HIKING HUBERT ROAD

Juvenile chickadees hop sideways,
up-side-down,
all over a young pine tree,
cry out a tiny “chick-a-dee-dee-dee
as if to bid me good day
as I stride by.

Saskatoon berries are heavy and ripe,
hang along the edges
of this sun-dappled gravel road,
I eat them by the handful.

Two farmers drive by,
stop, address me respectfully
by name, we talk about
getting in the hay in spite
of the scattered rain.

Now see the morning sun
shine on their rolling fields
recently cut for hay,
bordered, intersected by copses
of trees and bush
outlining contours of the climbing hills,
glistening green after last night’s
summer rain.

Could a morning in paradise
be more pleasant?
I must walk this way again.

YUKON CYCLERY

Someday I will tell you
how every black hole you see
in a northern forest that moves
is a bear.
Brown holes along rivers and streams
are prospectors shifting glacial till.

how there is a wild freedom
in this Siberian land of long winter snows
that glow scarlet and purple,
reflecting a sky that is, day or night,
neither sunrise nor sunset,
but instead, a ring of slow flame
circling, dancing upon ice mountains
in a wheel of which you are the centre.

Be careful. Prepare. Plan ahead.
There are few second chances,
no help, no company for many months,
no, the cell phone does not work here
where the cold is ruthless, but so beautiful,
the black hole so big and so hungry.

Someday I will tell you these stories
around a warm fire when northern lights
sing in the darkness at noon.
But now it is summer,
the sun does not set.
You see people working, cutting wood,
fishing, sluicing for gold, gardening,
sleeping right there in the sun.
When you cannot continue,
sleep where you fall.

Only the clock, far away in Ottawa
knows if it is day or night.
How welcome it is when darkness
comes again in September!

LATTICE

In tonight’s light summer rain,
I sit in my small greenhouse doorway
looking out over the garden
enclosed by raspberry vines
with setting sun.
green grass with long shadows.
deep black soil.
rows of peas, carrots, and spinach.

Birds with little voices
settle in for the coming night,
mothers read to their children,
a hummingbird inspects
a few raspberry blossoms.
A chill grows on the air.

Outside the garden, spruce trees, aspen,
stand and wait unshaven in quiet rows.
green plantings drink in the rain gratefully,
if gratefulness describes a thirsty carrot.

Weeds that compete are not welcome here,
so how do I belong? I am not a garden god,
nor have I been hoed or pulled;
sitting here among the ripe tomatoes,
as if planted, the fruit I bear:
this vine clambered lattice of words.

FROM THE SANCTUARY

Here among the brick buildings,
between tree lined streets,
there is too much spilled blood,

between pounding drum beats,
broken vows,
the view is spoiled,
too much smoke to see the churning city.

wisdom speaks in syllables of silence.
I confess I am afraid;
in order to coherently report,
present my generation to life,
I must climb another perspective
to a sanctuary
in northern clouds, and fall prostrate
before an altar of reconfiguration,

watch as if in vision to record
the assailant and the victim,
wordless among the playing children,
the bruised rose and the torn dress
on the untrammelled, sunlit meadow
in a corner upstairs,

the smiling trusted one who saw
nothing at all. though he could have,
it was all in the mirror,
how the whole crowd missed it,
chose to ignore it,
lest all be shown
their own familiar face,

but the night will mercifully end,
new forgetting
begin again,
the sun will rise on Central Park,
on children sleeping in the bushes,

carriage horses, waiting,
will stand and stamp in their places,
a flagstone cross in the pavement,
while their grooms nurse
stainless mugs of hot coffee.


by c van gorkom

BEFORE WE GO

Redeeming the dead
at the lake beneath black walnut trees,
wraping bodies exhumed
from heavy clotted layers of history,
dressing them in robes of charity
adorning them with belts, sashes
and gems
mounted in soft lambskins
of new understanding--

we do this together,
an order of quiet poets,
a secret society,
priests of prayer,
cleansing one by one
memories of saints,
unrealised, unknown,
newly discovered by surprise
in forgotten crypts neglected
for a hundred years

the day before I leave
for another land,
we follow a trail of bottles,
torn plastic, cigarette butts,
detritus from the congregation
among whom they lived
beneath walnut trees,
in whose leaves memory wind
blew softly, like today,
an aural tide, waxing and waning
depositing flotsam
at its highest reach

today names have risen
like flowers on a grave,
fish rising to bait
in the green, quiet, waters
in this algae choked lake,

today we are together here,
today this is where we go
before we go,
redeeming the dead.


by c van gorkom

THE MOMENT

In the wildernesses of the world,
seek and you will find
sculpters in wood and stone,
carvers, painters of figure
and landscape,
novelists, poets,
boot makers, sailmakers
boatmakers, guitar makers,
violin makers and all muscal instruments,
gold smiths and jewelers,

craftsmen, all,
lovers of transcendence
trading time and talent
for products of hand and brain,
creating real estate from thought,
spinning gold from straw.

living simple lives,
pared down to serve
in supplication to all beauty
with minimum to distract.

But a poet among them
struck out to see the world,
his books and pencil in a bag,
found a few phrases,
returned to his wilderness bower
stronger and weaker,
wounded and healed
teeth broken on the concrete of cities,
yet hungry to gnaw its iron rinds again

returned to the banks of his river,
where the water still flows,
birds still sing, grass grows green
Saskatoon berries ripen,
where Peace, a willow maiden
in a trailing gown,
riverside sits in her wisdom,
sings songs of change and sorrow,
that every year is new,
poets come and go,
cities and trees, rise and fall,
the river is never the same,
a poet that wrestles not,
fixing his moment in time to the page,
captures nothing at all.


by c van gorkom

GRANT ME SEVEN

I have been away on holidays, hunting, as always the elusive poem. While gone, amazing comments have been left that have humbled and blown me away! Thank-you all so much, you are such an encouragement to me....Lord make me worthy...


Grant Me Seven


Teach me the wisdom
of two that become one,
the mystery of sun and moon
in a single sky,
one word pronounced
filling void with mountain glaciers
and tropical butterflys,
the grammer of planets
and sky-lunging leviathons,

masculine and feminine,
who come by different doors
to a mossy bed
in a weedless garden
past oaken casks
in a stone-cool cellar,

give me the contemplation
of the blue heron
that stands in green shallows,
still, but fishing,

that I may answer your calling,
define the embattled borders
of my destiny,
write a poem worthy
of your crucifying word.


c van gorkom