
On a savage sea,
Stories took flight.
Tellers, cast men.
Their stories, my birthright.
That same sea blows a wind here.
And life it gives all the same.
Mackerel lie out on stalls with no ice
A stink!
And only salt to cure them.
That same salt is on the wind
And it’s in the walls
And it runs through them,
The way any good war metaphor would illustrate.
But no war metaphors here for a sea we dont fight.
On his boat, Grandad wouldn’t even curse it.
For all the wind and rain and waves,
He’d give not so much as a spit.
Or so say the teachings of the prophets.
But safe on land
And estranged from it, and the sea
And the prophecies born of both,
I’m free to curse and point my finger.
Like a desert, it lies between us,
Cruel and unrelenting.
But seas and deserts both are crossed.
Estranged men sit around here selling trinkets.
Blue desert rags cover their heads -
A reminder that their fathers crossed seas too.
And the blue casts a hope all over.
I see it now on bottles, barrels, flannels, cans
An alienated symbol.
Like a window candle on a Christmas eve.
But like that light, a hope all the same