Alan Langston

With love we remember. 

Poem written by Richard Langston: 

On The Blue Wharf 
(A J Langston 1928 - 2007) 

Our father is a ship 
sailing in rough seas, 
the hospital floor is a swaying deck, 
he lists with pills. 

He remembers rounding 
Cape Horn 
on a troop ship when there was War, 
a gangly kid 
in a fire-proof bunk. 

The death-spikes of the floating mines. 

He wishes now 
for a ship's skin of iron 
and slaps at flies 
he imagines on his arms. 

That's the heat of Egypt 
in a dream from which 
he is roused in his hospital bed 
60 years later. 

Our father 
in the mountainous seas, 
down the other side and then home 
for good. 

For a girl ashore--- 
tiller, compass, heart. 

Our father is a ship 
in rough seas 
and all hands 
all hands on land 
must let him slip away. 

Our father is a lone boat 
sailing a white sail 
a lone sailor 
far from any shore.