In 1955 when my parents waved to me as the New Washington left Ballard and cruised north to Southeast Alaska, I was sixteen. When I returned to seining for salmon in Alaska in 1978 on the Pacific 2, I was forty. No longer “the kid,” where each day was new and challenging, I was returning to a way of life I knew well. Older brother Ken used to say that after three days aboard a boat, that is all there is! Yes, one more year where life centered on a sixty foot boat and the effort to catch salmon in the waters of Southeastern Alaska!
I’M GOING AGAIN
To feel the tarred decks
Of an honest to god
Working boat beneath my feet
Watching the bow carve the sea
Water curling up on white planks
Frothing over into long rolling waves
To port and starboard.
To breathe in steep shaded passing shores
Fragrant Alaska cedars dipping lower branches in flooding tide
Be cleansed by rain swollen streams
Cascading into the accepting sea
Spraying the air with misting fog
To be summoned at midnight to hot acrid coffee
Wheel watch on top, with only the flying bridge
Giving protection from the chilly air
Straining to see black logs in black water
Blinking lights guiding from point to point
Waiting for the dawn
To s spread across the eastern sky
To sleep in the focsle with friends
Turbocharged cat droning and whining a numbing lullaby
Listen to water rushing by a plank away
The gently rolling hull softly creaking
My sleeping bag warming me
To view previous Salmon Summers post – click here
To view previous SALMON SUMMERS post, A ROMANTIC NOTION . .. – click here
Tho she creaks, she holds.
I love your poem Tim. It’s so evocative of being on a fishing boat. Even though I’ve never “worked” on one, I have fond memories of time spent on my great uncle Fritz’s halibut boat, the Shirley J with my family including a really fun overnight near President’s Point outside Kingston.
That fisherman looks very familiar! Love it!