A poem about going crabbing with my father, Ronnie. I'm glad he had read the first version which I sent him last summer (2014), when he went crabbing for the last time, at the age of 90. Ringabella is just along the coast from Currabinny in Cork Harbour, where I grew up in the 60s.
Crabbing
We head out in
the clinker built punt
salt and dirt and streaks
of rotten wood
trapped in its layers
of varnish.
The seagull engine
putters out its beat -
a staccato morse
code message
of our journey
out to sea.
It takes an hour
to make it
round the headland.
Open sea
stretching south
to Spain and Africa,
Antarctica beyond.
We hug the coast
to find the way
to find the place
we know
as Ringabella bay.
A swell surges
us onto a sea
of thick ribbony
weed breaking
through the surface
in a mass of loops
and strips and arcs
of glistening brown
a life-like
feeling to its
heaving rhythm
with the waves
We clamber out
on barnacle
encrusted rocks
and lodge an anchor
in the crevice
of a channel
grooved into the rock
The boat now
safely linked by
metal chain
from sea to land
and land to sea.
In ancient holes
we search for crabs
that ever will return.
A bladdered frond
of seaweed
swept aside
wafts its slow way back
but not before
a rusted red-brown crab
through watery lens is seen.
A male. Great black pincer
folded in along its shell.
With iron hook, an elongated ‘s’
I try to snag him under claw
Fierce rattle of retreat
and battle in the hole
but then I feel
his grip upon the hook
and slowly haul him out
shell scraping
on the jagged rock.
“A big one. Watch out!
Could break your thumb.”
My father says.
Now, the female
deeper in the hole
(the male no longer
guarding her)
smaller, plumper
better flesh inside.
Homeward bound
we pass the lighthouse
Weavers Point, the Perch, the Can.
Twelve crabs piled on
a seaweed bed
strewn across
the bottom of the boat.
They froth and bubble
in the choking air
a childish sight
amongst their
powerful claws.
© Alison Hackett, September 2015
We head out in
the clinker built punt
salt and dirt and streaks
of rotten wood
trapped in its layers
of varnish.
The seagull engine
putters out its beat -
a staccato morse
code message
of our journey
out to sea.
It takes an hour
to make it
round the headland.
Open sea
stretching south
to Spain and Africa,
Antarctica beyond.
We hug the coast
to find the way
to find the place
we know
as Ringabella bay.
A swell surges
us onto a sea
of thick ribbony
weed breaking
through the surface
in a mass of loops
and strips and arcs
of glistening brown
a life-like
feeling to its
heaving rhythm
with the waves
We clamber out
on barnacle
encrusted rocks
and lodge an anchor
in the crevice
of a channel
grooved into the rock
The boat now
safely linked by
metal chain
from sea to land
and land to sea.
In ancient holes
we search for crabs
that ever will return.
A bladdered frond
of seaweed
swept aside
wafts its slow way back
but not before
a rusted red-brown crab
through watery lens is seen.
A male. Great black pincer
folded in along its shell.
With iron hook, an elongated ‘s’
I try to snag him under claw
Fierce rattle of retreat
and battle in the hole
but then I feel
his grip upon the hook
and slowly haul him out
shell scraping
on the jagged rock.
“A big one. Watch out!
Could break your thumb.”
My father says.
Now, the female
deeper in the hole
(the male no longer
guarding her)
smaller, plumper
better flesh inside.
Homeward bound
we pass the lighthouse
Weavers Point, the Perch, the Can.
Twelve crabs piled on
a seaweed bed
strewn across
the bottom of the boat.
They froth and bubble
in the choking air
a childish sight
amongst their
powerful claws.
© Alison Hackett, September 2015
Ronnie with his grandson in the "clinker built punt."
Ronnie preparing crabs (bought not caught!) in the Scilly Isles in 2013.