Loss

People who have been following my posts on FB will know that I found a selection of poems that Ann had written after our visit to Alaska.  The start of the Alaskan ferry journey along the pan-handle coast of Alaska is the Canadian border town of Prince Rupert and these words were written following the day we spent in the town.  It was wet and fairly miserable and after our first excitement of landing on the airport island and seeing eagles close by,  our experience of the town was not good.  We’d met alcohol abuse among some aboriginal young men in Australia and in Prince Rupert we met it again.  Reading the second verse of this poem this morning I felt my tears flowing, not just for the loss of the young man in the poem but also for my own loss and for the sensitivity with which Ann has written. Reading it I can see that young man in the bushes again, though my own writing in my notebook was rather casual and dismissive.