I Left You On the Dock

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Hello Reader,

Got charity towards your youthful years?

I’m still trying to free up time for fiction writing, still finding things like a scrap of poetry I put away in a drawer… with no thought to ever come back and polish it, for you should never polish a love letter, and that’s what this is—a love-poem to vanished youth. 

I’ve got nothing against shiny cruise ships or expensive passenger jets, but back in my day you could book passage on a humble old freighter. I suppose you still can.

I Left You on the Dock

I left you on the dock in a hard rain.

There should have been a western glow for you,

a sunset beckoning the exotic east.

You would wear a kimono in a summer fair carrying a candle.

But in a pelting rain the horizon was so close.

I couldn’t see beyond a curtain of grey,

just as my days would all be cloudy now.

My hands were cold, my heart was slack.

I was not setting you free but delivering you to a contract.

We embraced through our heavy coats

without warming our hearts. Not really.

In the background figures moved,

readying lines and hatches and preparing to ship off,

with you moving to your dreams, I knew, but mine were sodden.

At least you wrote to me.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, so they say.

I could use all the fondness I could get.

No place in me for pride.

You know I went straight to the greyhound station

to go off 

to crawl into my cabin.

I went on hikes and had a life and thought of you.

At least you wrote to me.

We had met upon the great divide.

Your smile was like spring drying out winter.

Of all us tree planters you liked me best.

We shared the off-trail hot springs.

We danced in the Nelson streets.

I treasure that day I kept you in my cabin

all to ourselves.

And now it’s high summer and I’ve been saving all my money.

And you’ve met a Korean boy,

a stranger to Japan like yourself.

At least you wrote to me.

Sean Crawford

Calgary

2019

Footnote for anime fans: If you want to sell me a certain old resin figurine of Kuniko in her old high school sailor shirt, high boots and huge smile, holding up her big boomerang, then I will drive to your town to buy it from you.