Miss Underhill’s Chair
High on the ledges, well above the tide
pools and rockweed, a wave converged
from two directions. It rose — over the heads
of two young people come to observe
a raft of gannets bobbing in the swells —
then collapsed. They shrieked, laughing
at the unexpected drenching, helpless
with their youth and mirth — half
exhilarated, but underneath the swagger
apprehensive. They remembered from this rock
a schoolteacher had once been dragged
to sea on such a day. No one saw the break,
only found the empty boulder, the teacher gone —
her body washed up later, some miles
down the coast. The story still haunts;
the shoalers tell it as a caution to each child
who goes wandering on the cliffs.
Since then it’s been two centuries almost,
but when groundswells make the surf
stack from the east, and rolling combers
clear the breakwater, talk turns to the teacher
Nancy Underhill — how a life can tumble
into unknown currents, how it can beach
somewhere distant and never make it home.
pools and rockweed, a wave converged
from two directions. It rose — over the heads
of two young people come to observe
a raft of gannets bobbing in the swells —
then collapsed. They shrieked, laughing
at the unexpected drenching, helpless
with their youth and mirth — half
exhilarated, but underneath the swagger
apprehensive. They remembered from this rock
a schoolteacher had once been dragged
to sea on such a day. No one saw the break,
only found the empty boulder, the teacher gone —
her body washed up later, some miles
down the coast. The story still haunts;
the shoalers tell it as a caution to each child
who goes wandering on the cliffs.
Since then it’s been two centuries almost,
but when groundswells make the surf
stack from the east, and rolling combers
clear the breakwater, talk turns to the teacher
Nancy Underhill — how a life can tumble
into unknown currents, how it can beach
somewhere distant and never make it home.
Sonja Johanson holds an MFA in poetry from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers, and has recent work appearing in American Life in Poetry, the Cincinnati Review, and Sugar House Review. Her most recent chapbook is Trees in Our Dooryards (Redbird Chapbooks). Sonja divides her time between work in Massachusetts and her home in the mountains of western Maine.
Art: Molly Dunham