Wendy Morton named Juan de Fuca’s poet laureate: The award-winning poet has long been the voice of the community. The Capital Regional District designated the non-monetary position to Otter Point resident Wendy Morton on Sept. 11, 2019.
Morton is the founder of Canada’s Random Acts of Poetry. Morton is a recipient Order of B.C., 2010 Spirit Bear Award, an honorary citizen of Victoria, and the honourary ambassador for the Federation of B.C. Writers. She is the author of six books of poetry and a memoir entitled Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast.
I couldn’t help but share her poem November as it captures the essence of West Coast living.
I can feel the droplets of rain running down my cheek as she slogs through the shrubs and trees. I can see the large yellow big-leaf maple leaves strewn willy nilly on the forest bed and in the water. I can hear the raven call. Can you?
November by Wendy Morton
I check the day’s sky:
rain, ravens, salt, fog in the west. I don’t care. I haul on my gumboots, my pink rubber supermarket gloves, my rain gear from the Sally Ann, and walk to the back woods for the day’s work.
I see the stream is thick with maple leaves, fallen ferns, small branches from last week’s wind. I wade in, haul the leaves and branches out, toss the ferns into the bush and move upsteam until a windfall stops me.
Then I stop. Listen. Stream music, ravens, the rain.
Paydirt!