November 11*

clouds move into us
          grey, foreboding
          clotted and racing
larger than our lives

giving only weak
filtered light
without color

the island a hulk of
darkness caught
between the leaden wash of water
and the leaden wash of sky

time to curl in
go deep
to other light

*Copyright 2010 by Luther Allen. This poem appears in The View from Lummi Island.