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Cherish the Day

Canoe Poems for Summer

Come and Share

Come and share the wind with me
The night is full of tears
On the last portage, we'll find
Our footprints on the years

Come and share the night with me
Warmth on warmth in dark
When the wind shakes the tent
You are fire, I am spark

You are fire, I am spark
Against the tears of night
In torch and touch and sudden flame
To reach, then hold on tight

If We Were Free

If we were free
Of time and due
Then you and I
Might never canoe

If life were long
And had no end
There’d be no call
Of river bend

If we never had
To age or die
There’d be always tomorrow
Or next July

A bit too warm
Or chance of rain
We’d find ourselves
At home again

Paddle long, my love, and
Do not dwell
On the gentle sound
Of distant bell

Cherish the day
Sun and rain
Tomorrow may not
Come again

To the natural buzz and bite of June

To the natural buzz and bite of June
I donate my blood for free
And give, on the portage to Ragged Lake
Some better parts of me

Ecologically, I rate
Reasonably high
Many fed and darned few squished
(Despite a thoughtless try)

Some part of nature’s inner peace
My heart takes home, I guess
My soul inspired, my body weight
Just a little less

In honour of National Blackfly Month
I do my noble part
And, autographed with polka-dots
I graciously depart

I Have Crossed Landscapes

I have crossed landscapes
And am proud of it
Pushing a red canoe on a July lake
Pausing on a portage, by a swamp, the frogs
Hesitating, lapsing into silence

I have waited out thunderstorms
And have gone on, the flat-rock trails
Alive with deerflies

And do not regret it

Oh! I would not like
To be God, always knowing
What's behind the next violet hill
Or when
All the loans of time
Come due.

The Downwind Dance

To the downwind dance and cabaret
Of August wind and sky
To the sunshine ballroom of the lake
Came my canoe and I

We waltzed on tumbling whitecap wave
Bobbed past shoreline tree
Pirouetted when an island swell
Whirled us to its lee

To the great applause of aspen leaf
We rolled to granite shore
Quickly bowed, then made our way
Out the portage door

16 poems. 6 little illustrations.

For happy canoers.

Text file available free. Email me at everson@golden.net.

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