THE ISLE OF PORTLAND

The Bibby Stockholm – an accommodation

barge containing asylum seekers – is moored

in Portland harbour, from where quarried limestone,

laid down in the Late Jurassic period,

has been shipped for many centuries.

‘The star-filled seas are smooth to-night

From France to England strown;

Black towers above the Portland light

The felon-quarried stone.’

Not unreasonably it was assumed,

on social media, where he was named,

that the man who was heard screaming on the barge

at 3.00 a.m. was the one who later

committed suicide. It was, in fact,

someone else’s wretched, anguished son.

‘On yonder island, not to rise,

Never to stir forth free,

Far from his folk a dead lad lies

That once was friends with me.’

Text book neo-liberal economic

theory is operating here: the market

decides who may be given a chance to live.

To escape from havoc and torture,

to cross continents and shipping lanes,

requires some money, desperation, and courage.

‘Lie you easy, dream you light,

And sleep you fast for aye;

And luckier may you find the night

Than ever you found the day.’

Renowned for being both durable

and workable by masons, Portland stone

was used in building St Pauls Cathedral

in London, and the United Nations

in Manhattan, for example. If God

were to exist he or she would have to be

totally impervious to irony.

Note: the quoted verses in italics are the three quatrains that comprise A.E. Housman’s THE ISLE OF PORTLAND, number LIX in his A SHROPSHIRE LAD sequence.