like hearing your name called in a place you had long forgotten
The morning the gum surgery was scheduled
we waded through fields of mosquitoes & walked
the flats in rubber jackets & hiking boots mud heavy
with soaked & sloshed foot trodden soles.
From the lookout we saw glorious sandbars &
followed paths to whitecap along the Saskatchewan
while the silence healed the previous months hurt.
Eyes bathed in the bright yellow canola summoning
brilliance while the hay rolled under the power lines
acknowledging our own steady fault lines.
I saw the goldfinch flitting ahead his body a trace
against the sky, the heavy overcast clouds dispersed
bringing an even heavier drowsiness.
I have read the world to which this man really belongs
is far away through the fissures of dream
& I have climbed steps down to rivers and oceans
feeling winded & humbled and been glad of the green.
In every sense have I felt on good terms with a clod of
soil, an unknown song, the smell of sage.
I have been cordial to the grasslands windswept face
and the patience of horizons, though I have worn
the river on my back like a memory.
Lover be not acquiescent of your smile
expressing the depth of happiness and
expel the demons that haunt this plain.
