Aged, decrepit premises

On the threshold of the bay

Encircled by a neighbourhood

Of caplin spawn and spray

Your empty doorway yawns at life

You knew more generous times

Salt-bulk stacked up, heads and tails

Among killicks, nets and lines

Your decomposing platform

On rinded longers made

Once held hands with hawsers

As skiffs bobbed in your shade

Your splitting table, battered now

Is bending at the knees

Where once the codfish, plenty

Were disembowelled with ease

Your hollow, vacant, gaping loft

Once echoed through the rafters

On wintry nights, while mending nets

With songs and yarns and laughter

Forsaken little fish house

You felt harmony and strife

You tallied codfish on your walls

And you tallied someone's life

 

 

“I wrote this poem in 1985 when there was only one fish house left down to the Gut.” - Marina

 

Marina is the daughter of the late Mrs. Aggie (Mooney) and Mr. John.

Branch Come Home Year

August 9-19, 2007

The Forsaken Fish House

Marina (Power) Gambin