Norma Kerby sent me this gathering of poems after celebrating the launch of filling Station's northern BC writers edition in Terrace last week.
Beached on Haida Gwaii
in
Hecate Strait, winds can blow over 150 km per hour
shallow
waters waves tower more than 10 meters high
in
Hecate Strait, any boat is a toy for the winter storms
Months after Randy
Morrison spent eighteen hours in the frigid waters of Hecate Strait
building Randy
Morrison with eighteen hours of torture in Hecate Strait
W.C.B.
ruling suspended his claim
legs in pain skin
burns from salt in stinging spray
a doctor claims it's in his
head
but they will be
appealing Randy Morrison through shifting
apparitions of bearded men that
shout from boats of
cold emulsion oil and ice like frozen
drops of
Caribbean sherbert lime
shipwrecked
lady at the store
said
he drove the boat full-throttle into
the beach
that or
drown he told the insurance company
but in town they
all know
buybacks and lack
of quota
make fishing like
wishing to win the lottery
beautiful lines all
wood
she
fills with sand each tide
lists
to one side
beached
excised
in the fast cold
sweep
of the
flying wind
nightmares are flung
into
irrelevance
they
tumble off across the dunes so
quickly there is no time to say goodbye
else
do not be angry
when i say that i
love the wind
it
was only that i would
fly
like
a gull
hung
suspended in the storm though
there was a gale
wind so strong i
could not move but
behind
the dune
a
flock of seagulls
waited
too windy even for
them
soupfin shark
the shark had
thrashed
a hole in the sand
caught
by the storm and
falling
tide
it
died in the
sun
long bullet body
crescent slit of razor
teeth
white skin scraped
pink
in
cold north waters
so
odd
a
beast
the
currents sweep
from
other shores
glass ball
there
caught
between two cobbles
green
glass
base
of a fishing float
long journey from Japan bobbing
across on foamy rollers
winter storm glass ball
smashed
against the rocky shoals
pulverized
to crystal sands
except
the bottom dimpled where
the master
paused
drew in his breath before he blew the perfect
bubble
emerald
it glistens
green as cold Pacific waters
scallop
it was only a
tiny
shell
pink
and finely fluted
fairy scallop we
called it
not knowing how
such a delicate
wing
landed
on the cobble beach
in the gloom of the
office it sits
on
the window sill
speaking of winds
so fierce
there
was nothing but
the
land and the ocean
fighting
Tlell
there are dunes
shifting dunes
moved by winds so wild
you lean
a
triangle into the frenzied
fury
waves
curl back in funnels there are
dunes
with feral cattle
ancient village
sites where once the
Haida raced before
the storm
before the smallpox came
village on the shore
living on the
fringe of the ocean
knowing that the edge of
the sky is the edge to
the other edge
of the ocean
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