“At Barber’s Hole” by Janis La Couvée
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “At Barber’s Hole” by Janis La Couvée, part of the League’s Fresh Voices program.
At Barber’s Hole
By Janis La Couvée
For Frances
sheer green pools
and the river
strong and clear
tumbling over rock and ledge
on sandstone shelves
quiet on rocky shore
sun worshippers bronze
children dabble in shallows
while intrepid adventurers
leap from boulder to boulder
launch into pillows of foam
float and bump, buoyed by currents
treachery lurks, not far from the surface
perched above, on the path
a plaque and lifesaving ring
dedicated to a young friend
held, too long, in a watery grasp
Copyright © Janis La Couvée
Janis La Couvée (she/her) is a writer and poet with a love of wild green spaces, dedicated to conservation efforts in Campbell River—home since time immemorial to the Liǧʷiɫdax̌ʷ people. Her work is published or forthcoming in Paddler Press, dipity literary magazine, Dreamers Magazine, Litmora Literary Magazine, Book of Matches, New Feathers Anthology, Pure Slush, among others, and has been anthologized in New York Writers Coalition’s Common Unity. Her poem The Man is Not was short-listed for the inaugural Van Isle Poetry Collective contest.
Fresh Voices is a publication and workshop program created by and for the League’s associate members.
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