Always Leaving (for Michaye Boulter)

The sea your road 
the hole in the sky 
your light to travel by

You learn to climb before you can walk 
swim before you can talk the language 
of wind that lures you to shore
then makes you leave again

You learn down by the tilt of the deck
up by the lilt of the stars
numbers by counting the whites of the waves
and colours by tracing the edges of clouds 

Bleeding the hundred shades
of blue across your canvas
that is your leaving now

Today the sky a curtain you paint
to see what lies behind

—Laurie Brinklow

Laurie Brinklow is an Assistant Professor in Island Studies at UPEI, and the author of My island’s the house I sleep in at night, Here for the Music, and The Bridge Effect.

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