by Barbara Nickel
Constant is the
graveyard slanting up behind
the house in a
wash of sunlight or in winds
that lash this
coast where spruce bend,
lose branches,
remain. Father had no words
at the airport
but when we moved to the brim
of this country
I saw his tears in sea water
splaying down
the crevices of cliffs. From
Greenland
icebergs travel to dissolve here;
their centuries'
wisdom is salt I lick from my lip
in a fog.
Constant is the moon's yellow eye
on water rushing
from a campground pump
into a small,
steel bowl I carry to our site.
With each step
water sloshes out of bounds,
takes moonlight
with it, finds strange ground.
(First published
in Rhubarb; subsequently in Books in Canada)