Enough

Walker Hook is an appurtenance on the east flank of Saltspring Island. Drifting material. trees, logs, sand, plugged the gap between Salt Spring and a small rocky island a few hundred meters offshore. We anchored our sloop on the south side of the hook on a warm summer day and let the day flow through us. Enough, a richly layered word on its own,  derived from our attendance at the outdoor summertime wedding of middle-aged friends.

Walker Hook

On the dry knoll, in the shade of a tough old fir,
we recline embraced by the earth,
breathing the perfume of salt water, dry grass and resin.

Our sloop tugs lazily at her anchor.
Fronds of kelp wave gently from her rudder.
Wavelets approach the dinghy on the sand.
Its painter stretches up the beach belayed to nothing.

Lichened rocks are strewn in the yellow grass
with all the cunning of a master gardener.
Just so!

The shadows and sea-stones dry chocolate black.
Where the sun strikes the sea lettuce, green flashes like a beacon.
And southwards, the shining sea, the island hills,
meet the blue of sky where galleons of clouds are drifting.

Fast and slow, change flows through us.
There is nothing to say.
There is nothing to do.
There is nothing to fear.

(August, 2005)

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Enough

I read somewhere
that if you could tease apart
the coils of code embedded in a single cell,
that strand would stretch a zillion miles, CGU, CGC, CGA, CGG, AGA…
a veritable bible with its discursive stories of the ancients
and the meandering narrative that leads to a creature
equipped to glimpse the face of God
but wilful enough to cut loose from the anchoring questions.

These rocks on which we stand today
are themselves replete with stories from the start of time
for those who care to read.
We gaze into the wind and sea
where a myriad of elegant assemblages
pursue the slow and graceful dance of long elaboration
in which every participant is honoured in the fulness of its time
as once we were and pray might be again.

That word “enough” comes repeatedly to mind
like a frond of kelp revealed and hidden by the passing waves.
Sometimes a question, sometimes a reproach,
Sometimes an exaltation.

Two people, not yet old but no longer young
stand on the rocks in their wind-stirred wedding clothes.
They have passed this way before, known disappointment, loss.
Their resolve to love each other as they find themselves today, tomorrow,
breathing, scuffed, hopeful,
brings us close to tears.
We feel the presence of a music climbing to a sweet resolving chord:
Enough.

(July 2006)

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