A Way of Life (Poems)

Saturday, July 9th, 2011  |   Posted by :  admin

Where I Live and What I Live For – by Jake Ellefson

It’s in my blood… It is my way,
An old fisherman once had said.
Winds will blow, and seas will spray,
This old lake gives to me my daily bread.

In my sturdy boat upon the rolling deep,
Where winds will blow and waves will break,
Setting nets — for it is the fish I reap,
Of ample harvests from the lake I take.

I am a fisherman…it’s all I know,
I live part on land and part at sea,
Where waves will roll and winds will blow,
There is no other place I’d rather be.

The Last Fish Tug – by Trygvie Jensen

Morning breaks with her devout silence
Over the harbor like amber glass;
Yesterdays storm and white-capped waves relents,
Leaving the harbors hull a placid mass.

A weathered dock moors no boats
And slips down more to waters side,
A seasoned reflection still floats
Where once fish tugs used to reside.

No nets spun out to dry on racks
That stands like crosses for a grave,
And sounds of sparrows sift through cracks
Of an empty shed’s weathered staves.

Smell of wood smoke in the distance ?
Redolent of something I knew yesterday,
Takes me back there for an instant
Where chubs were smoked and hung in gold display.

To see once more the tugs returning,
Splitting water from wooden hulls;
Hear once again the hungry calling,
Overhead, the white cloud of gulls.
Morning goes down like a sinking stone ?
One old fish tug, all that remains,
Idle in her slip moored alone,
Paint-peeled and forgotten by name.
A fish box, empty, gone to gray;
A sad reminder so it seems,
How everything fades away,
Like some old fishermens’ dreams.