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FOG   HORN   ON   THE   NEVA

Fog horn on the far off  Neva  dock
A  canal  bridge to open and  unlock:
Today I heard  its  sound 
Unmistakable  note found
Implanted down in my head, 
Coming today a word long unsaid
Across the railroad tracks  it calls 
To me through cracks in walls 
And half-closed lattice  windows,
Across the shadows  and  meadows
From far away in the salt water - 
An ocean-bound  huge transporter .

Took me back  to  porridge oats
And blanketless  beds with cold coats, 
Sharing a pillow  with gran and mum
In a cold unheated tiny bedroom -
But warm as only a mother’s arm can be -
Listening on foggy nights  with me
-To horns open Tyne’s swing bridge  old,
And in foggy winter days cold
-To lost ships off  Cullercoats  moan 
Trying to find the walls of stone,             
The welcoming piers of heaven:
Sandy river’s  saving haven.

I was taken aback to be taken back
Thus, on my  hustling  life’s track
I forget the real roots.   I need 
To recall from what did I proceed, 
For  often does my boat get tossed  
And  in  the fog  I am  sometimes lost.

The Horn’s lament  is familiar 
Like a  family voice or a prayer,
As a bird recognizes its mate’s call
No  need to ask what it is at all.
It is friendly.  To  it I return. 
To hear it  I yearn. 
Like  my  mother’s laugh,
Like grandfather’s cough -
I Know it like  my own face,
It is easy to retrace.

As I walk on Nevsky Prospekt
Turning back the pages of neglect,
I hear it in the depths of my heart.
It reverberates  as a note apart
And I feel  it in  the mist 
Of time.  It insists.  I have missed 
Its plaintive call  for so long.
As a salmon returns where he belongs 
To his birth river on the foam
I am drawn inexorably  home.

Bustling  Tyne ships are now gone.  
Only pleasure yachts that leisurely yawn.
No  battleships or  tankers to see,
No river smells of sweat and tears salty, 
But the horn’s fossilized  lament  remains 
In sand-banks  and sea-lanes
And memory banks retraced :
Memories never to be  to erased.

Life’s  mist becomes  too dense.
Guide  me in the fog thence.
Lead me to back to reality.
The horn is searching for me 
From the past through  the  cracks
And lattice of my old bridge tracks,
Opening my mind to echoes of the past,
Holding my soul  sound and fast.
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