PIER HEAD JUMP
Did you ever stand a'side the locks as ships were passing through?
Looking for a pier head jump when a white cap said to you:
"Do you have a book there mister? Quick board us if you can"
Cause we're bound for South Australia and we're short a sailor man".
"Bosun.! Sling that heaving line ashore and bring his bag on board
Cause we're clear these tugs in moments and I want the deckgear stowed."
So I leapt to do his bidding cause I'd been too long ashore
And the thought of South Australia just convinced me all the more.
Since the tide had pushed us westward and the pilot left astern
Thirteen derricks had been stripped and stowed and lashed an extra turn
With foredeck hatches battened down her head was brought more south,
While a north bound crew worked the other way as they head for Avonmouth.
She was called the Fresno City of Smith's of Cardiff fame
But she could have been most any ship 'cause I'd join her just the same.
Y'see, the sea had got my number and she knew I was her slave,
Aye, I'd leave for deep sea sounds and swells with scarce a backward wave.
Yes, I'd been ashore a month too long and with concrete closing in,
All the pubs had lost their glamour and romance was getting thin.
Now the sunshine seemed so far away and my mind kept drifting where
My bare feet met the warm steel deck and the salt was in the air.
Where the gantlines held a memory as it eased across the hand
As a lifeboat fall was overhauled, or a bosun's chair was manned.
For a forestay greased by tallow or a masthead painted black,
With a life suspended, calm and sure, as hard hands coiled the slack.
Whilst stem heads carve each wave in two and sternposts make amends
There's communion in the foc'sle when the eight bells toll watch end.
Where a crib board holds a year's remit or a bottle holds a ship,
Where matchsticks might just masquerade as Swan Vestas poker chips,
In a poker game stretched an ocean wide or across a hemisphere
Where a black-pan egg was bartered for that last half inch of beer..
Just a moment's rest from holy stones, the heart of seamanship.
Whilst the wake is stretched and dwindling; just like every other trip.
There's another world, below the sea, where sweat grimed blackened men
Would toil to harness elements, where once; in days back when,
They worked white canvas, high aloft, to play the winter gales
It's shovels now in Dante's place with anthracite from Wales.
Aye, but progress spurns the laggard and with liquid gold to drive
The flashing brass capped driveshaft, showed progress was alive
With rocking steel and gauges that plunge ships through the night
For the test of human spirit against the Roaring Forties might.
Threads are woven through this majesty where progress is the norm,
A time dictated solemn rite, subject to sun and storm.
Ship's compass tweaked by rubric arc and Venus crossed at noon
Alchemic brew of almanacs, all stirred by the Greenwich rune.
It's our ritual white stick tapping, lest we sail right off the earth,
It's as regular as clockwork, ten times daily till we berth.
It's the Skipper's paregoric as he blends his ship to sea.
It's just slightly less important, when the steward brings his tea.
Now the Doxford pulled my senses back as the western ocean cast
Her winter eye at ships passing by, making patterns with their masts
As the Beaufort scale notched skyward with Tom Walker streamed astern
When the Fresno checked my sea legs and I felt the sinews burn,
So I begged her for forgiveness and swore I'd ne'er more roam
Then I brushed a hand along her parts and thanked her for a home,
In a world that moved about us we were welcomed back to sea,
Old friends who knew her treasures, and some who knew her fee.
Reg Kear © 2007 Australia
