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Edward Cummins

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Self Pilotage

The green light showing up ahead is nowhere on the chart.
Nor the trees, reflected below the banks of stone.
The bow waves corrugate, like childish branches;
Drawn in a scribbling splash, water-coloured,
On the unwashed wave of the river’s man-made arm.
A blood-letting sun mixes palettes of pink
About the cooling tower’s yawning maw
And blazing white, a crown-jewelled engine room
Taps and dials along the shore, sprawls
In a pipe band trill of gases:
Hisses
At the evening’s frost-sharp nose.
Blind buoys now haunt the cross-roads at the junction of the
                                                                                  stream.
Beams of narrow water ebb with the flow of night.
Helm bent curves appropriate our right of way
Giving in to nothing signed in fluid black.
Old hands nudge to port and starboard on the polished
                                                                                     spokes.
The eyes of youth forget to see what must be there.

 

Runcorn, January 1, 1992

Page(s) 12

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