The Covid 19 pandemic is isolating Alaskan writers. We can no longer attend workshops or public readings. The coffee bars where we met with other writers are closed. To bridge these physical gaps, 49 Writers is providing this on-line forum for Alaskans writing the distance. Shauna Potocky provides today’s poem and a painting.
You Show Us
Oh, Seward, you never fail
with your rugged peaks
watching over us,
pink sunrise mornings
and talon torn nights—
How even in these times
you, over and over again,
raise our spirits, bedrock backbone
teaching us what strength
looks like day after day—
Despite rift or fault,
erosion or the long, dull
scrape of ice; high water
or catastrophic wave
you show us
how weathering storms
over millennia
or one short lifetime
makes us beautiful.
When the tide goes out
old twisted steel rising
from the saltwater,
you show us
we will heal again.
Shauna Potocky is a writer, poet, and painter who calls Seward home.