Barrington Passage, NS 7:20pm
The Light from The West
fell upon the low-treed banks
of Cape Island’s Eastern Shore
& I thought:
“There is My Home —
there is The Island which houses
The Hawk
& I will drive to It
with My Husband of a decade-and-a-half
& I will be Illuminated
by Its Western Light
as We meander tonight
through what We call
The Long Way Home“
The Hawk Deck 11:34am
The Chick-a-dee calls Me
away from My Self
to The Time of My Mother
when My Mother fed Them
& Me
in Valley Cottage
& called to Them
“Chick-a-dee-dee
Chick-a-dee-dee”
Here on The Hawk
Those Little Birds
take Me back
to when I was A Little Girl
raised by a single mother
in My First Real Home
My Real Home Now
is here on The Hawk
Fifty Years Later
where I listen
to The Chick-a-dees
of My Choosing
Joanna Gilman Hyde 