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Sunday, February 19, 2023

LOVE SONG TO CLAYOQUOT SOUND

 


Oh, wild, untamed and glorious
coastal beaches of Clayoquot Sound,
you sang a siren song to me
for years before I journeyed here,
long before I ever saw
the perfection of your beauty.
Your ley lines drew me to you
as surely as a murrelet
is drawn to its nest,
a migrant whale to its feeding ground.

I arrived in love, my heart
rising to meet you like
a long-lost lover.
In wandering your forest trails
and along your sandy shores,
I live in loving, still.

In gratitude, my eyes caress
the curves and slopes 
of Wah'nah'juss; breathe in your misty,
fog-shrouded mornings; bless
soaring eagle, heron picky-toe-ing

along the mudflats, smile as small boats
chug across the harbour
on West Coast afternoons.

I stand in earth's cathedral: thousand year old 
Grandfather Cedar, Hanging Garden Tree,
so many ancient beings,
each one home to
a diversity of life,
each one a universe all its own.

I stood on the road to save you
in 1993; I will stand there
if they come for you again.
Those hours on the road
burned in my heart like fire;
passion, fierce,  like a mother bear's roar
protecting all she loves.

I have grown old, loving you,
and the loving has been sweet.
And sweet the mist
of seaspray on my face,
smell of seaweed and salal;
the delight of sand dollars in the sand,
the wonder of tidepools
full of starfish and anemone.
How my heart exults
as the waves, like white-maned horses,
gallop in to shore.

Love for your wild beauty never
stops singing inside me. I carry it
within, like a gleaming treasure, 
a song of love, reminding me
to breathe in the fullness
of this moment, now, 
for none of this is ours to keep.

We are all, always,
only passing through.

As the world turns burnished gold,
fading soft to starlight,
and its coloured remnants streak
across the evening sky,
I look to your mountaintops,
purpling at the edge of the sea.

I am bound here by your beauty;
held fast by the song of the sea,
uttering a constant prayer
of gratitude
for all you've gifted me.


9 comments:

  1. A beautiful love song - to the place where your heart dwells ~Truedessa

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  2. Such a beautiful, heart-felt potm.

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  3. Agree with Truedessa - this is a love song to that corner of the world. Lovely!

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  4. This poem is full of fierce love and glorious description. You take me there and into your heart.

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  5. A beautiful love song to a beautiful place. Imagine wanting to destroy a thousand year old tree....tells you everything you need to know.

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  6. What a gorgeous description of a place worth preserving. Such a shame that some refuse to see the beauty.

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  7. A life song as much of a love song, both welcome and farewell with a heart become so full of the place no reader will forget, Clayouquot Sound. Amen to your welcome, Sherry. You show how it's done.

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  8. I read this one the other night at a poetry evening and people liked it. Smiles.

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    Replies
    1. I can definitely understand why people would love this poem, Sherry. It is a real 'gem.'

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