Their boat sank,
And having no flotation devices aboard
They set out to swim ashore,
It being quite obviously the better option
Than was drowning.
And swim they did, the three of them.
But the one succumbed quickly
To the waves and to his own fatigue
And to panic.
And the other two were sad to see it,
But knew they must carry on.
Then the second was overcome
In like manner, and met his end,
Leaving only the one, still determined.
But a few hundred yards later,
And still far from shore himself,
He felt his exhaustion
And knew full well what it mean.
“But we must be grateful,” he said.
“And positive ― and I’m just glad
I got further than the others.
I can feel good about that.”
And having so counseled himself ―
Honorably, nobly, and piously, he thought,
He drowned without a thought to his failure
To have the flotation devices
Required by law and common sense alike.
What was his failure,
He had chosen to see
As not-meaningful
To his big-picture story.
It had mattered not, he thought,
That he was disobedient
To the Law and to his own
Better judgment alike;
What had mattered was
That he had fared better
Than those other two guys.
But in a few minutes,
He would be in different Company,
Where the matter would arise,
And certain parables would be reviewed,
And the carelessness of his mind
Would become unmistakably
The very point of the occasion.
And no victory at all
Would be found
In how far he swam
Before drowning.
