Scraped Clean

The way life clung
To the cracks and crevices
Of the hard rock cliffs
Fascinated him

He imagined it 
Like the bottom trawlers 
That once dragged The Banks
For cod and haddock

Rather than nets, though
It was glaciers that scraped 
The cliff face smooth
Erasing all signs of life

It took thousands of years
Of time and erosion
For life to eek out
This small foothold

His grandfather used to tell him
About throwing a bucket
Over the side
And cod would fill it up

When they closed the cod fishery
It was like another ice age
Swept across Newfoundland
Few fishers survived it

He imagined the ocean floor
Scraped clean by the trawlers
And wondered how long
Before the cod came back