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.

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