you’re still a newcomer
they told me
when I’d been here twenty years.
I hadn’t walked in on the trail
through muskeg, behind an oxcart
we drove in, the kids worn
I on the precipice
of panic
looking for water.
I could only see
land
sky
the new job
I was raised on the bay, the dock anchored
at the north end of Main where the grain elevators
curved in […]
a woman who lives
where aurora dances
where earth sleeps beneath snow
for half the year
this woman may be swept
to her destiny
the heat
before she left she announced
I’m going to fall in love
the desert will hold me
she finds small hot stones
fills her pockets, her bag
the weight grounds her
keeps her from sky where
wind whirls the sun’s gifts
round her like a […]
I first saw her as I walked
along the gravel road
out by the wheat fields
something drew my eye
shrouded in dust, cradled
by bleached grasses
feathers muddy and broken
she is silent
though her black bill
remains open
her skull is hollow now
empty sockets a tunnel
for the light
in death’s dance
outside is in
where her neck once curved
beads of bone
necklace
her brown and
speckled feathers
I kneel to […]
I’ll tell you what I saw
I’ll tell you I saw light
dancing by the river
first the sun shot through
the black branches of that maple
laid out blue shadows
on the snow near the church
so I followed
deer tracks led me down
a trail - narrow, lined with red willow
thin whips springing as I passed
just above the river shining pewter
cold and […]
what do we do
with the fish
when it dies
the child asked
from his seat
behind me
in the canoe
his grip tightened
on the green and pink
plastic rod
as he cast the barbed line out
over the brown creek
my thoughts drifted
to the lake last summer
the rainbow trout
tossed on the grass
the tail flaps
gills open, close
then lift once more
shimmering shades of
sunset on the scales
dim to […]
