Poem: Lubec Channel

 

Lubec Channel

 

mist drizzles

over clapboards

under black gulls on roofs

stoic as finials.

 

scows mope

to tug their tethers

when the Fundy Tide

gulps stories of water,

exposing The Narrows:

 

all those plaits and pleats

of mussel and seaweed beds;

and the welters of legions of

barnacles embossed on half-gone bricks.

 

seals laze in gyres,

and far behind and under them

lay the carcasses of ships

dogged by The Wolves,

 

dozens of ships,

sunken planks enslimed,

the rinds of wooden watermelons

split and torn,

 

and sprinkled in the deeps.

 

 

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The draft of this poem, which I am just editing now, was written circa 2005.  Things have changed since then.  Gentrification coming back.  Bourgeoisie buying stuff up.  The unique character of the town dissipating into national consumerism.  There are far less seals.  Who knows why, but I think part of it is that there are more sharks, due to warmer waters from human-caused climate change.