Generations

I wrote this after a conversation with an old retired fisherman whilst sitting on the harbour wall at Mousehole in Cornwall, UK ... The old man sits by the pots on the wall He looks out to sea and remembers it all Although he's retired and now lives life at ease he's spent fifty years upon the high seas He first went to sea as a very young lad and was trained in the fisherman's ways by his dad He had little schooling, was not good at reading but his father had taught him the skills he'd be needing How to tie knots and to swab down the decks and just where to fish to avoid sunken wrecks He could forecast the weather with a glance at the sky the shapes of the clouds and a well practiced eye When his dad died, this now grown up nipper inherited the boat and became its new skipper As the years passed he became a dad too and taught his young son to fish as he grew It's now a few years since the man lost his wife so he sits all alone and looks back on life A life that was hard with no time to rest but he knows in his heart that he's done his best The son carries on the family trade a life on the sea is the life he's now made A new generation to carry it on The boat will still sail when the old man has gone So he sits on the wall and waves to his son His life nearly over but his son's just begun He knows that the boat has a really good skipper and all in good time it will pass to HIS nipper