Limberry Point
Don Hynes
This point once had a native name
with salmon and rockfish flowing in the currents,
clams and oysters and herring uncountable,
camas covering the thin soils,
ancient cedars in the wetlands,
fir and oaks in broad savannas
where brush was burned again and again
for deer and elk and all sorts of game.
The list would take the book of life,
the trees, the plants, the grasses,
mushrooms, microbes
and fresh water veining in the rock.
Settlers called this Limberry Point;
they too would fish but for commerce,
felling the cedars and fir, burning the peat,
taking the herring in great nets
until eventually taking them all.
I’m watching with the ancient stones
whose feet stretch down to the sea,
extending into deep water
and the caverns of the channel
where another layer feeds and flows.
I become quiet, the inner tide
stilling through observance
while the outer ebb grows in force
south to the far straits and distant ocean.
I keep watch while I live,
still in love after all these years,
learning her movements,
her wisdom, her complexity.
One day I will dry up like summer grass,
joining the wind and passing tide
yet before I go I will speak of her
and witness how she shines.
http://donhynes.com/blog/?p=1660