Copyright © Gerard Smyth; All rights reserved.
The new city stands where water is the element,
where ship-light burned a hole in fog,
gangways turned to planks of wood-rot.
The new city starts where the old places fell,
the taprooms where shore leave was spent,
the loading dock where stevedores used to heft
coal from the mines of Poland,
where river-gulls cried out hymns of thanksgiving
for what the river gave them straight from its mouth.
Gone are the lanes that lovers walked
lanes that were the short way home for old wives
who lived so long they saw
Lord Nelson toppled from his pinnacle.
Down here it’s the end of the road
where the road’s reborn as evergreen river water
that never stops but moves along like any wanderer.
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