Mike Smith

II Tuba Mirum The Bringing of the News

Whatever moves above it or below

disturbs the surface: Writes its passage:

weight: speed: bulk: hull: body: keel and fin:

the changing pressure of the wind.

A drowning man will tell his tale

as clearly as a fishing heron can.

Today it’s briefly mute: What lives below

is motionless. The wind is starved of breath.

Here three boys died a few yards from the shore,

where the wave cut platform tips sheer down

the steep slope to deeps that glaciers carved.

So cold at depth it strips you to the bone.

That shock of cold will take your breath away.

Only shallow water over stone’s not cold.