Heresy, maybe, but I like the rain.
The cacophony of its almost tropical beat,
the shoeshine sheen of wet madrone trees,
glistening twigs of huckleberry and rose,
old growth firs, needles laced with wet,
the splashing of water everflowing,
relishing the peace of a quiet gray day.
Drizzle hushes the traffic sounds,
and even the most inveterate tourists
stay inside at the Rockfish or Brown,
dining long and languorously at the Majestic,
dawdling, confused, at the panoply of choices
at the Red Snapper and Watermark Books.
We locals delight especially in misty rain,
striding under the hemlock lined canopy
of the forestlands, skipping over slick roots
on a carpet from big maple leaves, spotting a doe,
running our hands over the bark of a douglas fir,
caressing the giant trunk of a moss-graced cedar.
Looking for shells along deserted Bowman Bay,
a storm brews beyond view on the Salish Sea,
waves chop from a stiff north wind, blowing hard,
we read the tide, it ebbs and shifts just low enough
to dig for clams, we perch on sun-bleached driftwood
to watch eagles soar overhead, adrift on the breeze.
Rivers of springs run beneath our island,
feeding Whistle Lake and summer swimming,
creating the rich habitats of Beaver Pond,
and the green-fringed trail, looping wide
round the shores of Little Cranberry,
spawning native salal, skunk cabbage and ferns.
This thriving, sometimes sunny, often rainy town,
where salmon and orcas leap in its waters,
colorful boats sail the bay, dock at the marinas,
a tugboat with lights like stars in its wheelhouse
passes a tanker, all in motion on a moonlit night,
these prove our compass, our city’s anchor.
The heritage of the Samish living long on this fertile land,
the community that enfold us, sustains our lives,
knit together in a rich quilt of textures, impressing
even visitors who find that we are more than our shops.
more indeed than our port or our forestlands,
stronger and more vibrant certainly than our size.
Living in Anacortes, I can’t help but like the rain,
it is a river that gives life and flows deep in our hearts.
This rainy place.
Marcia Neu
word waves
Best Poem using the most Pen-a-Poem words
