Poem
Twenty thousand souls
swell beneath these waves
each whitecap is a headstone,
each billow is a grave.
With shoulders drenched by cannonballs
men fought to give you their name-
their names now lay beside sturgeon,
and spars that were charred by flame
their beards are tangled in milfoil
their eyes stare into green, and we
now praise your luster, your glimmer, your hills
without asking for your name.
We did not dream above your petrified whales,
while sawing trees and nailing ash to cross
your inland sea. We slipped our ships around
Cumberland head- such was the northern dream,
to round Valcour, the Four Brothers,
and ultimately Ticonderoga.
The men of the west were painted and brave
they chose their friends based on their enemies,
the men of the east were painted and brave
they chose their enemies based on their enemies-
Algonquin, Iroquois, English, French, Black
American, Quebecois, White American, Canadian,
all based their enemies upon themselves,
and fought to give you their names.
We say the cormorants have invaded, while you
recall when well bred sheep and the potash trade
denuded an old growth watershed. You dislike
tasting paper pulp- enter clandestine zebra mussels.
Twenty thousand souls
swell beneath these waves
each whitecap is a headstone,
each billow is a grave.
Women walk alone on brick beaches, bricks
from a wreck that foundered in your storm.
Ice fishermen pull steaming trout from your body
and grand children stand on ripples of sand
while your whispers wrap ankles in sunlight-
yet we do not know your name.
Granite hills and crumbling fortresses
embrace the new leviathan,
puffing poets praise themselves, and the rich
their charitable contributions to you.
Your waters are the blood of glaciers
your gar the serrated spawn of monsters
we serve at your pleasure, you are not of us
-and Samuel de Champlain is dust-
while murmuring souls turn in your waves
to blossom and curl and uncurl
like fiddleheads in May, like tears
in a beard, like a baby’s tongue-
innocent of words;
and only they, and only melting bones can know
the shibboleth of your true name.
Twenty thousand souls
swell beneath these waves
each whitecap is a headstone,
each billow is a grave.