Paul Willason Poet Free verse

Notes About The Poem

Departures

I watch it slowly leave
the river and enter the Bay,
its bow parting the calm
with an efficient quiet.
Another hour and the ship
will be cutting through
the swells of the open sea. 

Men in orange overalls
lean on railings at the stern
looking back
over a long wake. 
I try to imagine what thoughts
are washing across 
their minds. Perhaps 
it's the menu for that night
or the blurred monotony 
of seeing another foreign port 
with its cranes and marshalling
yards decompose 
into the fading light. 
Or more likely the thoughts 
of love ones waiting for them 
at home.

Seagulls follow them out
and spiral over the ship's 
dissolving churn,
dipping down into the water,
lifting up again on wings lit 
by the last rays of a setting sun.
There is a sadness 
to the sight of departing ships -
it touches something deep
as if calling up the echoes
of ancestors saying their last 
goodbyes to sons and daughters,
siblings and the grandchildren
they will never meet.

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