Skidgate

Queen Charlotte, whoever the hell she was,
Must have liked to watch it rain. The British
Are like that, I understand, and here, beyond
The sodden coast of sodden western Canada,
I sit. I'm stranded on her islands. Almost
Everybody here's an Indian. They're Haida,
Almost every one is eight feet tall, and we
All sit inside the bar, and drink, and moan,
And curse rain. The cold gray ocean slaps
Upon the rocky beach across the way.
The elders fish. The enterprising youngsters,
Having gone to school, have learned that
There is money to be made in carving
Totem poles. They sell the tourists, not
Directly, tourists do not come out here;
They sell the middlemen their carvings,
Totems to be placed on coffee tables
In the living rooms of toothy babes
From California bent on honoring
The half-made up creations of the
Business majors back from Simon
Fraser. Everything's authentic if it's
Packaged to portray it so, and money's
More important than the sun to those
Who live out here on islands which
Were named, or cursed, for some
Poor queen, named Charlotte, though
No one can say for sure exactly who
She was.



Poetry by Lawrence Beck The PoetBay support member heart!
Read 63 times
Written on 2017-08-08 at 03:01

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