The Lost Son
2002
THE LOST SON
Austere speech of seven year old eyes
laughing with the herring gulls,
simply conversing with the sky.
Tumbling oval ocean rocks
words landing like sandpiper flocks
Maturity of feeling
unbroken by silences in empty rooms
Memories still fresh as each new moon
experienced at just being
placed between the sand and sky.
A fortune in frosted glass,
sea swept trinkets in his hand
a life’s work in blue innocence.
Turning over horseshoe crabs,
young pilgrim in the tidelands.
His a legacy of empty hulls,
inebriated nights and useless charts,
conceived among the boulders
a father gone, a broken start,
a mother pale from canning hopelessness.
The son, like sunshine on gray lands
with teeth as white as whalebone
walking roads away from home
to find the bosom of the sea.
Schoolbooks that he learned to leave
sitting on his dresser,
collecting dust like mama’s thoughts,
replaced by something better.
Knowledge drawn from swirling pools,
sea lettuce, shrimp and silversides
his classroom in the Maritimes.
Briny rocks and soaking shoes
the animals that pay their dues
to nature’s steady struggle.
Living too late to see the sails come back
laden with cod and promise,
He looks for light on the horizon
Manhood hidden in a heart
connected by kelp to the womb of the ocean.
And as the surrogate
sits wasting cells on cigarettes
the steady swell,
life giving spray of crashing waves,
waits, ready for reunion.
Sunday,
scattered daylight barely breaks
the stubborn noonday sky.
In the hollow of cracked clouds and light
a solitary seal calls.
The villagers kneel dead at church
Praying for forgiveness,
singing hymns to fabled men
that long since turned to wormwood.
To the shore the boy escapes,
his usual communion
But now he hears a haunting cry
and broken by the deep distress,
he runs to find the victim.
Tangled up and suffering,
the seal bleeds on cold slate
nylon strands the city made.
a fleeting fish, an errant string
have sealed the creature’s fate.
A cliff-side path the rain carved out
he finds in desperation
the tears that streak his wide eyed face
find streams of perspiration
The trail grows steep, he jumps and climbs
and slips in his frustration
A crack, a scream, a headlong fall
past cliffs unfeeling, tall
the arms of fog and foam embrace
and kiss his severed soul.
No trace found in the silent waters
of Monday’s misty dawn
outboards rumble
shoulders shake
and nature claims her wayward son.
Austere speech of seven year old eyes
laughing with the herring gulls,
simply conversing with the sky.
Tumbling oval ocean rocks
words landing like sandpiper flocks
Maturity of feeling
unbroken by silences in empty rooms
Memories still fresh as each new moon
experienced at just being
placed between the sand and sky.
A fortune in frosted glass,
sea swept trinkets in his hand
a life’s work in blue innocence.
Turning over horseshoe crabs,
young pilgrim in the tidelands.
His a legacy of empty hulls,
inebriated nights and useless charts,
conceived among the boulders
a father gone, a broken start,
a mother pale from canning hopelessness.
The son, like sunshine on gray lands
with teeth as white as whalebone
walking roads away from home
to find the bosom of the sea.
Schoolbooks that he learned to leave
sitting on his dresser,
collecting dust like mama’s thoughts,
replaced by something better.
Knowledge drawn from swirling pools,
sea lettuce, shrimp and silversides
his classroom in the Maritimes.
Briny rocks and soaking shoes
the animals that pay their dues
to nature’s steady struggle.
Living too late to see the sails come back
laden with cod and promise,
He looks for light on the horizon
Manhood hidden in a heart
connected by kelp to the womb of the ocean.
And as the surrogate
sits wasting cells on cigarettes
the steady swell,
life giving spray of crashing waves,
waits, ready for reunion.
Sunday,
scattered daylight barely breaks
the stubborn noonday sky.
In the hollow of cracked clouds and light
a solitary seal calls.
The villagers kneel dead at church
Praying for forgiveness,
singing hymns to fabled men
that long since turned to wormwood.
To the shore the boy escapes,
his usual communion
But now he hears a haunting cry
and broken by the deep distress,
he runs to find the victim.
Tangled up and suffering,
the seal bleeds on cold slate
nylon strands the city made.
a fleeting fish, an errant string
have sealed the creature’s fate.
A cliff-side path the rain carved out
he finds in desperation
the tears that streak his wide eyed face
find streams of perspiration
The trail grows steep, he jumps and climbs
and slips in his frustration
A crack, a scream, a headlong fall
past cliffs unfeeling, tall
the arms of fog and foam embrace
and kiss his severed soul.
No trace found in the silent waters
of Monday’s misty dawn
outboards rumble
shoulders shake
and nature claims her wayward son.
