National Poetry Month : D.S. Stymeist,

 

 

Early Spring, Sooke

 

Spend the day on the dock,

watching locals pull

up their crab traps,

admiring as they measure

each one, throw back

the small ones. I think

about having a crab boil

for my guests, but

decide it’s too much

trouble.

 

When my artist friends

arrive, they walk up

the gravel drive. Jean limps,

her foot swollen, in pain.

peripheral neuropathy, I learn. 

 

After diner and drinking

in the garden among

the rhododendrons,

Al leans in:

“You know, they say

when you’re older

you think of death

more often. I think

of dying

all the time.”

 

This isn’t entirely true.

 

Know he likes the first

beer of the day,

being caught up

in its cold amber spell.

 

Know he likes

sitting in his studio,

hunched over

a canvas, layering

more green on

the manicured hedge.

 

Know he likes

the red flesh

of the spring salmon

I’ve cooked.

 

Thoughts, like fish,

hooked somewhere

out among the rolling

combers of the Salish Sea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

D.S. Stymeist’s newest collection, Cluster Flux, was short-listed for the Archibald Lampman Poetry Award. His well-received debut, The Bone Weir, was a finalist for the Canadian Author’s Association Poetry Award. Alongside fending off Crohn’s, he teaches creative writing at Carleton University.