Gothic Basswood Poem by Elliott Rosenberg

Through the tempestuous
road of melee,
Father Le Loutre's War abrogates loyalist,
A calamitous Acadian legion purges natives,
To proselytize,
to refuge,
to undulate,
Only to find solace on the mudflats of Fundy.

Clashing currents carve shale marble cliffs,
deep pools shelter Ug Wug at play,
reversing falls awake old Ned,
April freshets beckon the shad run of early spring.

A land of primeval sagacity,
Where indigenous lore riffles through indurate gorges,
To ears of staunch basswoods who witness the friability of time.

I can hear the forest fauna calling,
Hissing silently beside brackish waters,
I can feel the somber trees kneel,
As zealots champion the colosal prairie.

Oh how I yearn to forget,
To blind myself of misery.
To obliterate colonization,
That brings about war.

Oh how I yearn to remember,
Through pendulous thoughts of courage,
to gape at yesteryear,
Forgive unanimously,
And breed a forgiving heart.

For the Gothic spires of Fredericton call to many a sailor freedom,
To many an atheist grace,
To countless a displaced home.

A lush paradise of rivers,
celestial rapture unearthed,
A terrain of benediction,
Divine and pristine.