Sir, Do You Know The Sea? (Ballade) Poem by Gert Strydom

(after Uys Krige)

Here is some red-roman, barracouta and codfish.
Your wife will love it when the fish is soft
and she eats it from her fingers,
I will tell you how to fry the fish perfectly.

Chorus:
Sir, you do complain about the price of the fish,
do not know how merciless the sea is,
how storms do rise suddenly out of the nought,
that when you are still sleeping we do sail out in the darkness.

Look at this, boat, this fishing vessel
the stormy sea does throw you out of it,
it's a thing that braves the waves
which one great wave can smash down to the seabed.

Sir, you do see the mirror smooth surface
and to you the sea seems tamed by technology and meek
but when the great storms roar, gigantic waves crush,
they can snap a fisherman, a boat and a ship.

Sir, the savage stormy wind is a wild unpredictable thing
that in rage does drive and blow waves, make boats jump up and down
and when you are caught in bad weather then you do pray hour after hour
that anyone and God do come to rescue in this wasted water.

My best friend, my own brother is away into the depths,
many times I have reflected over my profession
but the sea has an own magic and it's the only work that I do know
and I cannot fabricate the great danger to you.

Do you see that woman with the baby there on the pier?
Christmas, when you are jolly and do celebrate the New Year
she will still be waiting on her husband to come back
and she is already right there from first light

but for her there will never again come joy and tranquillity
as eternally she will wait upon him day after day,
do keep hoping and trusting, do not want to listen to anyone,
where her mother and father is taking care of the two of them in their old age.

[Reference: "Ken jy die see..." (Do you know the sea...)by Uys Krige.]