Marsh Ledger

I was in the Annapolis Valley last weekend and although I have been quite enjoying city living since moving to Halifax in January, the visit reminded me how great it is to be able to walk a few minutes down the street and suddenly be out of town. I haven't posted a poem here in a while, so I thought I'd share this one, part of a series on the dykelands outside Wolfville, where I used to walk several times a week.

5.
What they come for:
for the pipers it is shrimp,
full when they leave our mud,
half weight by Surinam.
For the shrimp, diatoms,
diatoms, dying spartina,
that blowsy grass that tufts
its way along the dyke, tightening
into funks, boy hair always at odds.
These quiet altercations
writ over and over:
what I come for.