Poetry Inspired by the islands of Penobscot Bay
LAWS OF SALVAGE Anneli Skaar
There are so many things
That are too heavy to bear.
So many things
We let sink to the bottom.
The dreams we had when we were young;
Loves we found and lost;
The people we came from.
We forget them and call it moving on.
We tie our memories up
With careless knots
and toss them overboard,
To remember their spot.
Maybe we’ll find them when we need them,
Their thin, fragile lines leading to the surface
To a foam marker that bobs on an old ocean,
Still roiling from a long ago storm.
ISLANDERS Anneli Skaar
Last night I dreamt about
People who live on islands in winter.
About people who sail east at night
With the sun low on their back,
Throwing long shadows onto the deck.
I dreamt that islanders sail into darkness
Under a sky without stars,
Or even a tiny slice of moon,
And they are swallowed up one by one
to sleep at the bottom of the ocean.
Their eyes are sealed with barnacles
And their mouths are filled with sand.
In the morning, they wash ashore
Onto their granite beaches and
Unwind from a salty bed of kelp and ice.
They welcome the day with a cup of black coffee in a chipped cup inherited from their mother.
They slow the sun down before it races west
Over a mainland that is still asleep,
Under its warm, flowered sheets.