I am the albatross

In 1992, on a hilltop of Horn Island, a monument to the memory of the mariners lost in the waters off Cape Horn was erected, financed with both public and private funds from Chile and many other countries. The interior outline of its facing steel sheets form the image of a wandering albatross in flight; a nearby marble plaque is inscribed with a Spanish poem by Chilean Sara Vial:

I am the albatross that waits for you

at the end of the world.

I am the forgotten souls of dead mariners

who passed Cape Horn

from all the oceans of the earth.

But they did not die

in the furious waves.

Today they sail on my wings

toward eternity,

in the last crack

of Antarctic winds.