THE VOYAGE OF THE ALBATROSS
  STORY SUMMARY

The Voyage of the Albatross follows the imagined journey of an unnamed "smallish boy” overwhelmed by a world of constant change. Standing at the edge of a fathomless sea, the boy wonders “why the world was forever upending the porridge – shaking eggs out of nests, turning dinosaurs into fossils and horses into zebras, mountains into plains, summers into autumns into winters, and anything warm into something very cold."

The boy traces the spiral of a seashell – and is spun aloft on The Albatross, a sailboat conjured by his own imagination. On a quest for answers, he first encounters the blustery Bully Wind, who complains that the boy has “put an extra spin on the entire Tug ’n Jumble” by tracing the shell’s spiral. “Every thing is connected to everything!” howls the Wind.

The Wind boasts that it is the “Unruliest Child of the Mother Sun," able to billow sails and swallow ships, but it denies responsibility for the world’s turmoil, warning instead of the Fearful Gyre – a mysterious force that rules even the wind itself. The Gyre is the true source of the churning of the world, states the Wind, acting through both human deeds and nature’s wrath. This revelation sets the boy in pursuit of the Gyre.

Abandoned by the Wind, the Albatross descends to the sea, where the boy meets the Chilly Deep. Speaking in verse, the Deep offers itself as the repository of "Dread Mem’ries," tempting the boy to surrender his painful recollections – lost dreams, abandoned toys, and the memory of a sparrow he could not save. The Deep promises oblivion and peace, but the boy refuses to relinquish his memories or succumb to despair. When he suspects the Deep of being the source of the world’s churning, it retorts that all it holds comes from above, and it heaves the boy’s boat skyward.

The boy finds himself caught up in a series of aimless Fleeting Clouds, tumbling forth in the form of Baleful Brown Buffaloes, Gray Geese of gloom, and White Whales of worry. Amidst this glum tumult, the boy encounters a Wee Tortoise-Shaped Cloud with Three Heads, each debating their purpose as they rain down on a farmer’s field. Through this whimsical exchange, the boy learns about the necessity of choice and the limits of possibility: A sailor cannot be a farmer, because a sailor harvests only the wind.

Setting his course for the only constant in the sky, the boy sails toward the Mother Sun. The Sun is the light of Reason, serene and indifferent as she juggles worlds with her gaping gravity. Desperate to understand suffering and injustice, the boy asks the Sun: "Did you catch the Sparrow when it fell?" and "Do you see your Forests burning?" The Sun remains silent until the boy, in a fevered state, asks, "What is a flower and what is a weed?" She answers "One is loved by all, the other by God alone," and tells him that loving a weed is to carry a drop of God’s grace. She admits her own limitations, ruling only half the day, and urges the boy to seek answers beyond her reach. With a final, blinding kiss, she sends him sailing into darkness.

In the realm of the Phantom Moon, the boy enters a dreamlike state. The moon’s “pale reflected fire” gives voice to his deepest existential doubts, suggesting that the boy’s voyage may be a ghost story, a pre-birth vision, or the wandering of a lost soul. The quest for the Gyre now becomes a search for self-understanding.

The Albatross sails into the cosmic night, where the boy observes his own galaxy as a roiling maelstrom of stars with a "Dark Nothing" at its core. Overwhelmed by the cosmic current, he panics and attempts to seize control, but a “smallish voice” instructs him to "let go the tiller." He obeys and the ship falls back in line with the stars, propelling him across galaxies.

When he loses his grip and clings to the line tethering him to his ship, the smallish voice urges him to "let go the line." Surrendering the Albatross, the boy is swept into the universal current where, finally, he beholds “the Vast and Fiery Gyre,” the eternally churning engine of creation and destruction – and the rhythm of his own being.

For the last time, the boy’s inner voice speaks to him: "Child, let go your self." In the ultimate act of sacrifice, the boy’s identity dissolves and he becomes one with the cosmos, “and the beating of his Heart sounds the striking of the Anvil where Worlds are Forged, and his Bones become food for the Birthing of Stars…and his Breath is the Will and the Whoosh of all that flies and glides and breathes and burns…”

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The Voyage of the Albatross is episodic, alternating between lyrical, introspective passages and dynamic, imaginative set-pieces. The boy’s inner journey takes him from confusion and resistance to understanding and transcendence. The payoff is the acceptance of change, loss, and the interconnectedness of all things.