Luminescent Limbs by Vanessa Iddon

It doesn’t seem fair
To call it “New” or “Found”
When its been waiting
With weathered salted wisdom
For as long as dark rocks
have held line after line
Of tumbling wave
Most of us are settlers
Though some of us don’t settle well
Even still, the windy weathered doorways
And greasy slush
Have a way of calling
A people together
The kind of love here
Is a gentle in hardness
The humour in climbing narrow high pathways
— in too much cold — in too late a hour
The tipple-tipping hill echoing
Kind of love
On the days that are too big to hold
Because the crashing in our chest makes islands
We turn them out
To lichens in starlight
Our gnarled green spray land
And call it home