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 DAY I SAW THE UFO
I’m sitting
with my back against the tractor tire
eating lunch in the long field by the lake
It flies over
directly South to North
plenty high and far from humanly fast
It is made of a metal that shines out of itself
I rise with a smile
brush the crumbs from my jeans
set my eyes on the furrow
and let out the clutch
WINTER NIGHT – PRAIRIE
Coyote joins me
howling at the moon
Much lonelier to appear
in a million city eyes unseen
BLUE EYED BOY
Blue eyed boy
blasts off from breakfast like a quail on a rail
Collie dog leaps on board
they sail out across the prairie
barely touching the tops of hills
Sun gives warmth or cloud gives shade
all depending on his whim
birds and rocks and swaying grass
everything living embraces him
Burrs don’t stick and thorns don’t prick
fences join in the play
happily turning their barbs away
Floating along on the wings of four
not long now till they’ll slam the door
BARN SWALLOWS
They swoop
from beneath the eaves
Carving
an invitation
to the big red ship
Come slip your moorings
and follow us across the sea
PRAIRIE BUMPER STICKER
I brake for trains
that don’t run anymore
COURVAL
Small town smaller
reference points gone
inside compass wobbles
ODE TO THE FARMER
No one will be surprised by the report
that farming is a very dangerous sport
What flapping empty fingered gloves
point back to momentary lapses
What limbs with what power
have been taken off by
power take offs
What tendons snapped like glass
and bones cut clean as grass
by unthinking mowers
And what of those neighbours dead and true
who for a minute forgetting what they knew
through red machines combined
with their grain
All these have earned his dusty tear
and many a “who’s next” fear
Year after year, after year, after year
And yet deep in the soils of time
the seeds of his goodness are growing
while the world turns in slow seasons
and he will be ready
when at last they declare
a true war on poverty
and are willing to bomb with wheat
ALBERTA AIR
(a song still waiting for the music)
Alberta air, Alberta air
You’ve gotta breathe
that good Alberta air
It rolls in over the mountains
it rolls out over the plains
it smells of age old glaciers
and brand new gentle rains
It’ll cleanse your heart of worries
and wash your soul of pains
for there’s a world of love and kindness there
feel it blowing through your hair
Alberta air, Alberta air
WAVES OF MEMORY
I was sailing into waves of memory
as I drove to my boyhood home
To find that some heavy breakers
had turned to light light foam
Here I walked for miles in freedom
and my home was warm and real
And here my good dog saved me
from a coyote’s tender meal
Here all my innocence was known
And most of it shattered too
As I remembered what people said
and then what they might do
I thought that I could face those waves
with the things that I now know
But I was more than a little surprised
by the strength of the undertow