A Child of this River
 
Pure
the water runs glistening over
fire painted cobbles as
the dark shadows of grayling
flash through iridescent pools,
a seagull skims the riffles, ghostly
white wings churning the salt-tinged air,
the bird seems strange here but I
of course am the stranger
 
I dream to be a child of this river
running with the wolverine
chasing the secrets of snowmelt and spring
down curling willow-choked canyons
and valleys yawning under rain
across boggy coastal plains
rumbling with musk-ox thunder
 
I long to greet the white sea
and dance at its vagrant edge
watch the forever sun fade
to the never sun
whispering the brittle poetry of ice
 
I turn my eyes to the light haunted land
feeling nothing but the absence of myself
in the pall of its daunting physics
 
I am ready to think like a river
 
but I stand with my feet in the earth.


From the book, "Sounds from the Old Lodge"
ISBN: 0-9640308-8-6
Castle Rock Publishing ©2004