Henk shouted for us to return, I had brought up six or seven oysters.
They were the first ones he opened when we were back on the island. He showed me how to wrench them open with the help of a broad knife without damaging the interior, and closely scrutinized the pearls he found inside before he turned to me with a gap-toothed grin and said in his funny lilting accent, "You've got a knack for this job. Don't you just wanna stay with me and be my partner?"
I had indeed stayed with Henk.
Mac had shaken his head in disbelief when I told him of my plans, thinking I was pulling his leg, but he went back to the Helen alone, promising to bring the rest of my belongings next time he'd come here. "Don't come crying if you're bored to death in a month's time", he had muttered under his breath when he left.
Henk and I had shared his house for a while, a pretty wooden structure with a raised porch and a breathtaking view of the ocean, until I had built myself a simple hut with the help of some of the locals.
He had taught me how to recognize a truly valuable pearl, how to find the finest spots for the "harvest", provided some useful tips for dealing with agents and employees, explained his bookkeeping to me and told me loads of trader lore – among other things he pointed out the meaning of the colour the ring inside the pearl shell had the moment you opened it.
"If it's black, what it is most often, it means your love won't last. But if it is golden, your love will last forever."
The next shell I opened after he'd said this had revealed a ring of gold. My quivering wry smile hadn't escaped Henk's attention, and he had been the first person apart from Mary whom I'd told about Nell.
I was sure he'd keep it to himself, and in a way I was glad that he knew about my lost love.
He had occasionally been wondering why I seemed to be so unusually satisfied with this solitary men's life we led. Before I'd told him my story, he'd used to say, "Me, I'm fifty-nine and I've had my share of the ladies, but a man your age, with your looks, should make the girls swoon instead of burying yourself here with an old fart like me."
But I was contented with my new lifestyle. I was calming down, settling in, feeling almost happy.
One day, I had asked Henk to cut my hair. I had been getting more and more irritated with that mass of curls that floated annoyingly around my head and blocked my view when I was under water and became all tangled and matted as it dried.
I had thought I looked strange with the new haircut, quite serious and a lot older, but it was much more practical that way and I got used to that fearfully grown-up bloke staring back at me from my shaving mirror, that guy who, scarily, could have been my dad's identical twin.
We were good partners, Henk and I, and we might have had a great successful pearl-trading future if he hadn't received a letter one day which said his older brother had been killed in an industrial accident. "I've always promised my mum I'd come back if something happened to Theo", he had said simply, packed up his things and left.
I had bought his house and boat off him at the fair price he was asking. I was very sorry to see him go, but I knew he'd taught me enough that I could make it alone in the pearl business, and it was rather nice to have my own boat and a larger and more comfortable house.
While I took the latter as it was, I had painstakingly overhauled his somewhat shabby twenty-year-old schooner called Floortje, crowning my week-long efforts by painting a new name on the side of her bow once everything else was finished.
She was a proud, elegant beauty with her new dark red sails and her fresh coat of varnish.
I named her in honour of the woman who still occupied the foremost place in my heart, the smiling young girl whose picture I had put up in her small cabin.
Nellie.
I threw her another affectionate glance across the moonlit beach from where I was sitting now.
She had been the only lady in my life in these past years on the island.
A faithful companion, she had carried me through sunshine and storms without fail. Sometimes it almost felt as if she had something like a soul.
I loved her just as I had loved the Blue Seahorse so long ago in Maine.
She was the part of my dreams that had come true in the end, a ship of my own that helped me earn my living and maintain my independence.
I must have fallen asleep amid my musings on the beach, for I awoke in bright sunlight, slumped over in an uncomfortable half-sitting position against the stem of a coconut palm. I stretched and shook myself and walked back to my porch to make some strong coffee that would wake me up, sipping the hot liquid slowly while I fixed myself something to eat.
As usual, I met my crew on the beach right after breakfast, while the day was still young.
We set out in our little flotilla of canoes, spending the best part of the morning out on the reef, and returned around noontime, tired but happy about an even better yield than yesterday's.
As usual, we were expected by a merry crowd greeting us with loud cries and whoops as we drew nearer, running to help pull the canoes ashore.
Keyala had been the most successful pearl hunter of the day once more, and I put my arm around his bony shoulders and hugged him affectionately as we got off the boat and walked up the beach.
I stopped in my tracks when I saw them.
The new arrivals I had all but forgotten about.
I felt an ironic smirk creep into my face when I saw I'd been so right about the professor. Tall, blond, only too aware of his good looks, impeccably dressed in tropical white from head to toe and immensely full of himself.
We faced each other for a moment, each one appraising the other, before we exchanged a cool greeting. I cut his attempt at small talk short with a sarcastic assessment of their fitness for living in this place and walked off.
My name, called out in a crisp, clear, female voice, made me turn back.
The professor's wife.
She wasn't the dowdy creature I had imagined, I realized. She must be at least ten, but more likely fifteen years his junior, a petite red-haired young woman who looked freely up at me, straight into my eyes, and boldly challenged me to bet on how long they were going to last in this place. "My husband's watch against your finest pearl."
Hiding my utter astonishment behind a mask of cool amusement, as if indulging a precocious child, I shook her hand with a solemn face, all the while thinking that was going to be an easy one, and told her quite tartly, "You've got a bet, lady!"
With that, I finally took my leave of the professor and his surprisingly perky spouse.
Back home, I set the bag holding the day's harvest aside and reached up for the small palm-leaf box on the top shelf that held what I considered my loveliest pearl, a large, perfectly rounded, shimmering orb I had whimsically christened "Teardrop from the Moon".
I held it up against the sun and admired the warm golden glow it assumed in the light.
For a second, I envisioned its beauty set off against fair smooth skin and red-golden hair before I laid it back into its bed of soft gold-flecked tissue paper very quickly, but not without care, and hastily put the box back where it belonged.
Tossing my hat aside, I scratched my head, momentarily baffled and mortified about my own wayward behaviour, then checked myself and went to sit down to examine the freshly found pearls as if nothing had happened, working the way I always worked, a cigarette firmly stuck between my lips, the familiar scales in my hand, Henk's old ledger open on the table beside the wooden case that held the weights.
Business as usual.
Almost.
Quand le navire lourd et massif
S'est éventré sur les récifs
Moi qui me croyais disparu
Sans une planche de salut
J'ai découvert une île
Qui protège et rassure
Un abri sans parure
Où soigner mes blessures
Quand le navire s'est affaissé
Comme un titan désemparé
Dans un chaos de bois brisé
De tôleries enchêvetrées
J'ai découvert une île
Qui protège et rassure
Un abri sans parure
Où soigner mes blessures
Quand le navire s'est englouti
Comme un soleil avant la nuit
Quittant le ciel pour d'autres mondes
Pleins de silences et d'eaux profondes
J'ai découvert une île
Qui protège et rassure
Un abri sans parure
Où soigner mes blessures
