Over there, beyond the quay side
Memories run like rats
From room to room
From grey building to grey building.
Furtive half-seen forms leap,
Panic grips my gut
Fear
Then I remember that I am safe here
Holding on to the rail,
The great ship held delicately
With rope webs
Poised and ready to sail.
A bell
A change in rumbling rhythm,
An uncertainty in motion
The quay side sails away,
Leaving the ship at a queasy standstill.
Sails away with lovers and friends
With lanes and hills and being taken seriously
And a familiar rhythm of small concerns
About diet, a threadbare cushion and a rude neighbour.
The rats have climbed the anchor chain
And are gnawing at my moorings.
We are lulled and cradled.
There had been only the desert.
Today there is a lost city
Where a pilgrim opened his bag
Under the shade of the beeches
Broke fast with bread and ale
A glass dropped startled
Gulls cross the empty sea
Small concerns of ship life
Jetsam,
Afternoon tea.
We arrive at night,
Grey shapes swarm outside the boat
The sea’s cradle has become a dizzy stillness.
At dawn I stand on a new land
Grey buildings beyond the quay side
Are beginning to glow
With unfamiliar colours in the new light
Mysteries thread like whispers
Through an ancient wall,
The fountain in a courtyard
Spies in the market-place
And the mute curiosity of an unknown face.
Boys hunt rats with frantic dogs
A small corpse lies bloated in an open drain.
I am on the first floor
The room remembers strangers and bad debts
My neighbour is quite rude
I complained to the waiter about the food
But I find I no longer take these things so seriously
The world was wider than I thought
And now my thought is wider
I am no longer, I find, tied
To an old quay side
But am an old ship on a new sea
Recently in the cafe
Where I have enjoyed the coffee
Watching a river of faces
Each one portraying its own history
And its own destiny
I was observed.
Caught by the eye of a storm centre
Calm but ready to blow any mere boat asunder
We lingered over lemon tea
Our fingers touched tentatively
Suggesting sensitively
A change in destiny
Meanings often change in translation
I was a traveller with an ear for another language.
Since that day, when I walked to the quay side
And watched the great boat sail,
Carrying a thousand hopes to an unknown destination,
I have become an interpreter and travel on occasion.
I am far away from any familiar port
But am closer here to my own harbour.
