I Stood Witness

I came across a poem I'd written after a 2016 visit

to Elliston, Newfoundland. It had been

published by Downhome Magazine but I hadn't

ever shared it on my blog, so here it is!

I stood witness to nature's jagged sculptures

and marveled at the rugged clumps born of vicious happenstance -

cracked and worn by a hostile ocean and an army of eroding agents.

I stood witness and stared down the cliff

at the turbulent surf of the narrow channel

sloshing between me and the massive boulder called Bird Island,

and I pondered the creation of what I saw.

There had been no witness as a hot, spongy mass of submarine shale

steamed and rippled, slivered and wrangled

'til the browns and grays along the sinistral faults

cross-bedded and coupled for the ages.

No witness as part of it let go, spanned the ocean,

flirted with the equator and joined Gondwana.

Parts of eastern "North America" joined onto "Africa" (Gondwana) a Weebly image

No witness as a solitary wind-bent pine tree

cracked under an approaching glacier's weighty, hungry edge;

the scrawny trunk lodging into its captor's gravelly glacial underbelly.

No witness as the polar visitor spread its torso over all the land,

shoved and strained and groaned through the thick fog,

split mountains apart, stole seeds,

and gutted open submerged reservoirs.

No witness as the northern tip of this lonely peninsula

cracked off with such violence

that chunks and shards littered the lonely cove for all time.

No witness as the glacial shadow crept away,

its long heavy winter leaving it barren for a millennia;

no witness as fog and sun returned to kiss and warm its scratched and mottled face.

A mere 18,000 years since life renewed itself

with trees still bent against the wind,

and a grassy carpet wrapped around its well-traveled rock.

I stood witness as seabirds made their nests

in rocky crevices that would always capture snow, rain, and salty spray -

in crannies that would always freeze and warm and flux and crack

again and again,

more and more.

I stood witness as algae and bacteria of mustard lichen thrived -

shielded and nourished by its fungi affiliate -

a symbiosis that defied the Arctic chills, squalls and drizzles.

I stood witness to the careless gulls, oblivious to visitors,

and to the yellow, orange and blue beaks of Atlantic Puffin

as they popped in and out of their sheltered nests

and swaggered around their serrated summer home in formal attire.

Visit The Puffins Colony in Elliston on the Bonavista Peninsula

I stood witness to the cracked-off pieces of a lonely peninsula

2016

that had found purpose.

I stood witness to the land and its life

on that sunny, breezy June morning.

I stood witness to one fleeting day.

Josette Abruzzini is an educator, writer and poet who builds bridges and nudges perspectives. She's a native Canadian, and a naturalized American citizen who visits her home province of Newfoundland and Labrador at every opportunity!

Visit Geological Wonders - Artisan Inn & Twine Loft | Trinity Vacations to see other geological wonders of Bonavista Bay, Newfoundland. If ever you find yourself in Newfoundland and Labrador, remember that Trinity and Eliiston are must-visits. I highly recommend staying and dining at the Artisan Inn and Twine Loft.