Love Letter Written In A PEI Spring

This place is cut from a Ray Carver collection:
woodsmoke-coloured clouds, sun without warmth.
Even the red fields pale in what passes for spring.
Frost heaves in pavement, bare trees without buds.

You said to me, Nature is resilient. My Island proof
of this: by the time you touch down summer
will be in swing. Lupins, dandelions. Singing sands
hot against your bare feet. Flowers bloom 
by waterfront restaurants. I think of things to tell you.

Last night heavy rain. A man said of the weather:
It’s a pile of wind we got. I don’t know
when it’ll get a chance to fine up.

And when I head to the mailbox here, 
I think hummingbird. I think summer. 
I think of the set of snowdrops you sketched
in notebook where I wrote

She is someone you build a life with. 
Put down foundation. Raise four walls 
and be grateful.

— Chris Bailey

Chris Bailey is a commercial fisherman from PEI and the author of What Your Hands Have Done. His second poetry collection, Forecast: Pretty Bleak, is forthcoming from McClelland & Stewart in spring 2025.

Each month Bren Simmers selects a poem by an Island poet for The Buzz.