Revenant

This week's title REVENANT, meaning someone who returns - from exile or from the dead. I expect that I've often been a revenant . Born in London, taken to Aberdeen ( aged 5 ) to a new culture, a new language ! Then aged 23 I moved to Oxfordshire, leaving behind an idyllic life in the Cairngorm mountains, where I revelled in the outdoor life and the social life of the school I worked in. Once again an alien culture - and this time I really felt like an exile. Twenty years later, with a new husband I returned to the north of Scotland, the place I'd longed to return to. We settled in well, perhaps my husband feeling slightly exiled this time, coming from Oxford ? It seemed that I was settled and preparing for retirement.....then following heart attacks my husband expressed a wish to come to Cleveleys (we'd stopped there in our motorhome on one of our many trips north to south... I spent my life travelling up and down ! ) and so it was that we moved here. So once again I am a revenant. With age, however I've become more resigned to my position and hope that I spend my days here - - - who knows ?
Last year when I was involved with the " Walking On Wyre" project  at Fleetwood I came home and penned this...

           The Spectre

I met a ghostly vision by the jetty
Don't you know ?
Who asked me when the sailors came ashore
Did I know
What tide they came in on and at what time of day ?
Petrified I whispered ,"Go away, go away "

Walking to the lighthouse near the shore,
You should know,
I met up with this spectre once again
I'll have you know.
He frightened me near to death this time
By asking once again -in rhyme !

"What time does the Falcon berth,
Where does she dock?"
Chortling in eerie mirth,
"You know she hit a rock !
Down she went, way down deep..
Drowned beneath the sea
All my mates they be asleep -
All that is 'cept me.
I walk this jetty and the light
Waiting for my sailor mates,
All the day and all the night
Not aknowing of their fates"

I couldn't give him any answers
I didn't know, I didn't know.
So if you spot a ghostly figure by the jetty,
You ought to know
He'll ask you all these frightful things,
Whilst to your sleeve he stubbornly clings.

So you set off and try to find what happened to his mates-
He needs to know, he needs to know.
Remember all the facts and dates and
Let him know, please let him know !


Kath Curtiss