Happy New Year!

To all seafarers the world over...
standing watch on this wintry night
shivering in the cold on deck
lashed by spray & frostbite...
or repairing or cleaning or cooking
or handling cargo at some Godforsaken port...
hands numb with cold or black with grease..
or waiting at the dock for a ferry boat...
Thinking of family 'n' loved ones
thinking of a place called home...
wondering what they're doing so far away...
why they are so alone
Their little ones perhaps beckon them
Crying to their mothers....
Their wives 'n' lovers await them
And their sisters & brothers........
Are you off Cape Of Good Hope?
Or rounding Cape Horn?
I don't know where you're bound, brothers
But I know where you are coming from...
I know how it feels, my friends
The pain and the solitude
To herald in the new year
without your loved ones around you.
"All you need is love...
Love is all you need."
Love from your families 'n'friends...
your shipmates, your colleagues...
At the stroke of a freezing midnight
somebody somewhere singing 'Auld Lang Syne'
I wish you a joyful new year
and raise a glass of wine.
Happy New Year!
hic!
(c) Bravo Charlie 2008