A Departure

It was about time we got away from the need to make lists of other stuff and about time for me to write a poem. You do realize that I usually only write four poems a year, do you. I've been working overtime this year trying to provide fresh material for this site. But it's been a great pleasure.

The social occasion marking the retirement of the much admired colleague was on Wednesday and apart from being the predictably great social occasion that ends up with the few hardcore drinkers still there when it's later than it should be, it might have been the last such that our now frighteningly Stalinist workplace ever sees. But I got a poem out of it, so I'm grateful. It's work in progress, but the work goes on. You're never happy with what you've done until you've completely lost it. The Still and West is a beautifully situated pub with fine views of Portsmouth Harbour which is why they probably have the nerve to charge three of the Queen's fine pounds as well as forty more of her sovereign pence for one pint of Guinness. I'm only glad I didn't pay for very many of those that I had.

But I promised you a poem, and here it is. It might look a bit different when it appears in print eventually but, happy retirement, Pete. Missing you already.

A Departure

That must be a cormorant,
sinister and clever,
riding the impatient tide
and diving from the surface
like a rattlesnake attacking
for somewhere in that murky
underworld he knows there’s fish.

He’s under water so long
that we think we must have missed him
but the rhythm is repeated
through the shifting afternoon
until I realize I don’t know
how many times I’ve seen
that ferry boat arrive and leave.

And the lights that sharpen
in the dusk across the nervous water
have no danger to warn of
but have nothing to symbolize

that we might hope for either.

Still and West, 25/11/09