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
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’.
Ah yes, safe harbor.
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😊🚣
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The thought of a safe harbour can mean so much more as a metaphor. Love the thought of what it might mean, but then it can just mean what it says. 🙂
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Thank you Bjorn. 😊
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All at sea it seems out here on the trail tonight. Your harbor was safe and reachable; mine was not, shrouded in chaotic fog.
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We’re facing a stormy time here with Brexit but I’m trying not to think about it.
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Perhaps you need a penny hang! I love this calm and lovely poem of being safe home.
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Thanks Toni! What’s a penny hang?
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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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Wow! That’s so interesting. I didn’t know about this. Thank you, Toni. 🙂
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Happy to oblige!
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I like the contrasting of the tone and the verbs. Well crafted!
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Thank you, Jill!
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I love your last stanza – it feels like such a tender welcome home.
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Thank you, Jo.
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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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Thanks Lill! I love to hear about far-away places and their histories.
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I love that opening couplet – started me off wondering where we were going, and then we came home!
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Thank you, Sarah. It’s how I felt driving home in the rain from Oxford yesterday – so glad to see the twinkling lights of our village! 🙂
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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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That’s how I felt yesterday on our return from Oxford – no sea but the twinkling lights of our village. 😉
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I like how this ends with hope, Kim. Even though you are afloat, the harbour lights guide you.
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I like the feeling of aloneness in your poem and the strong need to find safe harbor once more.
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Thank you, Dwight.
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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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Me too! 🙂
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SMiLes..
Thanks Kim..:)!
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A welcoming sight it is specially when one is afloat and don’t know where to go. This is also a good analogy for the safe harbor.
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Thank you, Grace.
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Love this! ❤ The image of twinkling lights as one pulls into a harbor at night is so comforting 😊 Gorgeous write! ❤
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Thank you, Sanaa! 🙂
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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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I love coming home, Anmol, it’s so comforting.
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After months sailing on literal seas or sea of torment, a safe harbor is a wonderful sight.
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Just how I felt after being away for several days – the still-green tunnel of branches that leads into our village and then the friendly lights of our local pub!
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No place like home, and that will always be so. Nice write.
Pat
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Thank you, Pat.
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What a relief to see those friendly twinkling lights! A happy ending…thanks, Kim 🙂
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That’s how I felt when I arrived home in the pouring rain on Sunday. 🙂
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Safety found in the guiding lights. Your poem creates an image of calmness.
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Thank you, Truedessa.
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Oh how beautiful. I can imagine the words you are painting.
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Thank you so much!
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You’re welcome, Kim!
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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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Thank you, Gina!
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This really is safe home; Lovely, Kim 🙂
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Than you, Jane. 😊
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🙂
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A lovely write. It flows so beautifully.
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Cheers Linda!
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“guiding me home.”
YES. That’s exactly it.
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🙂
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Beautiful poem, I can relate to this.
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Thank you, Crystal.
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I like how harbour and home feel like synonyms here. Also like that subtle use of rhyme that I did not even notice on first reading- just enough to give cohesiveness and flow. Nice one!
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Thank you!
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