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Living on Islands

 

by Bob Rose

 

At 3 AM you know it too---

 

It all turns back on itself:

you turn

on yourself, your friends

wife, child, in mind

hate turns into—

 

How does it go?   Boredom to frustration

to madness?             Look, there’s a gale blowing

the guts out of the gulf.  Every crow

from Downes Point wheels on its pivot in the wind.

 

The Old People didn’t live here, burning

the brush for deer, burying their dead under the cliffs.

 

Lift a bone, break a bone

the locals say

and go periodically mad or drive their wives

to drink or themselves into a small

corner.  And they love it and wouldn’t live elsewhere.

After all these years could they

after the enchantment?

 

Island off islands off islands

et cetera.

 

There’s no end to the isolations

we live in,  the armor of our love.

 

Who isn’t wounded?   Who isn’t unto himself?

In spite of this we struggle, we shore up the breaches

Of our pettiness against the mainland rush.

 

“Yeah, Rick hasn’t changed over the years.  Just grown

more twisted, gnarled, wind-bent and shaped.

Five more years he’ll be a baptized local,

fruit cup and all.”

 

See those madrona, there, on the point: aren’t they our island

lives, isn’t this another view, another landscape, another

escape?  All interrogative

paths--- thru the grove to the oyster rocks.

Ah!  a small lusterless pearl.

 

  If that a pearl may in a toad’s head dwell,

 and may be found too in an oyster shell;

 If things that promise nothing do contain

 what better is than gold…

 

Without work we wither and die:

without work the mind turns into a bog

a miasma.

 

Those madrona trees will never sprout oak leaves, we are all

Calibans and Prosperos, threatened and threatening.        No

choice.  A device for centering.  A relief.

 

There aren’t any ferries tonight, the weather’s

fury won’t abate. Even the crows have found

a hollow tree or a sandstone cave.

 

Face it.  We won’t be rescued from this island.

We must save ourselves. Translate Goethe’s

Be the hammer, be the anvil to

Be the island, be the mainland.

 

Hate is no answer and love

with what difficulty we come to it

and how much in spite of ourselves.

 

Such a polite world this

island, these closed

circles, the social

equilibrium

curdles the milk, coddles

the false affections.

 

I don’t want anyone to come home.

The fire’s burning.

 

The door opens to those others who live here.

It’s inevitable.

Let them in, let

them in.

They are yours and mine.

 

 Hornby Island, British Columbia