Manly Ferry

Manly Ferry

Too frail to fly, I may not see again

The harbour that I crossed on the South Steyne

When I was still in short pants. All the boys

Would gather at the rail that ran around

The open engine-room. The oil, the noise

Of rocking beams and plunging rods: it beat

Even the view out from the hurdling deck

Into the ocean. The machinery

Was so alive, so beautiful, so neat.

Years later the old ferries disappeared,

Except for the South Steyne, which looked intact

Where she was parked at Pyrmont, though a fire

Had gutted her. I loved her two-faced grace:

Twin funnels, and each end of her a prow,

She sailed into a mirror and back out,

Even while dead inside and standing still:

Her livery of green and gold wore well

Through years of weather as she went nowhere

Except on that long voyage in my mind

Where complicated workings clicked and throbbed

And everything moved forward at full strength.

And then, while I was elsewhere, she was gone:

And now I, too, await my vanishing,

Which, unlike hers, will be for good. She went

Away to be refitted. In her new

Career as a floating restaurant

She seems set for as long as oysters grow

With chilled white Cloudy Bay to wash them down:

A brilliant inner city ornament.

But it is better to be always there

Than out of it, and just a fading name?

For me, her life was when the engine turned.

Soon now my path across the swell will end.

If I can’t work, let me be broken up.

Clive James