The Fisherman ( Part 1)

Recommend a requiem
To play the piper’s tune
And when the free ship breaks its helm
The waves will follow soon
To crash like blood upon the wood
Where the lonely ghosts stay guard
And mark the point where the fishermen stood
Before the sea with rage required
To pluck them from Hecuba’s arms
And plunge them to the darkest depth
Out of reach from mother’s charms
As they choke on their last breath.
Say now, he that holds in his tongue,
Speak the words that cloud your head.
For here the sea destroys the young
Before the old become the dead.
 
Barnacled upon the bed
The last survivor cries aloud:
“Guide my effigy back there
Where the sun kisses the Scottish grass
And let me burn in the cold mountain air
Before the piper plays my pass.
And when the moon returns to birth
I will once again be free,
Ash, adjoined the Gaelic earth
Where I was born to be.”
The drowning echo of his dread
As the ocean roars to form his shroud.
And in dying, he goes to fish
The Faroe waters once again.
Crying, Amphitrite grants his wish
To dangle nets from the clouds of heaven.
And so, to those pillars of ivory,
The swallowed souls began to fly
Above the birds who watched in jealousy
For even they won’t reach so high.
For sailors die when they follow silver
And the waves care not for wanting gold
And in the skies, the angles quiver
As the sea breeze chills their necks with cold.
 
Walking all the days and mornings
Across the hills and dreary dales
The laughing child can’t here the mourning
Of battered helm and torn out sails.
And as he reaches home that evening,
As the sun settles like a cork on wine,
The boy sits down and thinks of leaving
To set to sea and see it all in time.
Upon his plate, the grey cast darling,
A herring plucked from its soft shoal
Is glistening in the candle light - shining -
That flickers with his father’s soul.
Smiling now, the fisherman watches,
His young boy dines on his last breath,
And thinks long on all the miles and catches
That made his life and brought him death.