Poetry

Mourning light.

........ at the edge

Precious

in loss entwined

to boreal forest.


I drift with thoughts,

watching the light replace the deep well

out into the dark.

Carolyn loved the darkness

As a small child, she loved being out when you could not see hand in front of face.

She felt connected somehow. 

She taught me so much about living

with the unknown and mysterious.

Yesterday I took the very large van

drove down the logging road to Tsay Keh. 

Kalya came with me,

she had spent all winter in a safe house,

only recently  returned to Fort Ware.

Her words as she sat and belted up

were soft and gentle.

“Good Bye, my people”.

Words  precious, like water. 

She is seven years old , thinks in terms of  people, in place.

I worked at the school in Tsay Keh

Kayla  ran about the community,

visiting her grandmother,her friends, the safe house,

Clearly she made lemonade from lemons

after being apprehended for nothing she ever did.

Last spring she used to come to my place

to play on weekends.

When I returned in the fall she was not here anymore.

The Care people had taken her to the village an hour and a half down the road.

All winter she stayed in my mind

I told her mom my home was here

if she could make a return happen.

About six weeks ago, it did. 

The path is becoming clearer for getting her family back.

Think on her words in the van,

the act of acknowledging people in place

before travel, honouring like the ancients.

Requires witness.


When we returned to Fort Ware

last night her first cousin arrived ,

on their own they tided and sorted in Kayla’s room,

calling me to come and look at their efforts.

Then off they went to Sports night

a young friend of mine came by to ask if Kayla could spend the night with her girls.

An ordinary day

we saw a moose on the crest of a hill ,

did good work  

drove through the forest with a feeling of connection.


Beings, large and dark

Horses, are eating out in front of my window.

The old dogs sleep behind the couch

the two cats are curled close by.

Children and animals bring common sense back

from the Monday

Canada went stupid.

The election has been pivotal to a fart

manifesting itself as serious pervasive windstorm .


Grief meanders like dense fog,

that one can see everywhere.

Once you have held grief in your hands

like  a newborn

you find it easy to bend over

pick it up in its different guises.

I mourn the loss of a Canada quite likely never to return – ever.


But  a little seven year old, a few horses and the shadow of yesterday mean a grip on daily tasks.

A drive on a gravel road can be a perk.

Go figure.


Ashley Smith, Nicole Goddard,

and more than anyone,

Remy Beauregard

my guides into the future created by our present government.

If lives, as these,

can be terminated,

premature death treated as whatever,

then it goes  that life is now tenuous

unless you are rich.

The Reform party will protect the rich, no worries.


There is this African chant, Ubantu.

I am what I am because of who we are.

This fragile town has a small girl 

with meaning in her soul.

Natural to her being.

Will that ,in this  less than Canadian society make her prone to addiction? Quite possible.

Listening abstractly to CBC, as I write.

Mmmmmm. Ignatieff words not connecting to the people.

Huh!!! Harper a thoughtful man.

Okey, CBC , listening makes me want to turn  you off.

Power drags out into the center ,

already the words coming to my ears from my precious CBC  wap wap

across the head.

You can kill,

literally be responsible for death 

and  become a great guy.

He walks the streets with a smile on his face.

Christ , all mighty he and his Calgary think tank pulled the greatest masterscrewing in Canadian history,

Regan is out of his tomb , going to slap us all silly.

It goes without saying our Prime Minister is over the moon, levitating.

Has anyone ever heard the saying about total power and total corruption?  

When Trudeau said “Just watch me, he never fathomed our  Canadian water   going south with no tomorrow.

Platform to kill, frack and betray 

our country said, Yes, I do.

Once I read a play called “The Visit”.

It is a horrid story of a manipulator who takes revenge on a town,

faults an ordinary with shame man.

He is killed for the cause of  blind greed. 

The townspeople convince,

death was  his very own choice.

Died of joy.

Receiver of another's commitment  to  the holy business of a bankable dictator.


Choice , our misfit in pink.

She is liquid, not a solid.


Ralph Nader is on the radio to talk of our government and the Obama plan for Canada.

I need to give him my full attention, then walk the bridge.


The  disconnect is extreme,

more a surfacing than a change.


Feed me a breakfast I need to magnify  the horizon, Ralph.

Horses have had theirs by my window.