Fisher

… precipitation within sight

on a dim afternoon, a minister’s sermon comes on like rain.

… cyclonic, becoming westerly, 5 or 6…

in a plain church, people, black on hardwood pews,
heads lowered, for an old sea friend, leaving on a different tide.

… backing south-west, gale force 8, to severe gale 9…

and I thought about the squalls he weathered on horizonless sea,
bringing trawls of the deep, his own salt water harvest, home;

…gathered here within sight…

and, in net and creel, memories from his washed-away days,
tossed by waves and seabed dreams of tomorrow rising.

…within sight of God…

and I wondered if there was a God on whose face,
bearded by foam and spume, were eyes that also sparkled
with wild weather and wind-maddened rain.

…within sight…

and I heard the eyelids of the dead flutter,
if only for a moment, as the preacher prised apart our souls,
asked us to take his land-locked faith for comfort.

…of God…

and I wondered if, today, the body in its casket was shrouded
in hoops and creel-mesh or else wrapped in fronds of enclosing kelp
for its one last day above the earth, this solitary day, distanced from the sea.

…God …

ineffable and mysterious; I thought, might He free a fisherman’s soul
to run on its unbound way with wind and cloud and with the sea
in whose collapsing hollows he once sailed in search of life and living?

…gathered here …

with the preacher preaching, describing, celebrating,
himself drifting away beyond the countenance
of whatever salt-eyed God all fishermen meet
between the white-horses heaving and the mesmerizing calm.

…rising slowly, rough becoming moderate, 
occasionally smooth later…

for I would rather throw salt water, not soil,
on the uncaulked box six feet below,
then I would remember his seagone days,
his hourglass keel sailing gale-force into heaven,
a thousand fathoms deep.

© BH, 2017

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As valedictions go…

I’ve seen several and found them somehow wanting. We all mark our goodbyes in different ways, taking comfort where we can. Some of us look to the pulpit and the Word to help them through. I grant them that and bow my head as I should.

Too often, try as they might, celebrants entirely miss out the human being who has gone and some seem intent on reminding us of the stern injunctions of fate that lead us from here to hereafter.

So here is one for Macduff. Someone I only knew a fraction as well as I might have. He was a fisherman and a figure on many of our horizons. I wanted to mark his passing with something more, something to reflect wilder and less dour ways of meeting our maker.