A letter to an island I left years ago, first published in She’s an Island Poet, a collection of poems I published about being an islander and the dynamic of it.
I wandered around the cliffs of my home
searching through the fir trees lining the shore
I stood to face the east and west
neither brought me any less meaning
I sat in primitive graveyards
I wandered in and out
I sat with the Inuit on tent floors
drinking teas in Labrador
a second home
I ached for their need to hunt
remembering the seal hunt
that sustained my island home
I wanted land touch
I wanted soil feel
I wanted to fly with the birds of my island
landing on rocks to consume kelp
I understood my ancestors
and wanted to dance on the floor
stomping the lifted birth from their lifeless existence
I begged for the return of a fishery with lonely boats
sailing on quieted banks of a far away fishing ground
I wanted to hold the island of my family in my memory
and to see the ships sailing out once again for a net of fish
left in the dawning of small boats
where the earth ended
I began
where the day fell
I sat
and when the moon orbited
I looked up to slow it down
they took me to walk with the rabbits of the interior
a constant movement to lightness
with shadows holding streams of cold water
it was here that I found knowing
an islander isn’t separate from her land
but part of it
the roots of being dig into the ground
and the ocean meets her to send her forward
to others with land awareness
I never knew a constant state
my island’s currents made me see the need for holding on
in the faces of others
the need to maintain a way of life
through a land’s need to protect resources
I saw the riverboats and the artisan of all lands
in the eyes of my own people
I listened to bearded priests walking and holding railings
to explain orthodoxy to me in the books I read
I sailed to the all
seeing nothing of race or nationality
I found meaning in the need to fall over water fountains
an island’s isolation gave me
a tuning of the senses
I flew to the ivory tower and was understood
as quietly observant amongst the intellectual
I went down to the eastern sun
where a soldier made me understand
true foundations in understanding
I grew roses in jars where nothing was seen
in droughted soils
I knew lost meaning
I found thousands of people
sitting on the banks of my heart
from fostered care and torn down morality
looking to religion for answers
when the answers given
were from industrial landowners
It was the downfall of my presumptions
feeling the chains around me in dug out roads building wells
I tore away from majestic to swim in my own waters
when the Irish drummers played outside my window
and the angry lords of war danced beneath my bed
we want the lands of our people like you islander
I sat in a dream state by the door
not escaping the constant daze
and I fell into the subconscious
until I wrote
I fell down on me and didn’t know
if I could re-emerge the same way when I felt the rituals
I saw me sitting there
I ventured down the past
in memories of ancient histories
I had read them somewhere long ago
the ocean currents brought me back
and I knew the worded memories
I found the washed stones in my shoes
and the velvet sofa of my grandmother
but I didn’t find the jaded words I heard
thrown around in city lights
with shadows being cased in misunderstood verbiage
I forecasted rain over hilltops
destroying waters of all lands with industrialization
in the name of corporate taxes
and they stared at a man in a simple hat
when he carried signs saying
save the rain forest
protect our fishery
and let us feed our children with crops
sustain the lands of all people
let the islander walk amongst all
she’s lost in the all
and her island drum
the one that travels through her writing
begs to be heard
to give the waters back their movements
she was island
the sound and the rhythm
in each stanza flowed from the need to be emerged in water
and her freedom lived in her subconscious need
to live on the island she called her home
Newfoundland
Photo Credits
Photo courtesy of Melinda Cochrane – all rights reserved
Please Share Your Thoughts - Leave A Comment!