Inspired Poetry

Greetings pastel morning sky!
How welcome is thy light,
That warms and brightens blessed day
after long colourless night.

So soft and subtle are your hues
that gift and please the eye.
The waxy pinks and oily blues
O’er the canvas of the sky.

Hello midday Sun that climbs through
Printed baby blue.
The ripples of your thin high clouds
Reflected in the dunes.

The screen that captured summers haze
Inverted on a notion,
Then used again to show below
The mirror of the ocean.

Hello even sky that boils
With thick impasto spreads,
The tall ship clouds vie o’er skies
With dragons and Godheads.

Would that I could recreate with
Brush and knife and paint,
The glory of Gods blessed hand
That wrought the shining Saints.

David VanHeron

Salt and foam! Salt and foam!
With mornings tide set sails to roam.
Buoyant hope for silver treasures;
oceans bounty for table’s pleasures.

Salt and foam! Salt and foam!
Wind-born, nor’ward blown,
Neptune’s capricious dice are thrown.
Days o’er swell and nights neath the stars,
Clipped and trim we cut and far.

Foam and salt! Foam and salt!
Labour decrees; ‘call not for halt!’
Boarded, chained and roped nets,
Trailed and trawled within the wet!
But luck! Good fortunes favours given,
Fit to burst our catch is risen!

Foam and salt! Foam and salt!
The worst of fears, to haul up nought.

Salt and foam! Salt and foam!
All holds full, our prize our own.
Five days plunder, add five days out,
low and laden we turned about.

Salt and foam! Salt and foam!
Stout fishermen all, and headed home.
O’er leagues and long,
Course plot and planned.
O’er leagues and long,
all thoughts of land.

Foam and salt! Foam and salt!
Our youngest, Thomas, was at fault.
Ill omen was his innocent epistle,
When merry with rum he started to whistle…

Foam and salt! Foam and salt!
Fell wind, the squall and then a raging tumult!
A great storm was upon us,
Dark horses on high.
Black rollers and breakers
As tall as the sky!

Gale and storm! Gale and storm!
The vessel pitched and tossed and torn!
A mighty crack as the main-mast yielded.
A heave from Tom on the ropes he wielded.

Storm and gale! Storm and gale!
Alak and all to no avail, for Tom’d gone over with mast and sail.
With dawns first light the seas subsided,
And apart from one, our souls abided.

Oh dark the day! Oh dark the day!
We counted that lost or washed away;
Our dinghies, our crab-pots,
Our old oak ale ton,
Our dearest of treasures;
A fine Cornish son.

Salt and foam! Salt and foam!
The currents were with us and helped us limp home.
(We’d been travelling south while chasing the shoal),
then two more days to reach our dry goal.

Time and tide! Time and tide!
Until at last we came aside,
Our harbour snug and safe and hidden;
So there to greet us a throng, come unbidden!

Tide and time! Tide and time!
To waiting hands we threw our lines.
With heavy hearts we told them our story of our record catch, our lost boy, lost glory.

Avast and ahoy! Avast and ahoy!
Some children were pointing
And shouting with joy!
The rope which bound poor Tom
to mast into sea,
Was the same rope that bound us
and the old ship to he!

Ahoy and avast! Ahoy and avast!
Unknowing we’d towed Tom back
Still tied to the mast!
Though frozen and ashen and sodden
and senseless, life still breathed within him, tenacious, regardless.

Salt and foam! Salt and foam!
This sea-faring journey is nearly all done.
I retell this ballad the way that I saw it,
No license to embroider or flower or alter’t.
To hear Tom recount it
(with gusto and oft)
You’d think he was captain
Who tore the mast off!
To save us from rolling in highest of seas,
Yes! Big hero Tom! He saved us if you please!

Salt and foam! Salt and foam!
Tom’s still a sailor
now he’s all grown.
He preaches ‘life jackets!’
and even gives classes,
but saves all his whistling
for fine Cornish lasses!

David VanHeron