There go three more of them past us, so effortlessly outpacing us,
with a few flaps of their broad black-tipped white wings
between each long easy glide northward.
Now and again there is a big gathering,
a chance for a feast maybe where dolphins harry
the unfortunate sardines into obliviousness
of patrolling airborne danger.

It was the same in the autumn heading south,
only then more sported the mottled plumage of youth,
having yet to put on the crisp black and white of maturity.
Smartly, with knowledge implanted mysteriously on some northern rock,
they took their turn eastward at Cabo Sao Vicente.
In the dry and kindly air, many still pressed on
through the narrow Strait where loomed the arid mountains of Africa
and southern Spain, even past the gleaming Sierra Nevada.

Yet there came the point of return. What had they found,
or failed to find, down there in the warm Mediterranean?
What draws them back, across the wide watery waste of Biscay,
to some ancestral rock, shrouded in mist so frequently,
blasted and wasted by the chill wet wind?
Do herring and mackerel taste better than sardine?
Are there no more kindly rocks to roost upon
than the gaunt grey Skellig and its kind?
They do not care, they must return at last in their thousands
to gather and to mate and rear their young
where the vibrant air rings with the calls of their tribe.

Indeed why should they care, riding the stormy sea so easily?
When great waves rear up their snarling crests,
they merely laugh and play on the lifted air.
It is not so with humble sailors, who struggle to survive here,
where we have fished and traded and raided and prayed for millenia.
I call it the Gannets’ Way, the special stretch of salty water
that is their heartland, from north of Scotland to south of Spain.
I count myself an interloper here, where only a few fools go,
though sometimes to fix the fate of the grand and great.
Mark, it was here men found the strength to sail round the globe.

What would Europe be, without this highway of the sea?
Celts, Vikings, Romans, Moors, Saints sailed it;
Ciaran of Clear went south to hear the kindly news of Christ,
and took it north again where James had thought the world ended.
Pilgrims came to great Campostella, while many a Cape or Bay
bears the name of a battle, and strongholds line the shore.
Kinsale, Quiberon, Cadiz, Trafalgar; opposing stories
of patriots or upstart brigands drift upon the wind.
Do our ears thrill to hear of Driscoll or Drake, Nelson or Napoleon?
Or shall we just bestow a passing curious look
upon the marks and memories of mighty deeds,
like that gannet overflying my boat?
A curious sight no doubt, employing so much ingenuity, just to cross the sea!
Even thus and thus, I love to range the Gannets’ Way, casting off rivalry
like them that disdain the squabbling of the scavenging gulls.

Yet when with heart oppressed, a weary watchman on a dark unfriendly sea,
I see a star shine brightly through the clouds,
then must I name it for the Queen of Heaven.
With Geoffrey Chaucer, I hear in the sea-bells the sound of a perpetual Angelus;
I hear the echo of music more melodious still,
wherein all may find their voice and live in harmony,
riding the stormy waves like gannets,
skimming them with their wing-tips, black for a certain stern discipline,
but in the main, radiant white for grace-filled freedom.

Joe Aston,
Off Oporto, April, 2008.