Poems by Ruth Coffey
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Ocean View Homes - New Construction
by Ruth Coffey
From Canary Summer 2011
Originally from Ireland, Ruth now lives on the south shore of Lake Erie in the Black Rocky watershed.
You brought me here on Sundays when I was a child,
walked over centuries of roots, gnarly path to the beach.
But now I can see waves from the road’s curve,
the shape of evergreens glaringly absent,
an echo of spindle skyline piercing clouds
passing, delicate, light like eyelashes.
I imagine I can still smell forest,
damp bark, syrup sap, salty green scent
of needles, carpets of them, now swallowed
by openness reaching to a thin stripped strand
where sand shifts with the weight of footprints,
time sieves, shaded in memory of trees.
Last Sunday I was here, you were alive.
© Ruth Coffey