Light a Candle - See Me Home

She stood with her man by the quayside
As he made to be ready for sea:
And the diesel thud strained at the mud -
Pulling on the line to be free.

She waved as he ran for the distance
Away to the rim of the sky:
But the shadows sang clear of a far-flung fear
For her fisherman lover’s goodbye.

She sighed as she tramped up the stairway
To long lone hours in the bed,
Setting out a light within the deep night -
His candle-watch at her head.

She dreamed of her man in the starlight
Dipping in the broken tide:
With nets a-swim to their silver brim -
His harvest gathered at the side.

She feared for her man in the moonlight -
The storm raging under her door:
And the shivering flame caught at his name,
Tossed like foam on the shore.

Now as she stood at the sea strand -
The mischief wind in her hair,
She stared at the night for dawn’s first light
To find some shadow of him there.

Then, at the rim of the ocean,
She saw him run for the lee:
Under a sky like a tiger’s eye -
Skimming on a saffron sea.

She laughed as he came on the stormlight -
Driving across the bay:
Now she could hear, as his boat drew near,
A mighty shout on the spray.

Over the bows he caught her -
His hands as strong as time:
Then swinging away to the amber day,
They fled, on his sailor’s rime.

He and his boat were never found -
Never a trace of she:
But under the eye of a tiger sky
They skim on a saffron sea.