It's not true North as far as we can see,
Just the gusty edge of sun-swept docks,
Emptied of shadows by half-day closing,
An even sky lights a fisherman and his wife,
In an eyeless, slow-panning separation,
Black and white heroes of old labour,
Each not wanting to signal fears,
As he departs to the bobbing deck,
Of a boat that dares the sea to rage,
That dares the sea to sink it in a blink,
With heavy swells and temper,
Magicked from this flat calm,
The grey guttering town retreats,
Leaving the small speck of farewell,
Waving the boat to its far horizon,
Then slowly home to the empty chair,
And the fire, now less warming,
But alive now with the gathering wind,
That tunnels down the chimney,
Bringing the marshalling weather inside,
The smell of salt and the turning sky,
And now a book and bread and jam,
And the light failing in the North,
Just the wind now gets inside,
Faith sustains sleep now in this house,
But the returns are quietly marked,
The imagined ticks on the far sea edge,
Signal a mast or two and then a hull,
Then hulls of this entire little fleet,
The wood scraped to paintless wastes,
The hold brimmed with ice and fish,
The True North burns away in the sky,
Shining on shy reaquaintances,
The slight touch and held-back joy,
And Faith sustains sleep now in this house.
