By following the cat to the cradling shadows
the Captain had found me in the hull
rolling the ship’s pet to sleep, folding its ears.
He kept his stowaways, fed us routine, purpose:
We were dripping echoes of his youth.
The Endurance smacked the water
for months and I filled a shivery diary
about the cold and the hounds and the quiet men.
I studied how the position of the sun
spoils photographs, scorns navigation. How it lights
thoughts of grey chapels in slate valleys.
Others hated leaving the ship that night,
couldn’t watch their home snap and sink below packed ice
but I was soothed by our lonely landscape.
We fought nature’s silences with stories, filled empty
spaces with football pitches and terraces of tents.
Some waited to be found, I explored
New whites that bordered the emptiness,
discovered how to stew a dog, feed it
to another. Savoured hanging heavy clothes
in the hopeful chill. Learnt how to hide
my limp from the surgeon’s suspicions
by stepping forward first. Always.
Before the panic of flagwavers and photographers
at the quay I shuffled numbly
from the rescue ship. Desperate not to reveal
how much I’d given to the snow. But, in the stark room
the Boss led me to, he made me sit and unwrap
my boots. I surrendered the raw black joints.
He knew the feet would be parted from me,
but that I would not drift from the sea.
I lean on the balustrade each morning,
watch orange seep from the sky
and hear wild noises carried on water.
glynfedwards 