The Old Sailor

‘Tis a heavy fog hovers over the outer bank today

Shroud-like, to cover the storm to come perhaps

Aye… if I were a betting man I’d give odds

those seas will claim back one of their own

before the day is over

there sails John Dempsey’s schooner Perceval

just passed the Owl’s Head Light

flash of white and then he just seemed to disappear

must be headed up the coast to his sister's place in  Lunenburg

that old tramp steamer "Maggie’s Dream"

that was moored down at the government wharf so long

must have slipped her lines sometime in the night

an empty berth always somehow makes me feel sad

can you not smell the brine and rotted fish in the air?

some city folk don't like that smell but to me

it's like a desert tease whetting me appetite

to have me feet on a rolling deck again

Ya know, I once knew every inch of this coast line

quite a joke now... they say I have alls heiemers

sometimes can’t even remember Mother’s name

let alone Skipper a boat through St John;s narrows

Mother brings me cup of Tetley’s steeped tea now and again

sweetened with a big spoon of sugar

and cooled with a dollop of Carnation canned milk

after forty years she knows now just  how I likes it

the damp seems to aggervate me old bones

could ya be so kind as to ask Mother for a blanket

she knows the ones I likes best

somethin to wrap around these old arty ritis knees

wasn’t always like that though, ya know 

aye, I reckin it was near on forty years

I spent sailing out past the Egg Island buoy

was but a foolish lad of fourteen…but

at fourteen you became a a man back then,

without a doubt

there goes Bobby John in his old Dodge pickup

fine load of lobster traps in the bed

sure wish me and mother could have had us another son

man needs a child to pass on his legacy to

did you hear that…kinda mournful isn’t it?

that was the Devil’s Island fog horn

eerie for sure, gives a man a chill like no other

it minds me of the fall Nor'wester of ‘64

four boats ran aground and beat to pieces

on Little Thumbcap Reef in a storm

fourteen fine young  men perished in the breakers that night

one of them was our only boy William

never did find the body

buried an empty box full of memories instead

look there, that little cove over the North of the harbor

by God it’s Art and Alex Dobbin in a pair of dories

old fools must have been out after a feed of mackerel

or mayhap illegal lobster pots out around the point

sure wish these old bones would take me with them

out on the water one last time though

but I'll be there soon enough I reckon

Mother helped me writ down instructions for me dust

They'll scatter me out there with my boy's ghost

out to frolliick with the mermaids off Devils Island

I see the sun is almost ready to call it a day

Mother will soon be fetching me in as well

so I’ll bid ye good day young man

give me best to the boys down on the wharf…