I am from workers, fishermen, swilers

I am from workers, fishermen, swilers

I am from workers, fishermen, swilers --
my grandma's father was "Dawe Gunner"
a sharpshooter he picked off harps
from right or left

with his father's musket.
But born and bred
away
from the gritty seas
those hungry seasons-
like the Dirty Thirties
of my kinsmen
when some ate grass
under the faithless old 'Jack,
I was nursed on their ruin,

dark sweet stories…
And descending through their lines
I saw through their lenses
those eyes of dark or light complected Newfoundlanders
and restless Scots,
of the unmentionable Labrador Wives
(we do not have our Metis history to this day)
of those gentle workmen, oppressed planters and their apprentices,
churchmen bound to heartless merchants,
communists of the heart without theory,
an ancestry stretching
back
into the
guts, the coves, and holes of devon and cornwall,
into argyll's clearances,

the irish ports,
into the dream-time of the new found land's
fiddlers and swilers:
their plankerdown "Times"
the only time they could legally dream;
into the kitchen refrain of the women:
"we either laugh or cry, my son,
yes, we either laugh or cry".

and I didn't yet say
I had a fierce grandma
who solemnly told me:
"we're no
pebble
on a beach,
sure…"

By Andrew W Taylor