Fairfield Crane

I was born in the shadow of a fairfield crane

when the blast of a freighter's horn was the very first sound that reached my ear

on the morning I was bornas I lay and I listened to the shipyard sound coming out of the great unknown

and was sung to sleep by the mother tongue that was to be my own

and when I grew to be one year old I heard the siren's scream

as the city watched in the blacked out night

a wandering search light's beam

and when at last I awoke and rose to my first day of peace

for I'd learned that the battle to stay alive

was never going to sea