Fairfield Crane

I was born in the shadow of a fairfield crane
when the blast of a freighter's horn was the very first sound that reached my ear
on the morning I was born

as I lay and I listened to the shipyard sound coming out of the great unknown
and was sung to sleep by the mother tongue that was to be my own
and when I grew to be one year old I heard the siren's scream
as the city watched in the blacked out night
a wandering search light's beam
and when at last I awoke and rose to my first day of peace
for I'd learned that the battle to stay alive
was never going to sea