The Alaska State Writing Consortium
Northern Lit - ASWC's eZine

Boat Ride – Openings

The ferry carried cherubic tourists
who spoke in tongues with European flavor
occasional English phrases spluttered

through the sea-whipped air.  But I
pretended not to hear them;
living in Africa, I felt closer

to the woman selling bright necklaces
than with the plastic slickness
of white folks--money in their pockets,

imported cocktails in hand.  So I sat
with the vendors, chattered in their language
aware of sidelong looks of mild contempt.

But I didn’t care.  I believed I was not
one of them.  Blonde hair plaited
like that of African women

showed I was different in a way;
not enough, though, to be one or the other
an outsider to both, one of

culture, the other of features.
The boat docked, people departed and
I watched the sun bounce off the backs

of ones I’ll soon leave behind
and others I must learn to endure.
A deep sadness washed over me then,

like the warm gentle waves
lapping at my feet.

Rebecca Bowlen, Ketchikan

Rebecca’s Bio

Rebecca Bowlen’s foray into poetry began as a child in Southeastern Iowa
on the banks of the Mississippi River.  Her dreams of seeing the world
took her to Europe and then to West Africa as a Peace Corps Volunteer,
where she fell in love with the Sahara Desert and a guy from Southern
California.  Fifteen years ago, they embarked on an adventure which landed
them in Alaska, where Ms. Bowlen teaches high school English.  She lives
with her husband and two sons in Southeast Alaska and has traded the
desert for a temperate rain forest.

boatride