herring riddle

Kate Barnes has sent us this herring riddle, from Popular Rhymes of Scotland 1858, also Chapbooks of the Eighteenth Century - 1882, and used by Tolkein in The Lord of the Rings:

Although it's cold, no clothes I wear,
frost and snow I do not fear;
I have no use for hose or shoes
although I travel far and near.
All I eat comes free to me
I need no cider, ale, or sack;
I nothing buy, or sell, or lack.

sardines from Morocco

Sardines


Swimming against
Atlantic currents
free and disoriented,
eyes freshly powdered
with tons of blocks of ice
to abate the stench
of broken hands
and dreams shoved
in every bay
with crooked masts
they made the catch
to enrich the reckless
brains of steel...

Downstream from
Maine,
wealth migrated
to Casablanca
and the lush
shores of Morocco
sardines and people
saw tides
rise above their necks
and subside
leaving them naked,
as they were
before the sardines
migrated to Maine...


Said Leghlid