Kelp
In his last email he describes kelp
growing taller than the tallest tree
and how Shackleton and his small crew,
seeking help from Elephant Island, knew
they could cling to it as a last resort
if they didn’t make landfall before darkness
fell again and how the danger
wasn’t so much sinking as colliding
with the jagged coast, the cliffs, like them
all floating up above the highest branches
of kelp they could have twisted into rope
to anchor them, something like the rafts
Aran Islanders made from strands of seaweed
to drift back inland with the tide. He tells
how they made it safe ashore at last, the hull
of the James Caird battered, worn thin
as an upturned mussel shell, or maybe
leaves them there, still hanging on somehow
above the kelp, suspended in mid-air.
by Ciaran Parkes
Editor’s Note: The repetition of imagery in this poem grounds the reader inside a dramatic historical narrative, giving voice to the grief of the speaker upon receiving a last missive from a loved one.
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