four years

i still see you sometimes when i look behind me
like i'm heading down a path without you
and you keep disappearing in the trees
my feet keep moving forward    away from you
and i don't know how to make them stop

it's monday morning and tomorrow
you will be gone   again    gone
for the millionth time since the first of june
four years ago    i keep feeling you leaving me
a phantom pain that never goes away

i was so much younger then
there was too much that i didn't know
like the physical sense of loss
like a limb taken away without warning
how could i ever have known?

i still feel the warmth and weight
of your hand in mine on the last day
i wanted to hear your voice more than anything
i wanted you to say one last thing to me
one last thing to make me as brave as you

but i will never be as brave as you
and i will never be the same

aurora borealis

close to midnight down at the lake
when the beach was still grassy
from a high water line (the water's
all gone now   this will never be repeated)

someone has a bag of gas station fireworks
and excitedly we light them up like candles
in the sand   expecting to be in awe of
manmade splendor on an august friday night

lying in the grass we watch them burn
shooting feebly into the dark sky
extinguishing red and green sparks
and after five minutes it's all over

someone, disillusioned, says
there goes a hundred bucks
and we all start to get up   brush off
wander away back up the road

until the black sky where our own creation
(a feeble magnificence) had just been played
spreads out its vast inky canvas
and every single colour pours onto it

northern lights usually dance
but now they just spill across the sky
a giant oilspill reflecting light for millions of miles
covering the whole space   replacing stars

we stand now on the beach    faces turned up
to watch what God can do compared to
our gas station fireworks and manmade attempts
at creating something truly magnificent

small song

the biggest cups of tea
or warmest winter quilts
could not cozy up this place
as much as your smile
and your lips to my forehead.

five years later

seventeen and feeling old
life-weary already   all night-time
journal scrawls in coil scribblers
driving my mother's sedan around
quiet suburbs in the rain at three a.m.
playing tragically hip on repeat
wanting to smoke cigarettes even though
i never had before   no reason to crave it
except to accompany the mood
i spent so many angsty nights cultivating

now i'm standing on street corners
smelling gutter-rain and distant lilacs
at one in the morning feeling old
and young   simultaneously   a peculiar ailment
and i never did smoke any cigarettes
instead i share beers with new friends
and walk back to my own house   the key
in my own lock   go to bed with the windows open
the sounds of distant sirens   and the smell
of a faraway mayday tree bringing me back home

south cooking lake, 2006

you and i are not quite the same
as the two people who once
lay in the grass under aspen
and watched the clouds
talking like it was easy
easier than anything else
side by side, arms touching
all the way up to our shoulders
a treasured touch, a thirst
of mine that can never be quenched
but sometimes just being near you
is enough

savasana

savasana
looking straight up
to the blue sky
like vertigo in reverse
it's falling upwards 
expanding forever
beyond the tops
of poplar trees
like alice down the rabbit hole
but instead of earth
it's sky sky sky
and tall craggy trunks
white   then green   then blue
for farther than my eyes
have ever seen before

alberta summer, 8:30 PM

driving next to the sun low in the western sky
she said she liked this time the best
when birds and bugs begin to quiet down
and frogs begin to warm up their voices
to sing songs from ponds we'll never understand
she said she liked the comfortable warmth
of the day's heat releasing from the earth
cooling off slowly towards summer evenings
and long shadows across highways on the way home

st. albert tim hortons on a tuesday night

we spent four days apart
separated by prairies
long distance phone calls
and nonmutual friends

and even though i saw
many wonderful things
i still missed seeing
you squinting in sunlight

and your downturned smile
across coffeeshop tables
reaching across for hands
like it had been years

cliffsides

lying on the rough grass of early spring
we squint in the cloud-dappled sunlight
and peer over the edge of a cliff, unafraid
our faces resting on palms so far above
the bottom of a valley and the creekbeds below
and when it's time to get up and climb back down
i want more than anything to remain
lying here between two crisp worlds
at the edge of a cliff in windy sunshine

patrick

we followed a man named patrick
up a mountain where he showed us
stunning valley views and a deer
wandering through aspen stands
and we never felt unsafe
with this stranger, a man
in the woods with a camera
but still we looked behind us
on the way down

dark shapes

late at night and mountains
are dark shapes cresting
against navy summer skies
and though they're looming
with wild animal secrets
and unknown terrain
they may be the safest place
we will ever find

moose lake III

when you have no more use for the highway
turn right and cross the wide, empty path where
railroad tracks used to be (lift your feet, remember?)
and here it's safe, she said, to take off your seat belt
crawl up from the back seat of the aerostar van
curl up in her lap like you've missed her
these past two hours from so far away.
and when the lake comes into view at last,
sparkling blue-grey flanked by saskatoon trees
you're supposed to wave and feel like you are
coming home.

harmony

heavy summer air and the presence of wasps
and blackbirds singing from fenceposts
and the harmony of muscle and bone
moving across an open expanse of green meeting
blue at the edge of your sight    as far as you can
see the landscape spreading outward
as if forever   connected now through
hooves stamping rhythms on early hayfields
still stubbled from an autumn cut
and this harmony can take you endlessly
across the land you love more than anything
as long as you're present to experience it

after everything

there were all of those times
i asked for your help
doubted your existence
tested, bargained, begged
felt heavy-hearted and alone

and then all of those times
you gave me simple gifts
showed me what you made
sent promises on Alberta skies
and western horizons

and here's the thing
after everything
that's happened
after all of the reasons
to run away:

i still believe in you with all my heart

certain things

certain things
can't be replaced

like iced tea
in backyards
beers around
campfires
cups of coffee
on sunday mornings

your grin
across pillowcases

moose lake II

one summer day
on a walk to the meadow
which no longer exists
(it's a helicopter pad now
blocked off by angry
"no trespassing" signs
and possessing a distinct
lack of wildlife and flying kites)
i followed my sisters
down the root-crossed path
my strides shorter
and steps less sure
only sure i wanted to be in
and to be accepted among them
so i followed eagerly
as they ran past a hornet's nest
stirring anger in its dwellers
and the sting made me cry
among aspen and fir
tree roots and pine needles
while they ran ahead
unknowing

drumheller, 2007

after driving all the way
to drumheller, alberta
it turns out you have to pay
to go inside that giant dinosaur

but i guess that's not what it's about
there's looking at ancient things
thinking about our existence
touching history

hiking through hoodoos
scaling cliffs in the wind
and standing all together
on the top of the badlands

sitting at a picnic table
right next to the river
drinking wine, talking
about who we want to be

and all of these things
even just by themselves
are so much better than going
inside that dinosaur anyway

japanese koi

japanese koi

can live a hundred years
and even though
they don't belong
they can still survive
a canadian winter
just sliding, slipping

below the ice
turning eyes upward
to the weak sun
through frosted glass
mouths opening
in surprised little ohs

and if even they
who don't belong
in ponds in yards
through canadian winters
can survive it
then so can i

survive anything

any time

she lives her life perched
on the edge of a whim
like a bird we might scare
into flight
or a leaf hanging on to
the branch
at the end of the season
a blustery day

she could go at any time
and any time
is coming around again

answers

i spoke to you under the most spectacular blue sky
well you know blue   this expanse of creation    it's yours
i spoke to you so fervently among poplar trees
and chickadees and the bird whose songs
i've always loved but whose name i've never known
i told you i believed in you and trusted you
and i thought about mountains and mustard seeds
and i wrote the word "hope" on pages of my journal
for you to know the pureness of my faith
i wasn't pleading like i did before
i wasn't begging you in tears in the dark
out on the porch    trying not to wake them
this time i was sure you'd do this thing for me
for them   who needed to know you existed
for her   who had the rest of her life to live
as a testament to your strength    your love
you always answer    i know you do
i just wasn't ready for the answer to be no

trigonometry

i sleep alone in my bed
which even now seems too small
for my limbs that intersect
like angles on a chart
an unsolvable math problem

and your angles are the same
your feet hanging off the end
of your bed even smaller than mine
all elbows and kneecaps and
sleep lines across your face

someday soon we'll figure it out
a trigonometry of togetherness
angles into complementary curves
and i know without doubt
we'll fit perfectly somehow

with all my heart

remembered tonight
why i am alive
why anyone's alive

and here it is:
to enjoy the world
connect with landscapes
and breathe deeply the spring air

watch horses grazing
hear frogs being born in the pond
see the sun turn pink touching
hazy-green hillsides

everything i know
about the rest of the world
will never compare to

why i am alive
why i know who i am
why i believe in God

with all my heart

garneau parking, late november

rainwater presses the note to my windshield:
"you aren't suppose to park here"
in strongly intended black ink---
permanent marker mistakes

looking out from the office
i wonder if the words will
remain on the windshield---
a tattoo

thinking about parking outside your old house
---do you know it's painted brown now?
had to parallel park on the wrong side of the road
but no go-away remarks on my already ugly pontiac

i'm losing daylight here
but the fluorescent light hums, interrupts
my careful reading so it must stay off
grey, dwindling light lands flatly on pages

and i must find somewhere else to park

mctaggert, saskatchewan

all this time
and i keep going back
to driving in a rented van
across endless prairie ground

and the farthest thing
we could see was
just the horizon
for miles and miles

dusk and we're lost
it's just us in the van
and deer running headlong
through wheat fields

on a land like ocean
an open expanse
of wild bottomless skies
and waving gold seas

out there you can see storms
coming from miles away
but we didn't see it coming
did we?

moose lake

sounds like

poplar whispers
secrets from so far up
leaning towards each other
in wind off the lake

twigs snapping
under bare feet
running down the path
to the dock

lonely loon calls
out across the stillness
when the sun is gone
and the water's still warm

one day i'll lie on the beach with closed eyes
listening to lakewater lapping onshore
picturing myself as a child once more

the land where i was born

all this flying around the world
this yearning to travel beyond
these wide wonderful prairies

this itchiness under our feet
to roam over the mountains
and out towards the sea

this unexplained inclination
to wander farther and farther
in any direction that suits

all this desperation to go --

but all i ever wanted was
to return to the pastures we once explored
to the land where i was born.

winter again

wandering through road-brown slush
gathering in gutters and repressions on sidewalks
and inside my insensible shoes
(chosen to fit in among lawyers with suits)

wearing mittens in may, remembering january
before i hugged her outside the terminal
and she flew as far away as anyone can get
before starting to come back

and the days following brought the thickest frost
i'd ever seen on every tree, every branch and twig
and i thought how she loved that most
about our winters -- something foreign and spectacular

remember driving through the country
to the place we used to live
being blinded by bright white beauty
white roads  white fields  white trees  white skies

it's probably almost autumn where she is
and here it's supposed to be spring
but the violent wet slow clings to my hair
and mittens that match hers a world away are cold and wet

this may i know it's never enough just to feel love
it's only saying it out loud that's important
only sharing it often, giving it daily
that really counts

twenty-three

twenty-three
and making decisions

standing at the bus stop
inundated by sideways snow
a tiny seed of resolution
began to germinate inside my stomach

as the bus slid haphazardly
down mcdougall hill
i thought:
what if i don't make it there at all?
and smiled

that seed had sprouted a bud
and the words came out of my mouth
and i did not give up
and i did not accept mediocrity

for once in my mediocre life

and now i'm waiting for the bud
to bloom
and for the fist around my heart
to unclench

disheartening

it's not so much watching
the spring blizzard pelt
the 22nd floor windows

that is disheartening

but the fact that
i don't even get to enjoy
the gloomiest of views

talking about michelangelo

coffee stain rings on my table

remnants of poetry and scribbles

recalling from somewhere distant

the feel of pen on paper for miles and miles

remember reading eliot

and not identifying with prufrock

weren't you young?

invincible?

now it's like talking about michelangelo

and you know j. alfred

like you know yourself

because he is yourself

how did it all happen so soon?

this sliding downward toward

inadequacy?

we can't all be eliot

but you could be something

if you'd stop all this giving up

all the time

any given saturday morning

these are the things we really need on any given saturday morning:

the touch of another person
the pages of books under our thumbs
the rim of a coffee cup held to our lips
the hesitant april sunlight
the singing of birds

anything else at this moment would be a waste of time.