Ted Harriott
Requiem for a Bloater
They used to come like bounty from the sea,
shoal on shimmering shoal of them,
more than you could count or even imagine.
It was a silver treasure trove,
more than enough for everyone
and everything –
just dip in a bucket
and feed for a week on
the fat and oily gift from the gods.
No-one cared then if the birds and dolphins
gorged and guzzled them
until they could neither fly nor float.
We learned to salt the fish,
smoke them and dry them in the sun
for the hungry times between the abundant tides.
But always they returned,
like a carnival of gluttony.
They paraded the shores of our land,
confirmation of our Bible’s promises,
and we thought the feasting would never stop.
Husbandry was for the landsmen,
the plodders among the clods.
Life was simpler than that:
we were where it all started,
in a watery garden of Eden.
But suddenly, one season,
the hordes of shiny fish stopped coming.
Soon, we had to ride the storms to perilous deeps,
hunting for the elusive survivors of great shoals.
And while we were out hunting,
the people drifted away from our shores
like the herrings – gutters and smokers redundant,
with nothing left to smoke.
Looking out to sea was like gazing on Golgotha.
The harbour is a quiet place these days.
The bobbing boats but toys
in a rich man’s bathtub.
And I could die for a bloater –
or the lack of one.
Page(s) 54
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