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What Last Golden River Run
Canoe Poems for Autumn
September Question
Ah, love, could we find but
one
Of all the dreams we lost
Would we pick it up again
Regardless of the cost?
Would we trade September’s days
For what we missed back then
Would we take a different portage, now
Or do our route again?
Almost asleep in the canoe
In the quiet of a weedy bay
You touch the question carefully
And smile, as if to say:
It doesn’t matter how rough the route
When you’ve finally camped in peace
Sometimes the shelter matters most
And the passage matters least.
Tying Down Canoes
Somewhere past Alberta the
winter walks on diamond feet
Shuffles across the prairies in sparkling shoes of sleet
The day, today, is sunny, but the northwest whispers rain
It’s November, in Ontario, and I prepare the canoes again
And yet, the moving sun is warm on me
And yet - the river outside town is sliding free
And tying down canoes is hard on me
The hulls are hieroglyphics traced in curving lines of white
Two passports stamped by passages I didn’t get quite right
My heart, too, is marked by river brook and lake
I tie the blue canoe to another driven stake
And yet there’s five more hours to this day
And a lovely stretch of river not so far away
And I find covering canoes is hard this day
A heretic pause lengthens as I contemplate the sky
And snow and moving water and a thousand reasons why
The last brown leaves of willows where the river makes a bend
And the aching way of autumn things that may not come again
The moment lost has not been spent on me
Tethered to the truth is never to be free
And tying down canoes is hard on me
The One-Pine Inn
The evening water’s
still as space
And as clear as London gin
I sit beside the fireplace
Down at the One-Pine Inn
The residents murmur quietly
And inspect my tender skin
Approving of the evening meal
Served at the One-Pine Inn
There’s dirt beneath my fingernails
And hair on my unshaved chin
But nobody seems to really mind
Here at the One-Pine Inn
The supper is stew, as usual
Served in a sooty tin
But it’s hot and filling and what I need
For my stay at the One-Pine Inn
I had to park my own canoe
And drag my own stuff in
And after midnight it gets right chill
In October, at the One-Pine Inn
But the Management responds to all complaints
With an awkward lunar grin
And serves an after-dinner round of peace
Again, at the One-Pine Inn
What Last Golden River Run?
In the autumn sunlight
What new route shall we take?
What last golden river run
Cross what last blue lake?
Do October’s embered hills
Mention the small word, “where”
Or, like some neon Vegas act
Can they just “be there”?
Ask me some other lesser month
For schedule, reason, plan
Today laughs at “I shall, I will”
And blazes out, “I can!”
To the Edges of Drown and Sing
It was too cold to be on the
water
The shores of winter groaned at the edges of the province
The sky was the arctic’s lesser brother
Out to conquer souther lands
Much too cold to be on the water
What the hell, I thought, that’s what a canoe
Is for
To carry us to the edges of cold fish and air
To the edges of drown and sing
And in the long run, cold white hunts us all
Life was always an edge of sorts
Our unwilling temporary challenge to cold white
It was too cold not to be on the water
October is the Church of God
October is the church of God
Built in yellow leaf
It calls for not the slightest doubt
Impels, instead belief
Each lake’s a chalice deep with time
Craft with fish and dreams
That give us faith the world is more
Than merely what it seems
The final portage takes you through
Aisles of quiet beech
The geese the choirs of Eden
Now brought within your reach
16 poems. 7 little illustrations.
For canoers who need consolation as the season closes.
Text file available free. Email me at everson@golden.net.