Passing Through the Barren Islands

Fogbank reveals little surface

off the port side, our wake churning sea.

Pattern of skipping stone just beyond

scribes a murre paddling away,

too full or unconcerned

to fly, to dive. Brume lifts, veil thrown back,

revealing murre’s home seas, passage

between the Barrens, mountains

rising from the Gulf of Alaska bare

save wildflowers, seabirds, the spray

of feeding humpbacks. In any direction

countless whale spouts mist air

as murres, puffins, scoters

dive and flap and paddle

away. I have been away

for weeks, and now turn homeward,

yearning to find all as it was.

Days out yet but the turn lightens me

as do these birds and whales in their

summer waters, blue as it should be. Yet

I recall murres, returned in spring

to oil, flailing away from our nets

but unable to fly—

white breasts stained black,

wings beating but not lifting.

They did not want rescue, could not find

refuge in dark boxes, crated

swimming ponds, sterile washing rooms.

What in their species memory

of these birth waters

shifted after that dark plague?

Will these murre fledglings,

who don’t yet know that days here grow

shorter and colder, feel any pangs

at leaving, any delight next spring

at returning? Or is home wherever

their flock is, wherever they are,

dense shadow memories

blessedly lifted clear?