August Poetry Well

The Poetry Well is a monthly column that showcases island poetry. This month includes a poem by C. Hunter Davis.

I started writing in fourth grade as I was a daydreamer and saw the sole purpose of school as a means to create dreams. Miraculously I finished a graduate program and after a stint of legal beagle writing, I found my old notebooks and reopened them. Here on Vashon is a treasured place for writers, artists, fir trees and rocky beaches.

— C. Hunter Davis

Low Tide on Vashon

Seawater calms to a napping cat.

Osprey clutch sculpins

again and again.

A spree of sandpipers skim by.

Mew gulls pretending to tire

continue delivery to family.

Red rock crab have stage fright

moon snails are confident understudies.

Delight is the pursuit of

the glaucous gull.

The tale and the tide get

longer and longer

revealing our indemnity.

Rockweed and sea lettuce garland the shore

twisting and turning in the chaos we relish.