Great Circle [antikvár]

Little America III, Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica March ip^o I was born to be a wanderer. I was shaped to the earth hke a seabird to a wave. Some birds fly until they die. I have made a promise to myself: My last descent won't be the tumbling helpless kind but a sharp gannet plunge—a dive with intent, aimed at something deep in the sea. I'm about to depart. I will try to pull the circle up from below, bringing the end to meet the beginning. I wish the line were a smooth meridian, a perfect, taut hoop, but our course was distorted by necessity: the indifferent distribution of islands and airfields, the plane's need for fuel. I don't regret anything, but I will if I let myself. I can think only about the plane, the wind, and the shore, so far away, where land begins again. The weather is improving. We've fixed the leak as best we can. I will go soon. I hate the never-ending day. The sun circles me like a vulture. I want a respite of stars. Circles are wondrous because they are endless. Anything endless is wondrous. But endlessness is torture, too. I knew the horizon could never be caught but still chased it. What I have done is foolish; I had no choice but to do it. It isn't how I thought it would be, now that the circle is almost closed, the beginning and end held apart by one last fearsome piece of water. Final entry from The Sea, the Sky, the Birds Between: The Lost Logbook of Marian Graves. Published by D. Wenceslas & Sons, New York, 1959.