Friendly Harbour

After months at sea,
I find I’m still afloat.

In the distance,
I can see
fishermen’s huts

and friendly boats
limping along
the unforgiving coast.

I see the shore,
a busy harbour
crowded with twinkling lights,

welcoming on such a night,
guiding me home.

Kim M. Russell, 24th September 2018

Image result for Whitby by Night Atkinson
Whitby by Night by John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-1893)

My response to dVerse Poets Pub It’s Quadrille Monday: Harbour

Lillian is our host for this Monday’s Quadrille and the word she has chosen is ‘harbour’.

57 thoughts on “Friendly Harbour”

      1. In Victorian England, there were places close to the docks called penny hangs. For the cost of a penny a night, a sailor newly docked and having not yet obtained his land legs could hang himself over a rope and sleep. Sailors often from spending so much time at sea became nauseous and dizzy on the land. A night on the penny hang would put him to rights. There would be about 50 -100 sailors all draped over the ropes sleeping. One would turn and start the others to rocking gently. they never fell, just slept. After a night or two, they’d be ready to go home to their wife or girlfriend and walk about on land. I used a penny hang in one of my yet unpublshied Dorian Gray poems and did a bit of research on them. You can even find a few old pics of the sailors on them.

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  7. Love this post, Kim. Here in Boston, we have Boston Light — the only lighthouse in the U.S. that is still operating with a keeper who lives there. Senator Ted Kennedy passed a bill to name it a historical treasure and maintain it as a working light house. Some thought it a frivolous bill at first — now many many people treasure this active piece of history.
    I’ve always liked the idea of twinkling lights as you pull into a harbor at night…friendly and so welcoming – exactly the balm for a weary sailor.

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  9. Hi Kim! That must be such a wonderful and comforting sight to see those lights welcoming you home after such a long time at sea. By the way, I can’t think of a worse life than bobbing around out on the ocean for months on end…such a hard one.

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  12. Cool December Eves 2015 Biloxi Casino
    Hard Rock Cafe Harbor Christmas
    Decorated Boats
    Connecting
    Harbor
    Lights of
    Colors Floating
    Love Free for all to see,,
    i was the only one Sitting on the Dock of the Bay
    everyone else was playing with one Armed Bandits
    why
    me
    hehe why just me
    i wonder Y so
    far
    awaY
    from ‘them’.. hAha.. ‘US’..;)

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  15. Oh, this welcoming sight of the land after being afloat for long is so comforting in its view and evoked emotion. It makes me feel a dull melancholy of being alone away from it all. But of course that “guiding me home” gives some hope too.
    -HA

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  21. being away at sea for a time can give us that buoyancy you described so well. my dad was a sailor, he loved to hang out in a hammock when he came home, made him feel the lull of the ocean maybe. my favourite lines were the friendly boats limping along the unforgiving coast, how they must have just wanted to hug the shoreline

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