Death of a Fisherman, Alicante, by Abigail Ardelle Zammit

Fishermen Carrying a Drowned Man, by Jozef Israëls (Netherlands). 1861.

Death of a Fisherman, Alicante
               after Heliodoro Guillén Pedemonti
 
There was the sea, impenitent,
ruffling its muddy plumage across Raval Rouge,
 
the altar boys scuffling by the doorstep
weighed down by candelabra,
 
men holding a stray oar, sword-like,
curious neighbours in feisty veils,
 
fishing nets splayed on walls
like rambling roses
 
and dawn, having tinged a rusty vine,
bearing a crucifix of light.
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Abigail Ardelle Zammit
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Editor's note: The wonderful image above is a placeholder and not the painting that inspired the poem. Zammit's poetry was prompted by a painting she viewed at MUBAG, The Museum of Fine Arts Gravina in  Spain. The artwork was by Alicante artist Heliodoro Guillen Pedemonti, possibly also titled Death of a Fisherman. We regret we are unable to find an image to show or link. You can learn more about the artist here: http://www.mubag.com/guillen-pedemonti-heliodoro/.
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Abigail Ardelle Zammit is from the island of Malta.  She holds a PhD in Creative Writing (Lancaster) and has had poems published in various British and Canadian journals.  Her first collection, Voices from the Land of Trees (Smokestack 2007), takes its inspiration from Guatemala’s violent past.  Abigail’s second collection Portrait of a Woman with Sea Urchin won second prize in the Sentinel Poetry Book Competition (London) and was published in 2015.  Abigail is a lecturer in English at the G.F. Abela Junior College.  She has had workshops with many established poets and in 2016 she was a guest poet at the Inizjamed Mediterranean literature festival, thanks to which she started translating poems from Maltese into English.  Her poetry spans various themes but there is a sustained interest in the relationship between text, body, landscape, coastal geographies and the female experience.

https://abigailardellezammit.net/