My Ancestor the Captain's Ghost in Adelaide

(Note the trip was partly to check out the home of Australian submarine building at Osborne (up from Semaphore) Adelaide. And a non-poetic security aspect)

Two sunny days drive

Good sense denied

Stay awake

Stay alive

Long, scrubby road

Medication adjusted

Sleep interrupted

Navigation corrupted

Inland drought a Lawson-esque story

A sad sight Narrander[y] 

Town centre’s dead

Grey shops long closed

Nary McDonalds nor KFC colour exposed

South Australia confronts

Drought in Barossa, 11mm rain in 4 months

A weekend escape

Wine tastings le grape

Ten days on Adelaide’s Semaphore shore

Leads to my ancestors' door

Sun dancing on sea

Nostalgia for free

A plaque by the statues

carries the accolade

To those gallant sea-captains

who visited Adelaide

List of sea-captains on plague starts: “Capt. William Begg”

Begg is/was my great-great Grandfather,

Dour Scot of warm heart

His 2 legs in a storm broke apart
But he walked on canes still
On slippery docks and uphill

From Glasgow to Adelaide, he sailed 1855

Then settled in Adelaide 1870s alive

Harbour Master of Port Adelaide, before dying 1889

With his Ghost I communed with a glass o’wine.

Of my ancestors 7/8ths Protty Iro-Scots watch out!

Were born in Adelaide, rarely devout.

And 1/8th? A Jewish Grandmother, an outsider

Her existence suppressed. Memories denied her.

Adelaide's shipbuilding din.

Would take me too far from my kin.

So I blissfully return to my humble home

Where whales fly and wombats roam

A place of optimism, warmth and friendship for free

Where I commune with ghost Captain’s love of the sea.

Pete