water-chewn beach drops sudden
where sand disappeared in waves
as if scooped and stolen with machines
two-foot layer of beach removed
mounds of decaying seaweed
walk cobbled beach boulders
idly scan for finger stones
water and sand smooth grey or
granite smaller than flesh find
hollow green plastic thumb
white plastic cow finger-bone small
red orange green blue shotgun shells
back in the corner cleared for
writing pine table bolted together
a desk of temporary passage
reconditioned laptop wine-stained
journal with pens finger rocks
camera and macro lens books
don't want work this is rest
after the cross-canada tour
judgement impaired read road words
question their poetry song silence
look out and out ocean
all the way to portugal
beyond fisherman's preserve
the string of rat rock wedge bull
and shut-in islands lobster boats —
blue and white — slow moving
just visible through fog
sun trying so hard to burn
its topside white we feel
heat-like steam view the far side
of three fathom harbour
nearby in a planned planted
garden the first poppy explodes
its blossom pod bursts orange
cup up salute! into the fog
ducks paddle shallow eel grass
waters upend themselves for small
thin-shelled crabs goldfinches pull
caps off this year's spruce buds
carpenter ants climb from somewhere
inside the wood of this camp release
themselves for new colonies and fulfilled lives
only to hit liquid sand pressed cellulous
fibre like what their hard-working relatives
chewed though to make their venture possible
fog in a glass fuzzy logic
fishing village disappears again
waiting for rocks the size of shacks
to be trucked in breakwater
against winter storms and full
moon spring tides needing repair
fortification against el niño
warming expanding rising waters
bigger waves heavier rain stronger winds
on a headland rapidly becoming island
fencepole spruce nailed together horizontally
form raised hut walls half expect a plantation
of government recognized substance
not a shelter for solstice goose hunters
another boatload of traps offloaded
onto pickup truck and trailer
another official lobster season ending
all traps out of the water by sunset tomorrow
any frozen or half thawed bait
good now only for hand-lining
fog thickens into drizzle
or i’m just facing the breeze
walk eroding shore
glacier deposited clay headlands
almost sans everything
deer tracks in tide-wet sand
dead cormorant beside exposed
waterworn square timbered keel
of unknown vessel beached
where causeway road turns
away from three fathom shore
scrub spruce coastal forest
this foggy place i've known a lifetime
eating fish and lobsters
caught off this eastern shore
