Retablo for Barrie Cooke
This retablo has been made for my friend Barrie, that he may be easy within himself and free from pain or fear.
Helsinki Harbour is alive with floes
that dip and grind against the nudging ferry.
A dusk-fox waits for fish beside an ice-hole.
An island is a fortress on the sky.
Next morning fat, bright mallards stand in snow.
The ferry churns, the mallards move for refuge
tipping off yard-deep ice into the channel,
like toy ducks dropped into a child’s warm bath.
That’s how to move into your future.
A slickered duck that’s most itself in deep, cold seas.
