“Inis Meáin,” a Poem by Gustav Parker Hibbett

“Inis Meáin”
(for SJ, Charlotte, & Ellen)

Before the cottage, before the daisies in the grass, before
the narrow roads, before the fields cut into compartments

by the rocks and lichen, like a scalp divided phrenologically;
before all this, the harbour. Off the ferry, with our groceries

and luggage, we are waiting for a ride we hope is coming.
The concrete dock, all right angles, is empty but for us,

and we spread ourselves under the cautious sun, start in
on the cans we’ve brought along. Our first trip together,

we are slipping layers from ourselves like jackets, dangling
our feet over the water’s edge. From the ferry’s upper deck,

rocking, tasting salt, we could only talk about the power
of the ocean, its body like obsidian in flow, its cold a sort

of muscle. The fear that comes from wonder. But here,
uncorked, the four of us are crystalline with whimsy,

and the now-blue tide is stretching outwards. There are
walls of rock armour on the other edges of the harbour,

concrete in the shape of massive children’s jacks.
With water as our backdrop, we begin to open up

our poetry. I tell them I’m afraid of how predictably
I structure mine, or the way my language piles like taffy,

how this bodes for a first collection. SJ pulls out Siken,
and we study how the lines embrace the fullness

of the page; space relations that can speak
to something innate, outside language. Then readings

of our own. A picture of the Barnard campus, or medals
on the necks of prizewinners. Our ambitions bare

in the Atlantic wind that tears across the island’s
austere face; the stones and waves of wild grass.

______________________________

High Jump as Icarus Story by Gustav Parker Hibbett is available via Banshee Press.