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No Ordinary Waters
Canoe Poems from a Strange Mind
When They Ask
When they ask, “Did he truly live?”
Say I canoed rivers
To the edge of my dreams
Say I knew what the morning was
The light through the woods
The dew heavy on the tent
Say I came to each river bend
With anticipation
Almost greed
Someday, when they ask, “Did he truly live?”
Say, “There were a few rivers
A few routes in June
That made his life a poem.”
The Canoe is a Dark Form by the Shore
My bones chill
At evening dark
As shadows crawl
Across the park
Darkness brings
New rules, laws
Enforced by stealth
And ivory claws
In the night's
Endless deep
We hide by fire
And escape in sleep
But in the tent
We shift, in dream
Half aware
Of a primal scream
Against the Fall of Night
The measured heart
Of the planet beats
Time is a tide
That never retreats
On Buzzard Lake
In the curling noon
The world turns
Too late, too soon
I am a son
Of the very last day
Carefully I threw
It all away
You, a daughter
Of worn brown rock
Casually drowning
Grandfather clock
The lake is shameless
In wind and light
We paddle against
The fall of night
My River
All that I have ever done
Is lost in endless river run
And all that I would ever be
Moves, stubbornly, to the sea
When I’ve had too much of if and when
And the nattering of people who ought to know
I look for the peace of turn and flow
And move with the river, my river, again
When too many choices surround my brain
Touching the currents redeems my mind
Straightens my kinks where the smooth waters wind
And I launch a canoe on my river again
I gather treasures from the old canoe
Some well-known shores, one favourite tree
So the river becomes a part of me
But I am part of this river, too
All that I have ever done
Is lost in endless river run
All that I would ever be
Is part of my river’s mystery
Had Jesus Canoed
Had Jesus canoed
This northern lake
What strange routes
Would history take
Had he owned
A red canoe
Every pope
Would have one, too
Paddling pilgrims
Would come to gawk
At Michaelangelo's God
Painted on rock
Cathedral walls
Would be green, and sway
With sunlight blessing
All who pray
Eulogy
My last weekend is over
My last campfire is cold
But spared, a least, a few portages
On the trail of growing old
Sometime when the canoes are beached
And shadows walk the lake
Remember me for the life I lived
The routes I chose to take
I was born to run those rivers
That turned towards my dreams
Too often forcing passage down
Narrow, log-blocked streams
In a land where rivers run
Toward the far-off sea
I found love and shared a passage
With some who cared for me
Stir the campfire proudly
Beside the rocky shore
Remember a man who loved the waters
A poet who is no more
Recite, perhaps a line or two
Against the falling dark
Make them a part of the winds of night
Like each dancing, fading spark
My maps are packed away, now
The canoes, still and dry
Oh, keep this world beautiful
For travelers such as I.
18 poems. 2 little illustrations.
Poems about the mystery of it all. Poems to remember a dead canoeist. And poems beyond imagination.
Text file available free. Email me at everson@golden.net.