Another fountain pen poem

We never found the Island,
Though we coasted up and down the trades
For a year, then two -- or five? I don't remember.
In the end, it didn't matter.
The voyage had become its own redemption.

The crew -- ex-pirates all -- were disappointed
To miss the promised treasure. But in time they grew
Content, whiling away the windy, blue-sky days
In hoisting and lowering sails, knotting ropes, and dropping
Anchor at every likely landfall,
Exploring, then taking on fresh food and
Drink, all the while singing their wild,
Monotonous chanteys. Silver's parrot
Squawked in five new currencies. The apple barrel
Emptied, and was refilled with pineapples,
Mangoes and avocados. Doctor Livesey tamed
A young Brazilian sloth, which the crew promptly
Debauched. At last, we had all but half-forgotten
The original Island. We sailed from habit, until
Teredos bored clear through the hull
And we careened the old "Hispaniola"
Near Port-Of-Spain, under a cloud of
Wheeling, arrogant gulls.
The Squire bought a dock-side tavern, and old Silver ran it
With his dark-skinned wife, helped by my mother,
Who was glad to leave the Admiral Benbow
For sun and sea and margaritas.

And so we never found it,
That ink-drawn island from a dead man's chest.
Perhaps it was only old Flint's pirate fancy,
As he lay dying so many long years gone, of rum
And wickedness in Savannah. Perhaps not. But I leave the copied map
To you, as the frontispiece
Of this slim volume of my land-bound memoirs:
"Treasure: a Cabin-Boy's Adventure".