Sable Island 

  
Drifting there out in the ocean 
a golden arc on gleaming water,
lies the lonely Sable Island,
home to ghosts and wild horses.

Inch by silent inch, it slithers,
creeping ever eastward,
above the hidden cache down in
the Graveyard of the Atlantic.

It lies in swirling currents
cloaked by murky fog, and hounded
by ferocious North Atlantic storms,
catching unsuspecting prey like flies.

Listen to the echoed moans
that drift in off the waves
from the ships that dot the ocean floor
and sailors lost beneath the sea.

They whistle in the wind
circling ‘round the battered relics
of abandoned rescue stations
buried to their rooftops in the sand.

On the west there is the Mary Ann, 
she sank in eighteen fifty-two,
further north the Emma, and between
there are several hundred more.

On the east there lies the Alma,
Isabella, the Eagle, and the Gale
just to name a chosen few,
for there are too many ships to name 

Along its shores and shoals
three hundred fifty and more they say.
Most recently the Merrimac 
went down in 1999.

Though the rescuers have left 
their island home; the lighthouses 
no longer need a man; 
the sexton is replaced by modern tools,

Above the anchor of the marram 
on the ever shifting sands
hoof beats still are heard along the shores 
of this tiny island on the move.





                        sept 2003

Pictures from "Sable Island:A Story of Survival"
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