Driftage rights go with the shoreline:
Logs for woodstoves, whale bones for stays;
The waves retreat, a wave contemporary stays
Of obsolescence ever a foresign.
The driftage on this stretch of coastline —
Fuel or food for subsistence gone spurious —
Wood and whale are decorative at most, fine
Objets d’art, fine trinkets for tourists.
Claim the right to drift now half-submerged,
Listening alone to unrecoverable timber,
And only now in retrospect’s a dimmed blur
The adamantean landing breakers’ first scourge.
Driftage rights – The right to gather driftwood, beached animals, seaweed, etc. washed ashore; historically considered an important source of food and material, for example in medieval Iceland.
Stays – A play on the noun meaning “a corset” and the verb meaning “continues to be.”
Foresign – (Pronounced FOR-sine) An omen.
Adamantean – (Pronounced ad-a-man-TEE-an) Usually, extremely hard; here, implacable.