cold wind with the not too distant splash of some object brought his
thoughts back to the present. Wonder what happens to those drowning
today, he felt himself saying almost aloud. Do they really resemble the
element they've been cast from? I mean, are their lips really blue or
did fear choke all colour from their countenances? He thought of the
baby and its mother he had not met. Wondered if the next light he saw
midway out into the channel would be the same skiff he had registered
and had at least ostensibly given the O.K. to make the perilous
crossing. Many thoughts like these passed through his mind as he
swathed a scarf more fully around his neck.

"Must be cold, so cold down into that channel," he thought turning to
the stove door on his shanty. "I'll put a few extra logs on the fire,"
as he poked some tattered newspapers by the edge of the stove. He lit
his pipe and watched the smoke fade toward horizon's line where a skiff
disappeared from view. Half absentmindedly, he thought he measured a
headline describing a craft missing since, since ... No, he mused, just
my preoccupation, he thought settling down for a quiet smoke.

UPTURN THE ROCK

Upon the rocks where the baubles of broken blue glass wink at the sun
and gather strands of rusted wire with the occasional bloodroot
wildflower, a man is unbending in his efforts to construct a stone rail
fence. Specks of mica in the rock are like lizards basking in the heat
of a mid-day or a man's thumb placed squarely about these noisome
stones clattering as one more of their number comes to rest and home.

The line of cherokee rocks bends first up, then downward in movement
across the meadow much like a labouring oar listing but finally brought
into play. The glitter of turquoise water with jewels of light on her
passing wave--like wings entrances much as does this fence moving
smartly into the space of green and earth.

The man, a stooped farmer, has toiled for days to clear this land for
tillage. His impact seems negligible to efforts given yet gradually he
surmises a scant return is being paid. He picks a wildflower nudging
its face through calloused stone and watches the juice break onto
forward skin. An old saying reminds him insect bites will lessen should
he smear the liquid onto exposed limbs. He is perspiring now and the
rocks shove face-like projections into the consciousness of forest and
that periphery area, his clearing.

The fence begins to melt as