Work
With it
With it
The rushing river paid us no heed, with water so busy to do it all again
Fast and deep and cold
And in the respite of the eddy, sat on stone shaded by the sun
Quenching our thirst and watching it run
Below the punctured canopy that engineers the trance
We walked and waded through salal and swords
Enwrapped in sunbeams and shadows
Past fallen pews that nurse the story on
Forgotten treasures for happy hands dyed blue
Blackcaps, thimbles, huckleberries too
White capped knuckles rise, framed in fir
Where paper still beats rock
Every sinew reaching
Tired and joyous
Waiting to be found in the sanctuary of alpine meadows
Later lost in the silence and the rapture
Ancient highways woven above valleys still intact
Vast and reassuring
On a seabed suspended
I will tarry there, not tethered to the tiresome
Just as before, coming down from Ben Vorlich
Caught in her sights and sat stoned by the peat black burn
Forever then, with a blue backpack belonging
To where the man picked up the feeling and put it down
And walks down the road with contentment’s black face
Past big cheer and stories, the farmers bales, rolled in ritual
Healing by hedgerows and looking for the eternal brae
How I miss my glad friend, over fields and fences
Now it’s in the new mornings and the old stories they bring
Where the harlequins cut, and the killdeers sing
On the restless shore, the tested lobster creel
Watching the big boats, silhouettes stuck on the cold rolled steel
Where freshly milled cedar stirs the senses, will later paddle the water
Dawn streams through lights, mullions shadows on yesterday’s efforts
With steam and slip, bend and lap
Where hands were made for working, in a place devoted
There’s no champagne for a skin on frame
Just the sweat on my brow and a whole feeling remain
Among the beachcomber’s stall of timber and kelp
Bodies move and flow, socked in fantastic grey
Let it master the sail, let it bend to contain
With good feeling in store, let us go there again
Let’s be a plain member, indomitable like the sun
Just as the herring spawn, and the salmon run
Like the ptarmigan’s plumage, like the warbler’s call
Like the mountain hemlock, who tipped their hats to it all
(2019)