Posts Tagged ‘glass floats’
eight days – glass floats
In days before plastic and styrofoam, fishermen used glass and wood to make floats to keep their nets buoyant.
These floats are colorful symbols of the people who make their livelihood from the sea. In fishing communities in the Maritimes, we often see fences and walls festooned with painted wooden floats and buoys.
Glass floats are rarer because they are so breakable. At home, my Dad’s collection of sea shells was always accompanied by a couple of glass floats he found at auctions. On my piano, I have a small collection of glass floats in my favorite color, green.
The tradition lives into the next generation… when I visited my family in Ontario for eight days, earlier this month, I was delighted to see a basket of variously-colored glass floats on the hearth of the wood stove.
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glass floats
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the fog’s still glow
penetrates glass
and air incorporated
an age ago
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weightless, flamboyant
on salt water
swell
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glass inflation
tethered by hemp
on an ocean
whipped to froth
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© Jane Tims 2012