While I am away #1 – a poem for the day:
I wrote this poem in 1985 and found it again recently. I wrote it while on holiday in the North Yorkshire town of Whitby after visiting St Mary’s graveyard near the Abbey (where Lucy met Dracula in Bram Stoker’s famous novel). This is dramatically located on a hill top overlooking the sea and the town. Most of the grave stones had been rendered illegible by time and the wind.
Fishermen who stood with full manly pride
Were battered by time and each of them
died,
Age ravages all who once stood bold and strong,
And joyful ballads can become sad songs
Now time has erased the names of the
dead,
Wind has washed the stones leaving waves instead,
Marks of remembrance stand over each grave,
Signs of the men that the earth couldn’t save.
And yet folk still live and laugh by the sea,
Telling tales of the past in old Whitby,
Stories and songs of what brave folk they were,
Of times when all seemed simple and pure.
For time cleans minds leaving the best intact,
Fond images of ages past replace dull facts,
Remember what’s good – paste over the bad,
Man has too much that can make him feel sad.
What matter that grave stones now go unread,
Who really cares for the names of these dead,
Only let it be known they were men like me,
Who laughed and told tales with those by the sea.
