Weather’s coming up soon lad, talk is, three days,
no catch for a week then*

Connors’ folk slough to the Arms
in the shape of four or five,
a tawny pint floats the hour,
and by seven the place is alive.

My father now by the edge of the groyne
is a gaze half mast at the sea,
as he sails himself to the brink of an isle
and turns a yard-arm to the lee.

He sets on his oars the cataclysm of waves
he casts the wind at his hair,
swears salt is the sword in the taste of this life
and not what falls with a tear.

He'll treble a note in harmonica muse
and rustily **** a bone pipe,
spit saliva colder than frost on the grease
and never complain of the gripe.

Running the wind or roaring the cape
or rounding the sound of the wire
his name is the take of all seafarer kin;
the hearth, my heart and the fire.

My father the salt, the seafaring man
a wave in the seas as they glide
now found to the ocean,
a son to the sea
the son to the father; my guide.