Even by day the port hides

its toothy face from the city,

 

it is impossible to describe

for it is never seen to us,

 

only to stevedores, sailors

and backseated children

 

strobe-glimpsing it, southbound

through the balustraded bridge.

 

I know it only by sound

and by sound only at night,

 

for it is muffled by the hustle

of the day and of the traffic,

 

and the night sounds are those

of my father’s Glasgow.

 

This night, there is a fog

a dense mass, white-aglow

 

curled uncanny, at the hillfoot

like a great white dog.

 

From its belly come the growls

of doubled diesel trains,

 

Chinese toys ride squeaking rails

to Calgary, Regina, Thunder Bay,

 

the clank of humpshunted grain

its malty wind reeking of the prairie.

 

The fog is a loudhailer, it

shouts in many tongues,

 

longshoremen’s curses hang fresh

on its wet breath,

 

it brings the yankbuzz of crane arms

jibbing out over bulkers, containerships,

 

the turn of their great propellers,

the chant of turbine rooms,

 

the bleeps of giant forklift trucks

(that as yellow beetles scuttle

in the high strobed-child’s eye.)

 

The port never sleeps, but sings

rich lullabies through opened panes

to the city at its back.