Spring in Cow Bay, Nova Scotia
by Barbara Myers
After A.F. Moritz
Sad coasts that even these weeks of unrelenting rain
from clouds assuming squatters’ rights cannot make
sadder. They drench silver picnic sands long denuded,
scraped to build docks for container ships, landing strips
for naval aircraft to muster local jobs, beach rendered
defenseless in Atlantic hurricanes; the coast receding
ever further, nothing to look at. For whoever has not
from him shall be taken away even that he has. The old
family cemetery is held in check between commuters’
new-builts where tides and ties exert their pull, and surf‘s
adventuring gliders on their circuit. Abraded stones
soft among rain-green patches blanketing unknowns
and long-forgottens, the swollen yard’s one small scar
takes the rain as though to nourish new ashes, this
closing-out-of-sequence, youngest sister. Our practice
of containment. We too as wraiths—unrecognizable,
scraped-away grains inhabiting new ports and runways, receding
ever further, coasts of mind removed to another place.
Barbara Myers was born and bred in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and now lives in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. She is a contributing editor to Arc Poetry Magazine. Her first full collection, Slide (Signature Editions) came out in 2009. Whistle For Jellyfish (Bookland Press), of which she is one of the co-authors, has just been released.