Instruction In Knots

The simple ones came first,
the hitch, half-hitch, clove hitch
round turn and two half-hitches,
fisherman's bend, reef knot,
slip-knot, figure-of-eight .

The instruction grew to bowlines -
make a rabbit hole at the foot
of a tree. The rabbit comes out
the hole, run around the tree,
back down the hole.
It w as easy. Gramp'd shown me this,
I copied the dance
of his hawser fingers
til it came to me blindfold,
behind my back, one handed.
Too easy.
My mother stitched the red star
on my blue serge top.

Deep they took us in, tearing
apart the rope to be joined again,
the sleek strands folding around
each other in a deep embrace.
We giggled as we le a rnt
the sheepshank, dog's cock and bishop's mitre .
T he turk's head swing and smack
against a black shiny boot
slipping over dark-green non-slip decks.

It became something else
with the hurling wind
and my hands buried deep
in the grease and the gunge ,
t he bosun and me grappling
with a wire hawser in a vice ,
gloved hands digging a spike
through the strands
til the oiled hemp core
was clear to the fresh salt.
W e untangled the end
and bent it back round
t il the stiff strands
came to meet their cold,
smooth mates,

til we'd built a noose
to be strung with a heaving-line
and the workaday complexity
and weight of a monkey's fist.

The seamen coil the heaving line
in two ha'ves, one to each hand
and heave the lead-line a shore
to waiting wharfies hands
who'd pull the line and then the hawser down
and catch it to the bollard.
The tension winch'd haul it tight.
We'd let it go to suck and slack
to the swell and drop