Sea-Children – by David Tallach, 7 years in Cromarty


Tied to the ocean from birth,

Reef knots supplant the umbilical cords

Of the sea-children.


Playing around the harbour,

Boats painted in preparation

For the sea-children.


Sailing out for the first catch,

Drenched in the salt-spray

Are the sea-children.


Courting in low-walled cottages,

Wedding in the church with ancient gravestones,

Continuing the line of the sea-children.


Experienced now in the ways of the tides,

The caprice of wind and wave

That yield the herring to the sea-children.


Growing older in the same home-spun clothes

Their fathers wore

Before these sea-children.


Fateful howls the storm in a wild winter,

Tearing the vessel from bows to stern,

Taking the lives of its own sea-children.


Widow-black clangs the church bell,

A mourning mist descending,

To mark the passing of the sea-children.


Resting in the deep,

At peace with the waters they fought,

The ageless sea-children.