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.
By David Selzer