Diana Hayes was born in Toronto and has lived on the east and west coasts of Canada. She received her B.A.(UVic) and M.F.A. (UBC) in Creative Writing. She has seven published books, including “Sapphire and the Hollow Bone” by Ekstasis Editions (2023) which was a finalist for the Sunshine Coast Poetry Award, “Gold in the Shadow” by Rainbow Publishers, and “Labyrinth of Green” by Plumleaf Press. She launched Raven Chapbooks in 2019 and publishes small edition poetry chapbooks featuring BC poets. She lives on Salt Spring Island—the traditional and unceded territory of the Hul’q’umi’num’ and SENĆOŦEN speaking peoples.

Otter Bay Squalls      48°23’1.68″ N, 123°47’46.32″ W

 

It was the year of leave-taking, erosion of sandstone

a shoreline falling away from the arms of Otter Point.

 

That time the bluffs at Orveas were awash

squall after squall those late evenings in August.

 

Not the lazy glass-water days at Tugwell Creek

when we feasted on the endless catch.

 

You watched as I swam out to the invisible buoy

pulled myself out before slack tide turned

 

ran back to the cabin all saline and thirsty

and you, building a moat of silence with single malt.

 

I’d already written you out of my journal that spring

when you scribbled a note, asking for more time

 

like we could amble forever then lurch to avoid the crash.

Time weighs less than a squall of crows, you said in a poem.

 

Two full moons close enough to call perigee, 

pulling us this way to that, testing the limit of tides.

 

I want to kill this distance, you wrote, hawk the surf

here on a jostling sea, the squall line pitching without end.

Postcards from the Skeena              54°14′N 130°17’W

 

You’d been gone for weeks out beyond Cape Nowhere

leaving no tracks or signs, not holding out for the weather

 

no thought for a smooth landing, fishing and drinking

from that bottomless tumbler, Jameson’s neat

 

your Drum rollies and yellowed fingertips telling me

you’d be happier in the north, the lure of a river’s promise

 

still standing watch for Elena, how you changed

her name over the decades, her grip identical

 

postcards sent from Port Ed’s general store

haphazard, not far from the Skeena’s mouth

 

you’d returned to that river early like Chinook

a smolt in the belly of the salmon you’d said

 

survival wearing silver scales, a wallet full of flies

your last message dredged by kids on shore—

 

The ground swell will break and rise, scudding

the heron’s low flight. If I am wrong, I’m wrong.

I Have Returned to the River          49°30′N 125°30′W 

                        

I have returned to the river

never mind how long it’s been

 

up to my thighs in memory now

and the water’s lip as I wade out

 

not knowing if you reached the north bank 

I could be lost in your book of days 

 

feel the lap of river’s last run 

how it nudges clean and clear

 

I am further along than I charted

keeping still, waiting for the rocks to bite. 

 

We spent that afternoon by the potholes

taking turns slipping from the grassy ledge

 

you packed a rusted winch in mid-day sun

sweat drenched, hungry for salt

 

the old trestle a roadmap

making the long trek easier. 

 

The night the earth moved the Richter scale

rumble and roar in feral pitch

 

tamed by the whiskey you poured

in twos near the open flame saying

 

it must be the dogs that strange earth’s growl

a lowly mumble as cedars glance free of the panes

 

I did not get up to check the tidal surge

or stanchion the rogue years

 

or call out your name.

Seascape from Sheringham Point             48.3767° N, 123.9210° W

 

Silence, like language, is best fit 

for prayer and is the better half of both.

 

An hourglass on your window ledge sifts coral sand

while Sheringham’s foghorn and Fresnel lenses signal the gale.

 

Here the Anna Barnard wrestled rock before her captain swam to shore.

Here five seamen climbed the bark’s mast, clung to rigging until the tide went out.

 

These are your landmarks, Saint-John Perse’s Amers beside the hearth 

Seamarks in translation, long passages recalled until the barometer rose:  

 

laid at your side, like the oar in the bottom of the boat…

and the sea itself our vigil, the salty night bears us in its flanks…

Go more gently, loosen the clasp of arms, listen to the sea… 

 

Etched through panes of fog, our questions dissolved in silence

the blue halo of winter stars shone down from The Pleiades.

 

Westing in from rainforest inlets your Kynoch ravens tip and tuck

flip and chase, proclaim their tok and kraa kraa liturgy.

Hawking the Surf           36.5421° N, 121.9322° W

Among stones and quietness

The mind dissolves without a sound

 

You died young, wheeled out headfirst, so a friend revealed in a book.

I was travelling south that winter to Jeffers’ Tor House, Carmel-by-the-Sea

 

with a map you had drawn by the dirge fire’s flame at Otter Point

that same Pacific roar, granite stones piled along the ridge 

 

your copy of Jeffers’ Tamar in my satchel, read aloud at Lone Cypress

amongst the impossible burden of rock, winds clutching with sea-cold fingers

 

Jeffers’ hands calloused as yours, building Hawk Tower one stone upon another

burning off afternoons to clear the darkness from his poet’s desk

 

Una telling him to be with the sea air and masonry each day, needing the tactile 

to shake from his wild mind the carcass of Caldwell’s mare in the surf

 

and later, Tamar’s visage and nakedness where the stream made a pool 

her kiss cold as winter stone, auburn hair trailing the water’s translucence—

 

there are more stones than stories, impossible burdens buried in rock 

and grass now grows where the flame flowered.