Snap the Line Tight
(Vic Bell)
I've got a halibut boat, the openin' is over
The fish just weren't biting, our catch is way down
We're salvagers now, there's logs that are waiting
We pull them off shore and sell them in town, and we'll
Snap the line tight, haul them away
Snap the line tight, she's rockin', she's free
Snap the line tight, haul them away
Slide them off into the sea
She's a six-foot thick hemlock half-sunken in sand
Gotta dig out a hole for to pass the line through
Wrap her around and when she's tied and ready
Then stand clear away while you signal the crew to
And it's thirty-six hours we've been without sleep
Got to boom them by dawn if we're makin' this tide
It's a five hour haul, with a nor'wester blowin'
And a starboard-side swell for a bloody rough ride, so
And our back-decks a mess of anchours and peavies,
All slidin' and tangled in cables and chain
We're in the middle with pike poles and chokers
To wrap the logs tight so they're not lost again, and we
How many thousands of acres of forest
Lie scattered and heaped by the wind and the tide?
The companies cut them and boomed them and lost them,
Then left them to rot where they lie, but we
AJS
oct97
Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!