Clanyard
Three Scotsmen and a Pole’s son
came out of Clanyard,
in shirt sleeves on a silver skimmer.
They pulled strings of herring,
twisting and flashing, into the air,
and shook them free 'til the boat was filled.
The sun slid red, down over Ulster.
Voices danced through the dusk.
On the skin of the tide
above teeming shoals
an armada from Logan -
one driven by a bicycle wheel –
jerked stragglers out with silver hooks.
The blood of herring mingled
with the blood of men.
The flat sea funnelled them south
under Crammag’s white eye.
The shadow rose.
Over the channel,
fans of light flicked round.
Showered in glistening scales,
men boxed fish.
Skippers turned their boats
and drove deep furrows northwards,
churning vague light
in the surf behind them.
They landed in darkness,
voices hushed.
Fish were loaded.
Some for barter,
some for pence.
And villages were fed.
poem by Jim Hogg
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