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What hope at the outset: to put
his small nation in the running. To seek
a pure and scientific aim untroubled
by what his king, Leopold, was seeking
in the Congo.
The Belgica stuck on purpose?
Too proud to say it was error and pride
that kept them south too long? There were not
enough lamps for the unsunned days.
Not enough bags of flour or books.
They were trapped in pack ice.
North
of them, under the same crown, children
and wives were hostage to rubber. Bodies
dropped in the dark river to become
unrecognizable. Easy, there, to lose flesh to rot.