Breaching

Killer whales feed and cavort in the mouth of this river

Glistening with the brightest blacks and polished whites

Leaping calves in tow biting for the feet of Western Gull

There is a forked flag, blowing gale and the skippers cross themselves over evening bonfire in witness of red cedar totem

Deer, Raven & Bear

Ellen and I walk the short beach between blockards of yellowed mossy granite

A quarry of runes tossed about by Mother Upheaval 

Painted with the doom of a hundred broken trawlers

Shreds of cable and shaven survival gear strung between bounder teeth

We expect to find a skull femur or human hand still clinging

Despairingly thumbing May-Day on microphone button

Wires rooted to blackened sand

Ellen and I walk the short beach between faith and desperation

Dressed to address pending thunderstorm explosion

Sea lion betraying the shore at our approach

Rock crab scuttling

Puffin above us catching the wind in her short wings

This is where I remember Ellen

Our reflections in black fog, infatuation

The fleet of longboat canoes emerging from deathly haze

Gunwale deep in primal blue water pregnant with humpies, Chinook and Coho

Jackpot spilling multitudes of anchovy

Sorcerously spiked islands

Mustangs bucking the mist

Where wildcats prowl the dirt streets at night

To capture and enslave housecats or small dogs

Where Ellen had her hand on my waist, her hair in my mouth

The delicate poetry of the one-mile whistle

Raising the corpses in song