Returning son, his daughter at his side,
imagines now the men who once amassed
the limestone locks to straddle the canal,
an obsolete image from an eldritch past.

On a ritual hour of summer dusk,
if you should know precisely where to stand
that ghost of Syracuse can still be seen,
a rotting timber craft trapped deep in sand.

Mosquitos drone their hungry mother song.
The two upon the towpath, side by side,
survey this stagnant waterway where once
their ancestors lived and worked and died.

The silt entombs the boat’s untimely end –
how many years before the blasts of steam
sent veins of iron shooting ‘cross the land
did this canal boat capsize like a dream?