April Poetry: Sea Urge from Nebraska

In recognition of Poetry Month, and to celebrate our treasure trove of Orcas Island poets, Orcas Issues is pleased and honored to offer daily poetry during April.

SEA URGE FROM NEBRASKA
by Jill McCabe Johnson

How I miss our North Shore walks,
bull kelp and sea lettuce drying on the rocks,
remnants of crab shells after plovers feed.

Each May, when Coast Tsimshian sun-bake seaweed
they press the purple laver, rockweed, and porphyra
into cakes for inland friends. In four days I can reach you

by car, though I started my walk months ago. Sea
lavender under the pillow. I step closer in my dreams.
Gather with me the cedar limbs anchored in the shallows

where herring eggs and sea palm lodge in the hollow mesh.
We’ll drape madrone branches with the drying boughs,
then remind the children not to pluck rain flowers,

red columbine and bluebells blooming in the mallow. We’ll listen
for the hesh-hesh-hesh of teeth shredding sea grass. We’ll swim
through eelgrass meadows, wring heat from bonfire flames,

and I’ll no longer miss those North Shore walks,
how your fingers cradled gifts of sea glass
nestled inside a mussel shell, coupled with byssal threads,
the way the sweat of sea salt lingered on my stomach and legs.