A journal of art + literature engaging with nature, culture, the environment & ecology

Matilpi, British Columbia

Travis Stephens, USA

 

There are log tows here that move

at a few miles an hour. They tie

to rock faces to await the tide.

Bears and deer are known to come aboard 

the log rafts. Tug men trail lures

all the way. Caulked boots.

These men know

of places where old paint colors

the rock walls—fish, sunburst, faces—

colors as old as the sunset brush 

on the canvas of the sea.

 

We anchored early 

because the wind was blowing up Johnstone

Strait, up and into our faces.

This old ketch is comfortable and slow.

The charts are pastel, buff land 

and gray waters jeweled with numbers.

Without effort, the anchor dug into the bar 

in front of this inlet and held.

Across the bow, past the spit 

of sand and shell, the whitecaps wait.

 

It was early so we took the dog ashore.

She bounded into the alder

as we gathered driftwood 

for our tiny wood stove.

Look, you said, shell midden.

Oh. We looked at the deep alder,

wide-armed cottonwoods.

Do you think?

I’m sure.

 

There were no totems, of course,

no longhouses or huts. The illness

is two hundred years old.

The wind blows and blows.

Later, in a Canadian Coast Pilot, 

we found a name: Matilpi.

Nothing more.

At first light we sailed on.

 

Travis Stephens is a tugboat captain who resides with his family in California. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, recent credits include Gyroscope Review, Gravitas, Sheila-na-gig, Raw Art Review, Crosswinds Poetry Journal and elsewhere.

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