{"id":5396,"date":"2023-07-23T18:03:09","date_gmt":"2023-07-23T23:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/pjones\/blog\/?p=5396"},"modified":"2023-07-23T18:03:09","modified_gmt":"2023-07-23T23:03:09","slug":"on-portsmouth-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/pjones\/blog\/on-portsmouth-island\/","title":{"rendered":"On Portsmouth Island"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When my friend and co-publisher of <a href=\"https:\/\/Ocracokeobserver.com\/\">the Ocracoke Observer<\/a> and editor of <a href=\"https:\/\/friendsofportsmouthisland.org\/\">the Doctor\u2019s Creek Journal (from the Friends of Portsmouth Island)<\/a> <a href=\" https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/video\/nc-now-peter-vankevich\/\">Peter Vankevich<\/a> asked me to write a poem that talked about Portsmouth Island, I knew I\u2019d need to revisit the Island and Village.<\/p>\n<p>I first went to Portsmouth in the mid-1970s to camp in the dunes with a couple of friends. I didn\u2019t return until a few years ago with my family. Then again, this past October. This time, while we didn\u2019t stay over \u2014 I don\u2019t think camping is allowed anymore. If the rangers don\u2019t enforce that, the biting insects certainly will.<\/p>\n<p>The Village has been battered repeatedly since it was first established in 1753. Once one of the largest populations on the Outer Banks by 1971 the last people left the Village. Each storm rearranges the shore and more than occasionally the Village itself.<\/p>\n<p>The poem, along with one by Ann Ehringhaus, are available only in print for the Friends of Portsmouth Island, but I\u2019ve included mine here:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nOn Portsmouth Island<\/p>\n<p>There should be ghosts here.<br \/>\nAnd would be if the wind<br \/>\nhadn\u2019t taken them to sea.<\/p>\n<p>If what there were of bones<br \/>\nhad not been moved by weather<br \/>\nwithout so much as a moan<\/p>\n<p>or the rising that one<br \/>\nmight expect from ghosts.<br \/>\nYet some spirits still come,<\/p>\n<p>left by the sea on shore<br \/>\nto be broken like waves<br \/>\nunmade to be reborn.<\/p>\n<p>Ghosts ask too much of this sand.<br \/>\nInstead what vanishes is land.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When my friend and co-publisher of the Ocracoke Observer and editor of the Doctor\u2019s Creek Journal (from the Friends of Portsmouth Island) Peter Vankevich asked me to write a poem that talked about Portsmouth Island, I knew I\u2019d need to revisit the Island and Village. I first went to Portsmouth in the mid-1970s to camp [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/pjones\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/pjones\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/pjones\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/pjones\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/pjones\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5396"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/pjones\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5398,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/pjones\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5396\/revisions\/5398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/pjones\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/pjones\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/pjones\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}