Cougar Annie

The poem was inspired by a quotation by David Whyte:

"I pull the bow out into the wide sea,
paddle dripping towards darkness,
and enter again
the quiet."


In the fading light,
I can just make out black shapes of trees,
tall sentinels that darkly watch me pass,
roots tangled thickly down the ancient banks
right to the water's edge,  the shore held fast.
Dip and lift,
the only sound the water's lick,
paddle moving cleanly
through the spreading flow,
the low call of a sleepy owl,
Earth falls away,
above all a starshine glow,
inverted bowl of sky at night
protects me as I go.

Around the point, I drift into Cow Bay
where the big greys are feeding
in a pod.
A whoosh, a whoosh, a whoosh,
a vast arched back, a fluke,
and then the mystical descent:
their breath sounds like
the hidden voice
of God.

Dip of oar,
scattered droplets silvered by the moon,
to the head of Hesquiat Harbour,
home so soon,
to farm and garden
mine now, only mine:
husbands and children
spilled like the sands of time,
homestead clawed from tangled bush,
hardscrabble years
in which I tamed this once wild patch
of ancient pine.

Now no one here but me,
no one to see:
an unexpected life of endless toil,
I now reflect upon.
I planted flowers and blooming bushes
all those years,
nourished with laughter,
watered well with tears,
they flourished longer
than leggy children,
grown and so swiftly gone.

Seventy years upon this place,
from young bride
to homesteader / hermit
no man stayed long beside.

At ninety
still a hard glint in my eyes
a-glistening,
my face bird-like, alert,
intent and listening,
hands cradling the rifle,
head cocked - hush!-
ears tuned for the sound
of cougar in the bush.

72 cougar I killed over the years,
mice and chickens' necks I snapped
without a thought.
Four husbands lived beside me,
died / moved on;
eleven children brought
into the world,
eleven grown and gone.
What mattered most
this place, the life
that living in it wrought.
All gone now,
but this place meant for no other.
The blooms turn
their sweet faces up to meet me
like a lover.
The fog parts;
my canoe slips in between
the veil that hides
from this world the unseen.
These ghostly shores
I shall forever roam.
I'm Cougar Annie and I'm
heading Home.


for Karin's prompt at Real Toads: a narrative poem

I adapted this poem from  one I wrote in 2001. It is about Ada Annie-Rae Arthur, who came to Clayoquot Sound in the early 1900's, settling on rough land near Hesquiat Harbour, which she worked her entire life to tame and cultivate. She is one of the notable characters of the area, surviving four husbands,  killing 72 cougar, and raising and home schooling eleven children in the small shack seen above. Cougar Annie also operated a thriving seed mail order business, and ran a post office for those on neighboring islands. The garden is now maintained and held in trust as a heritage property.