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Red Island Rocks
There I was in my element
Here I lie where the waves
lick the shore, lapping
out a lapis lazuli lullaby
wanting to roll and retreat
with them on the brine
take a salty voyage in time
back to my childhood days.
Each night in the landscape of my dreams
I retrace the path to the beach
where I walked every day
of my first seven years.
Each morning I wake
with fiery red eyes
that swell like they’ve been
carrying water from the well all night.
I’ve sunk down too deep
trying to find in sleep the old songs
the seagulls’ screech of joy
as they spy a flash of fresh fish on a flake
but I can’t go home again
because Air Canada charges
a thousand dollar fare
and in any case Home is no longer there.
The houses have decayed.
The last traces have disappeared.
Only bare skeleton bones remain
of the community we once shared
where a red army of rocks
surround the sea and
cliffs grow up to pierce the atmosphere
straining to be free of their watery grave.
They reach up to mate
submerge with the mist
their steamy union obscured by a veil of mauzy air
circling to create surrealist floating castles.
So I dream of my last journey
Fire to free my body to the wind
to blow my ashes out to sea
to flow with the few remaining fish.
Rocks, like the terracotta soldiers of Emperor Qin
no two faces the same
standing guard over the sea
will rock my cradle for eternity.
~ Composed by Mary Duffy
Previously published in Luluzine.
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