Here in this little bay
by chuckofish
Taking a cue from my dual personality, I spent some time yesterday sorting through papers, photos, and children’s art. Like her, I found some doozies, some of which I will share later (I give you fair warning, boys and girls). One of the things I found was this poem that son #2 wrote in 5th or 6th grade and which got published in our local paper:
I’m not sure what prompted his style, but we all liked it a lot. Anyway, this put me in mind of a couples weeks we spent in New Brunswick on the Bay of Fundy when Chris was roughly the same age as when he wrote the poem. The Bay of Fundy is famous for its dramatic tides. This is the view upriver from our cottage at high tide
and the same again at low tide
Sometimes the fog rolled in and covered everything in mystery.
That didn’t stop the boys, though. They became intrepid explorers. As I recall, they found Atlantis.
And, of course, they got cold (really cold) and wet.
We loved it there and vowed to go back again as soon as we could.
Alas, life swept us along to other destinations and we never did go back. Maybe some day…
In the meantime, I leave you with a thought from Coventry Patmore,
Here, in this little Bay,
Full of tumultuous life and great repose,
Where, twice a day,
The purposeless, glad ocean comes and goes.
dual personalities 
LOVE the poem. 🙂
We DID discover Atlantis. I was its king, which was a special privilege to me, as James was usually the leader. It made an impact, that mere clump of rocks, in that brief week we spent there. I remember, the following year I entered fifth grade, and we had an assignment for which we had to discuss a special place in our lives. I wrote about the fantastical kingdom of Atlantis, and had to argue my point to my teacher as to why she should accept it. In the end, my reasoning convinced.
I think those rocks were so cool because the tide water cut you off from ‘the mainland’ and you had to leap dangerously from rock to rock. It was a very cool place!