Moderate or Good

And now, the heartbeat forecast,
issued for everyone still listening.

General synopsis:
modern life, deepening rapidly.
Old signals, fading slowly.
Memory expected by midnight tonight.

One-nine-eight on the old Long Wave,
A calm voice crossing a black North Sea.
Zero-zero-forty-eight, the whole house still,
Five-twenty by the kettle on the windowsill.

Twelve-oh-one through the working day,
Seventeen-fifty-four as the light drained away.
Four little anchors in a schedule of noise,
No jingle, no spin, just a measured voice.

Warnings first, then synopsis,
A numbered low moving into the darkness.
Clockwise, area by area, clean:
Direction, force, weather, visibility.

Three-fifty words, more after midnight,
Drawing half an ocean without showing a sight.
The sea could turn violent, the grammar stayed mild,
A sleeping nation listening like a child.

Strings came sailing by and the room held tight,
Pressure moving east through the folds of the night.
Every pause was a harbour, each name was a light,
Then the forecast found its rhythm on the dial.

Viking, North Utsire, South Utsire,
Southwesterly, four or five.
Forties, Cromarty, Forth and Tyne,
Rain later, moderate or good tonight.

Dogger, Fisher, German Bight,
Long Wave breathing through the night.
Humber, Thames, Dover, Wight,
Daily heartbeat, steady on the dial.

Moderate or good,
Occasionally poor.
Moderate or good,
Then the weather turns once more.

Forth came sixth, though it sounded like four,
Sole kept a bank with no money on shore.
Wight met Bight in the rhyme of the night,
Tyne marked the water, time marked the light.

Backing meant left and veering meant right,
Pressure falling slowly through the middle of the night.
Imminent: six. Soon: six to twelve.
Later put tomorrow on the radio shelf.

A high could hold steady, a low could deepen,
Fog patches forming while the whole house was sleeping.
The forecast never promised the storm would cease,
It simply gave the danger shape and sequence.

Poor becoming moderate was hope without hype,
A small change of weather in a sentence typed.
No panic in the vowels when the force reached ten,
Just rain, then showers, becoming good again.

Names like small islands rising out of the hiss,
Places most listeners would never witness.
Still each one returned at its appointed time,
Till geography itself became rhythm and rhyme.

Viking, North Utsire, South Utsire,
Southwesterly, four or five.
Forties, Cromarty, Forth and Tyne,
Rain later, moderate or good tonight.

Dogger, Fisher, German Bight,
Long Wave breathing through the night.
Humber, Thames, Dover, Wight,
Daily heartbeat, steady on the dial.

Portland. Plymouth. Biscay.

Rain at times.
Visibility poor.
Becoming good later.

Trafalgar. FitzRoy. Sole and Lundy.

Pressure rising slowly.
Still rising.
Rising more slowly.

Fastnet. Irish Sea. Shannon.

Backing, then veering,
Four or five,
Occasionally six.

Rockall. Malin. Hebrides. Bailey.

A low in the west,
Deepening rapidly,
But the voice remains steady.

Fair Isle. Faeroes. Southeast Iceland.

Rain, then showers.
Moderate or good.
Occasionally poor.

Heaney heard music in the warning voice,
Duffy heard prayer where the sleepless found poise.
Blur took a low and made melancholy sing,
Radiohead got lost at the edge of the ring.

Folk turned forecasts into songs from the shore,
Film and choir found new meanings once more.
Useful words, repeated long enough,
Gather more weight than the facts they carry up.

First information, then ritual, then art,
Thirty-one names learned by somebody’s heart.
It circled the islands, sober and clear,
And made the wider world feel near.

Somewhere, a trawler was climbing a swell.
Somewhere, a lighthouse was ringing its bell.
Somewhere, an insomniac lay in the dark,
Following a low from Biscay to Rockall.

The reader did not know them.
They did not know the reader.
Still, every night,
They kept the weather together.

Now one-nine-eight is an empty address,
No warm AM weather in the radio hiss.
The forecast still speaks, but the carrier is gone,
Digital daylight where the dusk used to hum.

The new sound is clearer, but something slipped through:
The static was surf and the distance felt true.
The fading and flutter made the coastline breathe,
An ocean of interference underneath.

Roof after rooftop, harbour and home,
One patient frequency carried the tone.
Fishermen, kitchens, night workers and cars,
Held in one circle beneath the same stars.

So this is no eulogy, no final goodbye,
The names still go round and the forecasts still fly.
But part of our heartbeat went quiet that night,
When Long Wave vanished beyond German Bight.

Viking, North Utsire, South Utsire,
Southwesterly, four or five.
Forties, Cromarty, Forth and Tyne,
Rain later, moderate or good tonight.

Dogger, Fisher, German Bight,
Long Wave breathing through the night.
Humber, Thames, Dover, Wight,
Daily heartbeat, steady on the dial.

Viking, North Utsire, South Utsire,
Voices carrying, coast to coast.
Forties, Cromarty, Forth and Tyne,
The signal fades, the rhythm survives.

Dogger, Fisher, German Bight,
Old words glowing in the night.
Moderate or good, visibility clear,
The wave is gone, but the forecast is here.

General synopsis:

Long Wave,
falling slowly,
losing its identity.

Memories in all areas.

Visibility moderate,
occasionally poor,
becoming good.

And that completes
the Shipping Bulletin.