i Leaving Home

Richard, with his pipe, yarning,
Spinning stories for his son.
Susan by the fire, darning,
January eighteen eighty-one.

Now the glass is rising fast,
Harry run and tell the crew,
The weather breaks at last,
Fishermen have work to do.

Richard skulls from the quayside,
Early on a winter’s day.
Slyboots on a morning tide,
Sailing out into Torbay.


As they run past Berry Head,
Quarry men look on the view,
Slyboots’ sails of ochre red,
Streaming out against the blue.


Susan by the fire, waiting,
With her baby on her knee.
Two boys by a bed kneeling,
Pray keep father safe at sea.

ii Sinking

Deep midwinter light fades early,
Not a star will pierce this cloud,
The night as black as Richard’s Bible,
Dark enfolding like a shroud.

Creaking rigging, lapping water,
Harry thinks he hears a sound,
Thomas on the starboard quarter,
Searching, quickly turns around.

Skipper I think I see a light!

Panic as the steamer looms up in the night.
Charlie calling for his mother, shouting out in fright.
Daniel, desperate, swings an axe to cut away the trawl.
Richard straining on the tiller cries,
Too late, the Lord God keep us all!

Struggling men and tangled rigging,
Floating on a winter sea,
Heavy sea boots pull them under,
As the steamer, and hope, fade into the night.