WINDMILL FARMS
How many will it take to keep this thing in the air
Category: Nature
ATHABASCA
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
DNA
DNA
And what of the unwinding
of the windings we have wound
round our double helix, Felix
Bones, ashes, memory’s wake
or, two-four-six-eight
how much did we propagate
On that long and winding road
HAIRING UP
HAIRING UP
A Canadian horse down in Texas
will still hair up every fall
Clams taken out of the ocean
still open and close with the tides
Even thinking to do
what you did as a kid
You can still flinch an inch
though the hand’s in the grave
RED STICK WEDDING – BATON ROUGE
RED STICK WEDDING – BATON ROUGE
When you get married at the Alligator Bayou
in the middle of a Louisiana swamp
it is well to expect some magic
When you get married on the anniversary
of Granny Jean’s death in her 100th year
you can pretty much expect she’ll be here
The sky cracking open with lightening
just as the preacher starts preaching
and the thunder and rain and hail
rattlering off the big tin roof
all through poem and ceremony
might have happened anywhere
But when the wedding vows slow
that rain to a stop, so we can go out
on the flat bottomed boat at dusk
come around the corner and see
Two cypress stumps fifty paces apart
struck by the wedding party lightning
firefly sparks against the night
we know we’re not in Kansas
EVENINGS SO QUIET
EVENINGS SO QUIET
You can hear the chameleons
changing to their darker suits
GRACELETS
GRACELETS
Because Gloria needed a new word
for those brief magic shining moments
A word for when the fox was looking over
her shoulder as she sketched in the woods
A word for when the pure white horse
trailing black reins came thundering
past her and a friend on a snow white day
For the sunsets that cover the whole sky
double rainbows when grandmothers die
and a circular rainbow that held you and I
Sheet lightning eating its tail in a circle
Northern lights that start in a point over
your head and shower around you
For the magic of weaving our gracelets when
we meet to remind us of magic in each of
our lives and each other
Because of all this, it is now your word too
Thank you Gloria
INDIAN RIVER, ONTARIO 2004
INDIAN RIVER, ONTARIO 2004
Above waterfall
In circle of highest pine
green showers down
By the waterfall
body rests in hammock
cells rush to the sea
Below waterfall
power beyond soap and rub
washes off city
Lying by the bank
trees holding blue hammock
lift it to the sky
Indian River
Great Blue Heron stands
wise Tibetan monk
AWAY FROM THE BUILDINGS
AWAY FROM THE BUILDINGS
To the North is the ranchland
a soft cloth crumpled
To the South ironed
flat and stretched tight
to the treeless shores of the legend lake
And there is a difference in the day
when you stay in the flatlands
or go up into the hills
THE CROCUS
THE CROCUS
Loud crows and bright robins
promise an early spring
But they are of the sky
and can be easily fooled
Only the crocus
knows