“where the storm-clouds swallow,
And the sound of your oar-blades, falling hollow”
The fishermen are all at sea, gone
for days where they keep a home
on the wild white waters.
Leaving with eyes fixed
a last tug of land - house, garden
and waving wives distant as dots.
Only laundered shirts on lines
and bright wool jumpers still gesticulate
gaily coloured, like Tibetan flags, prayers
carried fresh and salty in an offshore wind
drying tears and washing.
Grace is hosting open link night and since I missed Melissa’s Poetics prompt on Tuesday I’m linking here instead, whereby our poetry is ekphrastic and inspired by a choice of Egon Schiele landscapes. This is his ‘Houses with Laundry (Suburb II) (1914’). Title and epigraph from Rudyard Kipling’s “Harp song of the Dane women”
PoetryPix 
A gorgeous ekphrastic poem, Laura! ❤️❤️ The image of “drying tears and washing,” tugs at my heart.. sigh!
many thanks Sanaa – the sea does this to me!
This piece is so vivid, Laura 👍
thank you – the vividness of Schiele
You’re most welcome ☺️
This is so timely after seeing those Tibet floods. Prayers for those Tibetan flags.
indeed Grace – written before the floods
Love what you did with this picture, the well known parting in a new light.
An evocative poem, Laura, deeply moving and timely. I love the alliterative phrase ‘wild white waters’, the ‘last tug of land’, and the simile ‘gesticulating like Tibetan flags, prayers carried fresh and salty in an offshore wind’.