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By Devon Lewis

How long will these shadows haunt me?

Will I see you every time I look in the mirror
Thinking of the way you would taunt me?
Violently raking the bristles across my child’s sale
Telling me how ugly

Was my smile.

You are there, tourturing me with |

Cruel words in voice of bile

And I become nothing that matters.

I once thought that it would take a while,
Before the phantom of you ceased
Clawing at my soul,

But you remain.

Hyder, Alaska

The river is swollen already
in late August

with millions of salmon

on their Long March.

Only a few will make it,
only to perish on the banks.

Far up north on this river,
only four creatures make a sound.

The gulls make their playground noise,
fighting among one another for the feast.

The bears, some are grizzly,

roar their conquest of a late pre-hibernation
meal, of the spawning salmon,

that are heard splashing and crawling
their way upstream

to where they will leave life behind

on their path to death.

The incessant clicking and “look, look!”
of the eco-tourist from Germany,

sloshes by in his leopard-patterned gortex,
matching exactly the outfit of his wife,
must take one more shot,

before returning to town to order seafood.

The tourist spies a black bear eating his meal,

and asks Smokey to smile politely for the camera.

The throng of map-toting visitors wanders
back and forth on the boardwalk,
they are reminded by the ranger:
Never run from the boardwalk to your car.

Excuse me,
Mr Park Ranger,

but I have a question:
What time at night do you put the bears away?

By Macdonald Stainsby

_ And I am less than whole.

I have become the shadow,
Present, but not quite sane
Anymore

For although you're gone,
You still inflict the pain.

Iam in a prison of confusion,
Burnt

By the mark of Caine, |

I am forever flawed,

Unable to see who I am
Anymore,

For the shadow will not give me refrain.

Colleen Benallick

October 23, 2002

Poetry/Fiction/Essays/etc.

 

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