Longing Lang and Ferdinand

In  times where ships carried silk & spices from the east to the rich west.

When Portugal , Holland , Spain built empires beyond the mighty Atlantic. South of China was pirate bay. Where many small fleets of ships operated .

This story was common in most ports . Be it Goa, Macau , Galle or anywhere else .  Only the Characters changed. Local girls who fell for the foreign sailors, captains , officials , cooks , whatever.

Yet sailors will be sailors and they all sailed away , sooner or later.

Just pondering , after a few generations after,  wouldn't that link , still pull the descendants towards 

each other ?

Though separated by masses of saline water .

After all blood is supposed to be thicker than it . 


This is one such tale of Ferdinand : “The Journey” in Portugal and Longing Lang “ The longing wave” , stuck somewhere in an isle amidst the south china sea

Oh  Ferdinand

The aged waves, you face

about  the fleets they have dispatched ,

 and what they brought ashore

centuries ago

You not know

In this sluggish town of  Lagos

the  gust seem to effervescent one’s thoughts

and unchain them

and give them flight so

(more than the pungent shots of coffee from the café down the road)

when you sit on the boulder and gaze in to the dusk

you once told me

you  felt it

a something

a  bond

Do you now  fathom what your grandfather said ?

his rudimentary sketches

 of vessels

their names and the dates they passed

When he sat amidst the  old seagulls

he said,

 it  makes him content

Oh Ferdinand

I hear you

when you say

his shadow is still there  amidst sea stained  bedrock

beyond the stretch

where old sailor bones grow in to

lovely daffodils

Ferdinand , you tell again that you felt something

But do you know

In a little isle lost in the south china sea

amidst the  ruined junks  facing the silky

slow surf

there is a girl

gazing at the autumn red

Longing Lang,

Her name

The longing wave

She sits  musing about her mothers ‘s tale

Pirate girl and a sailor’s love

is a famous story

in every port

with only names changed

while silk covered a weeping  heart

hull of the old ship

carried the memories across

kept  at bay beyond  the  fetid quay

lest ,  it causes too much ache

too much mayhem

yet

it was too much for the reef to contain

 when the night is black ,

they  slowly  in  crept

Lang

Wondered

Gasped ,

Longed

while tears ran the line of her face

across the sky pulled golden threads  

 and the waft whiffed  afar

sighs of despair

 Oh Ferdinand 

I tell you

 the whisper  is the wind

when you turned

The brush of the  silk shawl

On your nape

That is the something

you felt