07 March 2010

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

1 comment:

  1. Am sure its a nice write-up,though its too much for me:-)

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