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the triangle, drawn on damp paper over the imprint of old voyages spread across the rolling table. The pencil soft, but finely pointed. A quiet clack of parallel rules; the marks on paper light, transient. Erased by evening.
And always a certain triumph— the triangle, small: against the pull of current and the push of wind in all those elements, those crests, that dark gust, in all this nothing, this sea, here, this hull, this moment we are here, we are lurching on
and we can fix the next wave or the next, hand-held numbers spinning round to starboard, hovering then swinging back to port, the gut plunging and the eyes almost closed, assessing a moving needle against a moving landmass.
A beautiful art, to draw on worn charts and one you feel not far removed from Loki reading his ravens’ flight when he discovered Iceland, nor so different from how six’ern crews rowed back to land they couldn’t see by set and pitch and scend and smell,
so that when you key in waypoints for the autopilot, the waves that engulf you come close to regret, and you wonder —as is the way when you’re at sea— what if the waypoint for home were seasickness, were risk, or skill, or age; what if the waypoint for happiness, pain?
in collection Teach Yourself Mapmaking, 2006, Smith/Doorstop, ISBN 1-902382-80-9
What was I hoping for, what was I trying to find that September afternoon, skimming across the Humber under slender cables to the other side. The past of course, something to say this is how it was, even something forgotten of my own, a view perhaps, to account for how I imagine ships trawl the top of an embankment beyond a kitchen window. But there were no ships. All that brown water and just a green-hulled light-float with its silent bell.
What was there to see in a village of closed doors gone about its twenty-first century commute. The church was locked. Not one headstone shared my name. Behold, he taketh away; who can say unto him, what dost thou. A gable end stopped me— not familiar, but seen before. I’d gone because I still love the colour of bottled plums, the press of golden flesh through crimson juice against glass. I did find the orchards, now The Orchards, meaning executive houses instead of trees. And one old brick wall.
On the sign outside The Ferryboat, one man rows another across the estuary, all that distance in a little yellow hull. But where the boatyard was, ploughed stubble. The creek silted, narrowed and shallow. No voices, no hammering, no trace of planking or a nail; nothing to write home about as my father would have said. Only the reeds, their grey plumes and dry leaves lilting in the sun with a sound like running water tell how it was then. The tall, plumed reeds.
in collection Teach Yourself Mapmaking, 2006, Smith/Doorstop, ISBN 1-902382-80-9 previously published in Bridport Prize Anthology 2004
Not in Rockall, Bailey or South East Iceland nor in rips and overfalls off Duncansby Head; not in storm force 10 or poor visibility; not with light icing on the gear, the barometer falling rapidly; not from an open boat with canvas and oars, in history
but now, in the present tense from a well-found purser more than 200 tons with radar and GPS on a fine June morning and in sight of the coast of Denmark,
there are empty liferafts and an oil slick on the silvery sea.
And the sand eels caught for top heavy tanks that balance the books but not nature are back in the sands 100 feet down taking with them Zander and Tucker, Michael, Billy and Druimdhu, down to the never-named fear they held in their hearts (a snagged net, an ankle gripped by uncoiling wire ropes) — the fear that has men never learn to swim, has them make peace with their women — and with their God— each time before the isophase light on the east end of the pier slips past to port.
in collection Circumnavigation, 2002, Smith/Doorstop, ISBN 1-902382-43-9 previously published in The North
Evenings, we sit on rocks above the bay and watch the tides. If there are signs of a good sunset, take a jacket and an apple. A nod might say the buzzard's back on the fence post, a small gesture question a dark streak in the waves. Neither of us has anything to say significant enough to break the silence. I think I like low springs best, the whole bay an emptied bowl, the uncaught moment of the turn.
In the winter we shall drag the armchairs nearer the stove, light all the lamps and read each other poems we do not understand in case sound speaks for itself. We can take turns to fetch tea and oranges. No one comes out here till spring.
When I live alone again and am used to fears at night when sheep rub up against the walls, I might remember scraps of old tunes; I might remember singing in the bath. Wrapped in white towels I shall stare out through my reflection at the dark sea for red lights half a mile off, find a faint deck-light with binoculars and watch the night-work of tiny figures.
in collection Circumnavigation, 2002, Smith/Doorstop, ISBN 1-902382-43-9 previously published in Signal Flags, 2001, Blue Nose Poetry |
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