Because we all want to write more poems.
Reach Island, Thanksgiving 2012
The gulls stand watch on the bridge
They will not be moved by the likes of us.
A damp ghost haunts these passages,
She seeps into our bones,
Chills us, inhabits our clothes.
Your lungs are wet and my heart is slow.
The fire resists any attempt to catch,
And electric baseboards in a cabin
Are something less than effective.
We heat the bed through blanketed efforts
And the generated warmth gets us through til morning.
We exist tonight by grace and by gumption.
At least it wasn't raining
Until it did rain and hard, too.
Nothing between us and the roof
To dampen the sound of marble sized raindrops
Except the recently warmed blanket
Covering our heads and holding us together.
- Neil McKay's Shared Poems
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Comments
Michael Mayhew
December 6, 2012
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very evocative
I have never been to Reach Island, but the moment you describe - that kind of chill, that kind of simple human comfort - I do know. This brought those moments to life in my mind. And "by grace and by gumption" is just lovely.
Neil McKay
December 6, 2012
Permalink
Thanks
I'm glad you liked it. Reach Island, now called Treasure Island by developers and realtors is a tiny island in the south Puget Sound. I've been working on this poem since, well, since Thanksgiving. I was worried the grace and gumption line was too silly but it said what I wanted to say.