The ribs of an abandoned fishing boat lie out for the rain
To wash away the peeling paint and weaken the wood
A foggy sky reflects a crystalline gray on a translucent inlet
That, like tinted glass, creates a mirror of the world above

Rusted stripes give the trawlers a tattoo of experience, because they have been
Out to sea with expectant fishing nets, and trawl lines with bright orange buoys
Rocky highlands watch over the Scotian Shelf and hold the fishermen like angels,
Arms wrapped tightly around their bodies and praying they don’t perish at sea

The families, they wait in their homes with weatherproof siding
Shingled in reds and yellows, blues and greens, to cast off the stormy East Coast weather
The neighbours are few but they are all familiar,
Their smiles firm as the docks that are the foundation of the cove

Tourists come and tourists leave, but if you were there you would know
That what they are, what the people of this small town that is rocky shores on a map,
They are kind; they are stronger than the heaviest winds
When the traps are out, you know, that the men, young and old, have gone to make their living

You wouldn’t pity them on the account of a bad fishing season
No, you would envy the reflection of adversity in the face of the banks
And you would see that what keeps us from forgetting genuine folks and simple love,
Is a light that shines on the highest point of the cove

Once a beacon for lost sailors and boats on a trail to a rocky wreck,
She has faded in the still-growing brightness of the modern world
But she remains there on the cove,
Tall and proud and not a single piece of peeled paint that wasn’t worth the storm

She stands in an aura of legend, named after the only survivor of a shipwrecked schooner
For one hundred and forty-five years she has watched over the cove,
Watched the docks decay and the wharfs fill up in fishing season and empty in the winter
And the heads of many bobbing trawlers have followed her light home to their families

The black rocks and sudden high waves give a recognizable character to the shore
But Peggy’s Cove will forever be the place where my soul anchored