My Western Shore

                                         
Her ridges are now aflame; painted by Nature from her own palette,
Of green and gold and yellow, and scarlet to bedeck the maple trees
Where in the sky ravens voices can be heard in harsh quartet,
And Quince’s North Lake's azure waters are ruffled by the breeze.

Sitting on the Look Out Rock above the Mount Brook ford.
Across the Still Water huckleberry bushes shine crimson in the sun,
Around the pools out in the bogs, pitcher plants seem as tiny gourds,
Shy deer come down with questing nose, to drink from Creek Brook Run.

Mount Misery stands in stark relief against the verdant shore,
It tells a tale of despair and hope, of hunger and privation,
Of men who looked outward to the sea for the ships that would bring more,
Food and supplies for the Loyalists here who helped to forge our nation.

The rain dark'd waters lap the gravel on the shore of Dead Man’s Beach,
And form a foam that clots and blows into the beach peas vine,
A sombre aura lingers here memories of death by drowning along the reach,
Is it the curse of a Mikq  Maq turned from the door as the Nor’ east blizzard whined?

It was good to lay in your bunk at night, while the stories went around,
And a wee camp mouse, paws clasped on breast seemed to listen in awe,
The crack of dry birch in the old camp stove was the only other sound,
Between the pictures painted in words; things that the Old One saw.

Sleep would come and the words trailed off, and you could hear ere you slept,
The distant roar of a west bound flight flying the Goshen Beam,
Then silence reigned o’er the camp at last, you could hear the mouse as he crept,
Seeking the crumbs he hoped had been dropped and lay in the floor boards seams.

From the Head to Fenton’s Ridge and back I’ve  known her mystic way,
 I’ve dreamed of her as I sailed the foam, voyaging to foreign lands,
My beautiful shore with her wooded slopes that lies across the Bay,
I hear her call me to come once more, and commune on her granite strand.

Seanachie