The Shipbuilder and his Daughter
 His blood froze in a Scottish winter. His daughter danced unknowing
 in a land of southern summers. Alone in his chair, Buttons the cat 
  
 stretched out along his thigh, it’s said he did not feel that mighty brain tide
 pound its damage. Her ‘Hi Dad’ phone-call rings unanswered in the empty flat
  
 as he lies waiting for his glacial earthen bed. Icy clay fleshed open
 by a clawing digger. Buttons, with no viable lodgings is sent to join him. 
  
 Shipbuilder mates peppered against arctic hulls sing their rivets out
 across an ancient Caledonia. Tall cranes branch out over the working river 
  
 hydraulic willows — weeping out bitter scour. Grief hails
 from a distance. It comes it floods across ten thousand miles.

Return to Journal

Lorraine Gibson is an Anthropologist, painter, and more recently a writer of poetry. She was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and has called Australia home for many decades. Lorraine holds a PhD. in Socio-cultural Anthropology from Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. Her writing is published in academic journals, magazines and books, including:  Gibson. L. 2013. ‘We Don’t Do Dots: Aboriginal Art and Culture in Wilcannia, New South Wales’. Canon Pyon: Sean Kingston Publishing.