Seal Harbour Days
Eternal fog still caresses these beloved shores
today, as in years past.
Scrub spruce, crowberry bushes, and ferns
now grow in profusion
where once houses stood defiant
against Atlantic gales.
Alders pay homage to fields
where fox pens made vain effort
to supplement
meagre income.
Through the mist a lone saddleback
laments the vanished bounty
his ancestors enjoyed: two pleasure boats
quietly rock
where dories, punts, and skiffs waited patiently
for the fishermen’s return,
or the freedom occasionally granted them
by small, seafaring boys.
At the two small cemeteries
the fog lingers quietly for a while,
like a brief visit between good friends
for whom words are not necessary
to define their kindred spirits.
The damp stillness attenuates a gentle echo
of remembered laughter,
of shared tragedies,
of birth and renewal,
of departures overshadowing
infrequent returns.
Wispy shapes can almost be seen,
in oilskins and Leckie boots,
and in patterned cotton house-dresses
that button up the front:
proud, brightly painted homes
seem to shimmer just beyond
the limit of vision,
and the smell of drying salt cod
and lobster bait mingle exotically
with that of home-baked bread,
molasses cookies, and johnny cake.
In the small village church
a diverse group of people
from near and far congregate
to share their common heritage:
skits, poetry, songs, and storytelling
express a strong sense of community,
a poignant feeling of something lost,
and a bittersweet remembrance
of departed family and friends.
One cannot help but feel that,
as the fog hangs outside the door,
yesterday still exists just beyond our sight,
remembered voices and smiles continue,
and small boats sail with the tide
to return with the sea’s harvest.
Children play in tidal pools,
returning to country kitchens
blessed by the benediction
of home cooking.
At the store down the road,
conversation rules eternal,
and the fog mixes with the smell
of Zig-Zag tobacco,
while comfortable nail kegs
host men who were giants in their time.
And down the gravel road, a small boy,
holding tight to his father’s hand,
walks, unknowingly,
towards a future
that will celebrate his past.
Echoes in the Fog
Driving over Lighthouse Hill
the fog awaited like a long-lost friend.
The old road by Betty’s Cove,
cloaked with alders,
whispered remembered sighs
of lovers’ trysts,
now long past.
Roll Burke’s garage shimmered,
just at the edge of memory,
with a remembered scent of gasoline,
and the heady teenaged joy
of pin-up calendar girls.
Marion’s Whatnot Shop sang its siren song
of China-made curios
for the infrequent tourists,
and the exciting birthday purchases
of children, spending hoarded
nickles and dimes.
At Wilfred’s Store long-dead giants
sat on nail kegs,
and discussed politics and weather,
haloed by the smoke from hand rolled Zigzag tobacco,
sweetened by the odd “tailor-made”
of the more affluent fishermen.
Penny candy, a cheddar wheel,
overhead cone of string
for tying brown paper wrapped packages,
bags of chips, and chocolate bars,
gave forth a psychedelic glow
in the minds of the children
picking up packages for Shirley,
Aunt Maude, or Grandmother Lottie.
Down the hill, the ghost of Gammon’s Store,
with weather-worn orange shingles,
gave forth remembered smells
of handline, Leckie’s boots,
and oilskins.
A small boy rowed happily across the cove,
to tie up expertly at the end of the wharf,
speaking to Syd Burke,
and exchanging greetings with Jim Henderson.
The cove was full of boats,
and ringed with wharves,
each with its own unique boatshed,
and a constant miasma
of creosote and barrels of lobster bait.
The trap boats flanked the fishplant jetty,
and adventuring boys clambered over them,
examining sea eggs,
and other exotica.
The lobster factory steamed its way
into our collective history,
with noisy bustle
and a fragrant cloud of boiling lobster.
The wooden breakwater was sturdy,
safely sheltering the industrious cove,
and the good people working there.
Off through the fog, the sharp sound
of a “one-lunger” single piston fishing boat
disturbed the gulls
preaching on the fishplant roof.
A sudden ray of sunlight
pierced the fog,
bringing me back to the present,
and the depleted village
that made all of us,
in very large part,
who we are today.
Snow in the Air
The nets now are mended,
the lobster pots dry:
fall has now ended,
there’s snow in the sky.
August berries are bottled,
November venison hung:
now clouds are grey-mottled.
Autumn’s song has been sung.
But though blizzards may come, and north winds scream,
children’s eyes are wide with the Christmas dream;
and beneath slate-grey skies, where storm clouds race,
young lovers speak low by a warm fireplace.
At the store, old men argue ‘round a pot-bellied stove,
and children now skate on the ice in the cove.
In the kitchen, the dog is curled up on the rug,
and the smell of home cooking makes people feel snug.
Old men sniff the air
(old men always know),
and say with a flair,
“Tomorrow she’ll snow.”
The Net Mender
He sits there on a lobster trap,
Outlined against the sky,
With mended fishnet on his lap,
And sadness in his eye.
For he longs to sail the sea once more,
And hear the gale wind's mighty roar;
To match his wits against the sea;
To pace the deck where the wind blows free;
To lie in the shade of a tall palm tree;
But he is old, and sad, and he
Must mend the nets.
His weathered brow is paler now:
His keen eyes not so bright:
Still he longs for the surge of a schooner's bow,
And the crackle of canvas, pulled tight.
How well he remembers Jamaican night,
And the reefs of the Great Australian Bight.
And he longs for the life of the days gone by,
Knowing that soon he surely must die.
But when he has gone to his port in the sky,
Where stately schooners and clipper ships ply,
Who will mend the nets?
Sou’east of the Buoy
O the tides run so hard on Flying Point shoal
that you can’t keep a line o’er the side.
On Gull’s Nest ground, Sid and Cliff Burke found
that the dogfish were so thick they cried.
Now it ain’t too bad off the Breaker, b’ys,
if a strong nor’east gale ain’t a-blowin’:
you’d be pullin’ in hake just after daybreak,
when the sky in the east starts a-glowin’.
Well it’s twelve minutes run sou’east of the buoy,
to the place where the haddock are bitin’:
but there’s young Glenn and Trume, you’d best give ‘em room,
there’s no time for fishin’, they’re fightin’.
On Channel ground, Harry Hudson says,
they’s halibut there by the score!
But they won’t bite your hooks, or so says George Crooks,
though he’s caught half a dozen or more!
It’s a heck of life, and a man gets tired
gettin’ up long before break o’ day;
and you work like a dog, through rain, wind, and fog,
but just try to take him away!
The Shades of Autumns Past
Down where Wilfred’s store stood
you can almost hear political arguments
in voices, distinct and beloved,
while pipe and tobacco smoke swirled
above a wood stove surrounded by nail kegs,
and a few sparse chairs.
Further down the lane,
where Gammon’s once stood,
the sharp smell of handline,
and essence of John Leckie boots
hangs in the salty air.
The dim shadows of fishermen’s stores
populate a cove, where even the stones
that supported their handmade wharves
have disappeared into the relentless,
and unforgiving, maw of time.
The memory of the lobster plant,
and the bustling fish plant,
offer olfactory hallucinations,
with the sharp smell of hot creosote
steeping nets, enhancing spectral vision.
You can almost see a cove full of small boats,
a palette of bright colour, with swaying spars,
and names like “Miss Glace Bay”, “Valma C”,
and “On Time 3".
Out between the islands, the Groaner calls,
and the shimmer of returning sails
causes a flurry of activity in kitchens
ruled by strong women, to whom hardship
was simply a way of life.
Remembered clotheslines flutter with colour,
each matron having her own distinct hanging pattern.
A small boy rows across a cove that has hosted
his past kindred for almost two hundred years.
A little girl in a cotton dress talks to the postmistress,
then runs with her granny’s mail
to receive her promised molasses cookie.
The man doesn’t see the ruins of old houses,
nor the place where the schoolhouse stood,
he is remembering Roll’s Garage, and Warnie’s,
the What-Not Shop, and Beulah’s Ice Cream shed.
He recalls distinct intonations of voices:
Wal, John Angus, Morris, Jim, Victor,
grandfathers George and Winfield,
grandmothers Lottie and Lily,
Marion and Lilian, Nora, and Aunt Maude,
and so many others fill his head with a cacaphony
of love, and of kinship, and of hard times shared.
He smiles a bit, remembering the calloused hand
of his father, as it enveloped his smaller boy-hand,
as together they walked homeward past the Hall,
towards a very different future.
As a Sail on the Horizon
The boy looked out to sea:
past scrub spruce on rocky tors,
his gaze skipped over gravel shingle
whispering an ageless sough to the sea.
There! Across the reach, beyond the island!
The tiny sail touching the horizon
would stay with the boy for hours,
traversing his lilliputian world.
Later, an economic refugee
"Going down the road,"
the boy was reminded of the sail
as he watched through the night
on the "Maritime Express."
Small pools of light would appear
in the Stygian darkness of a New Brunswick night:
promises of comfort and home.
On the horizon of my life I have seen many sails.
Some have docked, sojourned,
to become part of my life for a while.
Others passed, unknown, into the vortex of Time.
I only wish, at this late date,
that I had tried harder, made more effort,
to make the journeys of others
as joyous as my own.
The Gift
The box under the tree
wasn't wrapped in shiny paper;
didn’t have a bright red bow.
It was rather battered,
wrapped in torn brown paper
tied up with dirty string,
but the tag held his name:
he gingerly unwrapped it
and opened the lid.
With a mental “whoosh”
the contents assailed his senses.
* * *
The boy played with his wind-up train set
under a tree decorated
with sparse decorations
brought from a home
that now seemed far away.
His baby sister gurgled on the blanket
beside him,
while his mother sang in a kitchen
warmed with the smell of cocoa.
The young man,
lonely as he worked the midnight shift
on this bright Christmas morning,
thought of Christmases past,
and smiled.
The sailor, hitching home
over snowdrifted roads,
awaited the next car
to take him a few more miles
closer to home,
closer to family warmth,
and mincemeat pies.
The memories of family,
all much loved, some long dead;
of friends far away
in time and place:
mental milestones of happiness,
and of heartbreak:
the friendly ghosts
of seasons past.
* * *
The battered box
vanished from his mind
as he watched the activity
beneath the sparkling tree.
The children,
surrounded by presents,
added noisy counterpoint
to the carols on the stereo.
His wife, long accustomed
to his Celtic melancholia,
smiled as he wiped
a single joyous tear.
His Gift was memories,
a sense of family,
of continuity,
and love.
The Leeward Shore
Just a lonely point on a rocky shore
where I can hear the ocean’s roar;
just a little grove of small jack-pines,
and a humble home that I’d call mine,
on a leeward shore.
A garden green where children play;
and friends and neighbours just down the way,
and a lovely country girl, my wife,
and we would lead a happy life
on a leeward shore.
Just a quiet room where I could brood,
and watch the reach’s changing mood.
With a few friends living down the beach,
contentment could be within my reach
on a leeward shore.
***
But I must roam the globe around:
I’m not content with what I’ve found.
There are countries that I’ve yet to see,
with blue lagoon and tall palm tree.
There are dark-eyed faces and tropic nights;
Norwegian fjords and northern lights;
Italian hills and Spanish plains;
Arctic blizzards and Brazilian rains;
and a strong west wind to fill my sail,
and when I’m gone I’ll leave no trail
but a home on the leeward shore.
The Northern Banks
The once-proud schooner rots on the shore,
and hears the breakers’ endless roar,
to ride the flood tides nevermore,
to fish on the Northern Banks.
The flood tides oft’ had borne her away,
to face the North Atlantic spray,
and filled her holds day after day
with cod, from the Northern Banks.
But she was Queen of the Sea in her day:
beneath her bowsprit would porpoises play,
and through winter gales, her captain would pray
to God, on the Northern Banks.
Yes, she was Queen of the Sea, in her prime,
and through her rigging seamen would climb,
and strain ‘til they heard the cry sublime,
“Fish ho!” on the Northern Banks.
Then with holds full, she’s homeward bound,
and through town streets laughter would sound,
and her crew would smile, for word was around,
“She’s the best on the Northern Banks!”
Now the Queen lies asleep, with the beach for her bed,
and children play in the sand ‘round her head,
but she doesn’t mind, for her heart has led
her home, to the Northern Banks.
Hillside
The scrub spruce have grown tall
around the small country cemetery:
the sight of Schoolhouse Cove and Harbour Island
now obscured by persistent growth,
and time.
Lichens encroach upon marble and granite
histories that, although brief of detail,
encapsulate lives that were full
of tragedy, of love, of experience,
of life.
Part of my history is buried here,
brushed by salt sea air,
with the scent of spruce, and alders,
offering impartial benediction to both hero
and rogue.
The dates on the markers are brief spans
that fail to capture the intensity, the joy,
the personalities of those they describe;
the persistent arrow of time offers
final punctuation.
Although the sense of loss is strong,
the feeling of love, of belonging is greater.
I walk slowly away, into a freshening autumn breeze,
proud of the genetic gifts I carry, that remind me
who I am.
