Islands
It’s so easy to lose
our true selves
or to be carried along
by the flow of another’s
rhetoric because we
no longer possess
(or never had)
that inner conviction
that makes us different.
That’s why we must link
together:
a chain of bridged
and ferried islands in
our otherwise loneliness.
Coming Together
A coming together of cultures,
these three statues,
placed equidistant,
forming an equilateral triangle,
all things being equal.
Three founding cultures:
English, French, Indigenous,
in alphabetical order.
They stand face to face to face,
a triangulation,
silhouetted in profile,
sharing positive and negative space.
At the center of their union,
at the still point where nothing moves,
a living, breathing space,
that takes away your breath.
When you breathe again,
you take in air
and light and sun and
hope renewed.
Faith runs tingling round your body,
hand in hand with joy and life
and love reborn.
Kingsbrae 25.3
25 June 2017
An Angel at Jarea
An angel moves through the room
in the silences between our chatter.
He fills the interstices of speech
with the wonder of feathers
enlightened by rainbows.
Tranquil his footsteps
as we sense his presence.
He places his hand on an arm,
his arm around our shoulders,
and now, commanding silence,
a finger on his lips.
We sit here
scared by our intimate inadequacies,
scarred by the fierceness of his immanence
as we sense the vacuum
of his soon-to-be absence.
Kingsbrae 20.1
20 June 2017
Lost!
Mist covers Passamaquoddy Bay.
The stone roads stretch long arms
out into the mist and figures move
along them, losing shape and form,
disappearing, so many gone, lost on
fishing grounds, fallen from boats,
while some, sad and alone, have filled
their pockets with a load of stones
and walked out into the clinging mist,
never to return. What is it like,
that slow immersion into cold waters,
the shallows, the water deepening,
the sudden depths, the rip tide
and the currents that sweep you
off your feet and carry you out, down,
and away to be lost forever in those
swirling mists that cloak the bay?
The mist knits itself in and out,
covering the scene before me
with a theatrical curtain that raises
and lowers itself. I watch the stage
before me. Mist thins and figures grow
stronger. There’ll be no tragedy today,
just a comedy of errors as footsteps
wet and muddy come my way and
a dog shakes salt and water from its coat
covering her owners with mud and spray.
Kingsbrae 19.4
19 June 2017
Blockhouse
We have become comfortable together.
We sit, food untouched on the table,
and play catch-up with our lives.
I tell her about my writing problems
and she tells me about her hopes and
fears for the future now her partner’s
walked out and left her for a younger girl.
Later, I sit in the car while she walks
on the headland by the blockhouse.
Mist covers Passamaquoddy Bay.
There was a time when I thought
she might walk out into that mist
and fade away, but she was strong.
Now I watch her walk away and
know that she’s really here to stay.
Kingsbrae 19.1
19 June 2017
Mist
Full sail, the sailing ship, clawing
into the mist. For a moment, only
mast-head showing, then hazy at
last, vanishing, appearing again,
doubt in the beholder’s mind: is she
or isn’t she, real or apparition? So
easy to believe in ghosts and ghost
ships when mist deceives and eyes
grieve for the subtlety of a clear
day, not mist enveloping the bay,
holding the boat back with tenuous
tendrils, ghostly fingers, damp music
on sails and cordage, shallow the sea,
the channel through sand banks and
pebbles, half -seen, yet known about,
both sensed and scented, heard from
water –sound, wave-pitch changing
and lost again the schooner, grey ship,
grey camouflage blanket of clinging mist.
Kingsbrae 18.3
18 June 2017
Three Visitors
The first one knocked on my door,
called out my name, knocked again.
I got out of bed, opened the door,
looked out: but the corridor was empty.
The second one stood in the corner,
calling, calling … I tried to answer
but I couldn’t unseal my lips. “No,”
the visitor said. “No. Don’t go.”
Lips and throat dry, tongue tied,
I lay in my bed.
My third visitor was David,
and I knew he was dead.
