for those in peril on the sea.”
Those stormy mornings, we’d sing that hymn.
The fathers of many of the school
were out there, trawlers taut against
the seas of Finisterre, Tiree. And,
as the singing swung into the heaves
and hollows of its verse, my blunt
neck-hairs tingled with the sharing of
fear. Those men would ship Atlantic seas,
hake, cod and herring, nets of fish, splash
prize in to the hold, into the dock,
and later drink, play dominoes, for days,
in the Alma, the Kitchener, the Heart of Oak.
Other times, during a trip, in Segadelli’s,
whose warm café tables looked out
across the dock and out to sea,
the women would scent storm, and,
like the clouds, they’d gather, cluster, mutter.
*This poem appeared in Roundyhouse in 2010
Robert Nisbet, a Welsh writer, was for several years an associate lecturer in creative writing at Trinity College, Carmarthen, where he was also an adjunct professor for the Central College of Iowa. His poems appear in Robeson, Fitzgerald and Other Heroes (Prolebooks, 2017). Frequently published in the USA, he is a four-time Pushcart nominee.
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