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MARK WARD

Meridians 

I’m back on the night watch. At anchor, laying
off the Cumbrian coast: the sea benign,
unbroken – a slab; black polished marble,
indistinguishable from the sky
in the west: butting the brooding cloaked mass
of Black Coombe; its solitary house light,
now the only sign of habitation
in the all-enveloping darkness. 

Like I’m the only person alive in
this whole universe. Floating on a sack
of amniotic fluid, nurturing,
life-giving, reassuring: there’s no fear,
no aching longing or loneliness.
A rower moves forward while looking back.
You get over it, it’s the way of things;
A time for getting to know yourself, 

revisit the past; find that inner you
Especially now: England divided,
time of uncertainty; borders through the
Union where there aren’t any in me.
Jane McCullum from County Antrim,
Elizabeth McCaskill from Dumfries.
Forebears who surrendered their Gaelic
names at the altars of English churches.

Became Ward’s, Wilson’s, Birtwistle’s, Sumner’s.
Generations of musicians, artists.
With me now in my daughter’s songs, my dad’s
piano: the poems I choose to write.
And this boat, with its sturdy English hull,
its light, flexing oars of Scottish spruce.
its holding anchor and iron keel from
the foundries of Wales and Northern Ireland.
I named her Union. It seemed fitting.
I drew up the anchor and headed West.
A crested breaking wave opened a gash
in the distance. A point of reference
where there wasn’t any. In the darkest part
of night, I was joined by a flotilla.
Cutty Sark, Titanic, Lusitania,
Hermes, Invincible, the Ark Royal.

Glistening with fresh paint, their bows tacky
with champagne, the crews in high spirits,
the tragedies not yet unfolded. From
Barrow, the Clyde, Belfast, Birkenhead.
Vickers, Harland & Wolff, John Brown’s, Cammell Laird.
Heading up a proud maritime nation.
The ghosts of sailors past appeared about me.
Merchants, privateers, fishers, mendicants.
Perished mariners rose fish-eyed, gaping
wide mouthed beneath the sea’s surface. 

The mutineer Fletcher Christian from
Whitehaven, is remorseful and wants
to come home. George Washington from Warton
misses Lancashire. His wooden teeth clack
like a metronome in time to the oars.
John Paul Jones’ American invasion
has come to nothing. He has no regrets.
Never a respecter of borders he’s
more than happy to run this one with me.
Saint Columba, the crew of Red Falcon,
accidental overboards, cleared Scots,
famine driven Irish. All the former
passengers of this sea-road between isles.
At the Isle of Man, we’re joined by the witch,
rolled down the hill in a large spiked barrel.
She floats like a sieve under the surface.
At sunrise my companions depart.
I’m alone once more. The glassy stillness
of the night replaced by a pale sky and
grey sea with short, violent, stabbing waves.
I’m entering the North Channel, the stretch
of water between Scotland and Ireland.
This is no place for doubters. A swollen
deep trench, with the Atlantic bearing down. 

At midday I reach my journey’s end.
54˚40’ North – 5˚10’ West.
The border: yet no bell tolls, no fog-horn
sounds, no marker heaves in the restless sea.
Latitude and Longitude: timelines, date-
lines. Symbolic, but meaningless out here
where one side of the meridian is
indistinguishable from the other.
Like my own bloodlines: English, Celtic.
Engineers, sailors, minstrels, troubadours.
Restless itinerants, hopeless romantics,
exemplary professionals, good drinkers.
This sea that holds our shared past will define
our future. History, friendships, family –
connections; the general to-ing and fro-ing.
And what cartographer could draw that line? 

 

Mad Meg - Breugel