A STONEBOAT STORY
Rough planks across two wood-beam runners
low and tough enough to tip a heavy rock on
or haul the cleanings of the stalls in winter
Learning to stand in loose-kneed balance
full speed behind fast homing horse
across the frozen tracks and turds
on the way back to the barn
Buff off of Oahu teaching me to surf
I think “Just like this”
until the big wave comes and says “Not quite”
BALL LIGHTNING
In the front door out the back
A ball of lightning through the barn
in the story dad would tell
I wonder now if the light was white
and if it made a sizzling sound
as some who’ve seen one have described
All happened in a blink I guess, and gone,
like this, and all the questions that I didn’t ask
LITTLE BROWN JUG
My father had three sons
and taught them all
how to tie a grain sack, how to cut a calf
how to talk to a horse you walked up behind
so you wouldn’t get kicked or killed
Good things to know
but none of us are working cattle now
He played a mean harmonica
would that he would have taught us that
ROUND TABLES
He loved his neighbors, but not out loud
(Only by default could we tell if he was proud
men did not hug their friends or children then)
There were no women in the bar
and all the tables round and small
heavy with ashtray and pilsner draft
where they talked code till closing time
Politics of any stripe meant you are my brother
The weather, whatever the weather
meant I love you too
WE ARE ALL MOSTLY WATER
It rains on the ocean too
and sometimes you cry in the shower
The water don’t care unless you love it
and can see in each drop
the seed of the snowflake resting
SONNET 43 REVISITED
How do I love thee
let me not count the ways
Lists are for laundry
and for going to the store
One item more or less
I would not love you less or more
LEONARD COHEN AT EIGHTY
There is a crack in everything
that’s how the light gets in
Anthem
Growing old does not dim
the magic that you hold
for you were always old
That women want
to sleep with their fathers
Freud would not consider odd
(though nuns may call it God)
but no matter how many cracks
you or the light might see
growing old is still
not all it’s cracked up to be
so you’ve fought
depression all your life
and perhaps you always will
but for mere boys who must compete
it’s more depressing still
QU’APPELLE AND ESL
(Cree – Kah-tep-was “The river that calls”)
They come today
from countries far away
to learn this country’s
names for river, lake, and tree
There was a time
the natives of this land
sat in these same desks
in de-braided fear
learning to forget them
ATHABASCA
Along the Icefields Parkway
(prettiest road in the world)
winding from Lake Louise to Jasper
lies a glacier that feeds three oceans
(Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic)
It takes a hundred years for a snowflake
falling on the top to make it to the bottom
Before a snowflake that falls today
finishes its journey the glacier may be gone
On the other side of the road in spring
water falls down a long face of rock
They call it the weeping wall
it may still be there
GENESIS A LOVE STORY
On the first day God created light
on the fourth the sun and moon and stars
I see and feel the sun
court the moon and awe the arching stars
But what of the light before the light
is that the light I see in you