FISHERMAN

Why, when the plush sea played,

Beating random rhythms on the hull,

Beneath the bright sky’s charms

As the sheen of the sunlight rayed

Did he move in the water’s lull

To lie in the cold sea’s arms?

Since the sun seemed the better suitor

And the air was sweet to the lungs

Why did he stumble and fall?

The shore girls were cuter,

Sweeter songs lapped from their tongues,

Yet he answered the water’s call.

They wept on the harbour wall

For the lost and wasted life

And the lost and wasted seed,

As he rocked in the sea’s loll,

The lap of his chosen wife

Never to be inbred.

For God’s way was this -

A short time of breath,

Pulsing blood, flesh;

Then to lie thus,

Safely wrapped in death,

Finding His love lush.

(This is an elegy for a family friend of my mother's drowned some time before I was born, but whose photo was always up in the house as i was growing up.  He originated in Peterhead.)