The Pier of DreamsA Poem by David Lewis PagetElijah worked at the further end Of the Port McDonald pier, His job was simply to keep the light Bright burning through the year, All he’d see were the seagulls who Would swoop and dive in the spray, As the sea beat up on the jetty piles On a cold, dark winter’s day.
His mother had died of a broken heart Long after his father fled, Had loosed the chains of his fatherhood For a life on the sea instead, They’d put him into an orphanage Where he learned to abide the rod, And found that his supplications and His prayers fell short of God.
The universe was an empty space, A vast, unseeing sky, There wasn’t a presence watching him As they’d said, in the days gone by, He ached for a revelation that Would show he was not alone, A single soul in the firmament In front of an empty throne.
He’d never managed to make a friend In the long, sad years of life, And women, though they avoided him He longed for a sweet young wife, His isolation was made complete When he walked back to his room, After a night on the lonely pier In the early morning gloom.
One night a waif from the city streets Sought shelter from the storm, Huddled against the cabin wall Where he sat, both safe and warm, He heard her shuffle and took her in And gave her tea from the urn, And fell in love with her sad, grey eyes, A waif from the city, spurned.
She came again, and again each night, They talked until the dawn, And weaved their dreams and their fantasies Of a world they’d neither known, But then one night the Inspector came, A grim, ungiving man, Who frowned, and he told the girl to leave, He said that she was banned.
She waited, shivering in the cold In the lee of the old sea wall, Til he came hurrying from his shift As the dawn spread over all, He wrapped her up in his coat, and cried He could do no more than this, But she clung on to his lonely form And she gave him his first kiss.
He took her back to his room to stay And he watched her as she slept, If she had opened her eyes that day She would see Elijah wept, ‘I won’t go back to those lonely nights,’ Was the thought that gripped his mind, To lose his midnight companion now He thought, was most unkind.
That night, he told her to meet him there At the far end of the pier, ‘Just as the clock strikes one!’ She said, ‘I’ll be there, never fear.’ He’d soaked the pier in kerosene Just twenty yards from the end, And when she arrived, he said, ‘You’ll see, They won’t part us, my friend.’
At two in the morning, up it went In a blaze of fire and smoke, The centre part of the pier ablaze As they watched it, neither spoke, A gap appeared as it all fell in Was extinguished by the sea, But the end stood tall like a sailing ship That had set the couple free.
The storm that ravaged the coast that night Kept the lifeboat on the shore, They wanted to go and rescue him, The Inspector said, ‘What for?’ While they looked out at the raging sea Made plans for the world they’d won, And when the light of the dawn approached The end of the pier had gone.
David Lewis Paget © 2014 David Lewis PagetReviews
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