Some have been encouraging me to share more poems. This is one of those rare ones that actually felt finished after I wrote it down. It's actually — and I guess obviously — a collection of several poems written together over the course of a few days. From my "wanderings in the wilderness," when I was always heading north ... always north; as north as north can be. (Why north? Because it isn't south, apparently.)
The Canadian Northern Suite
I. Departures
Union Pacific
Runs slow as sap
This year,
Still I insist
A stranglehold —
Track-pulse coursing through the grabiron
Like last life through a vein,
Thundering,
Drinking in the autumn
While it dies wonderful deaths.
I have missed
The slack-action
Of great departures
All my life —
A long day
Sheltered at the siding
Watching trains slip by.
I would trade
My life for this —
One skull
Worth the moment;
The great rivers
So much larger
Than each bridge.
Sunsets dig beneath
Each surface
As they fade,
Parade the light;
Give the tree-line
Bones, ghosts,
wings —
Creation myths
In life unceasing.
I have never put
That light behind,
Bulkhead-strong
In tatters
And torn blankets;
County bridges, good weather,
Grace in transit.
II. So Taken Care Of
That day when the sky was God,
Smoke spiraled
Clean sacrifice
To heaven;
Bare sleep on old rugs
Was devotion
In the cool bridge-shade
Of early morning.
That black street preacher’s
Holy Ghost
Smiled my face,
The way he reached me
Here, after every
Dangerous mile,
And trusted
That my soul was saved.
That day Jesus was demanding
In the rush of boxcars in the yard,
I was awakened by the growl of
Harleys on the four-lane,
The sky clouding over
So shafts of light
Might girder my chest.
That day he cracked a smile,
Said
“Be that way!”
And walked out ahead of me
Down the line,
The slack-action
Rippling through the couplers
A lifelong journey up my spine;
The birds of the fields
Well-considered;
So beautiful;
So taken care of.
III. Fire Ring
Finally,
The corn is neck-high.
A little late —
Autumn clouds now rolling in;
Heavy silence
Near the fire;
Late summer’s whispers
In the rows
To the clearing
Near the river.
Moonshadows
On the face of us,
Gathered from
Convergences
Untold,
Let go of
A little late;
Eyes shining gold
Through fire,
Giving everything
To flame,
To the murmur of current
Over the rise.
Moonbeams cross-section
The moments,
Distilled forever;
Tin cups
Filled with it —
This night —
Sugared coffee;
Cloud-smothered Perseids
Streaming songs
Of falling to the world.
A little late —
The earthen us —
Thinking of
The double-doused circle
In the morning;
Perfect, magical ring
Holding always
Dying embers in the speeding sun,
Drowned with
Water from the river
Even now
Coursing hopefully on.
IV. Arriving
I remember knowing
The necessity
Of stumble and momentum —
Hovering above
A grid-covered earth
And drinking in direction.
I recall new vocalization;
Songs of pilgrimage
And journey
Pushed through well-hewn
Stiff-water doors,
Arriving out of anterooms —
Out of tunnels
Through the black-lung crust
On platinum rails,
Escape velocity
Twitching in the ears,
Humming every year
Into crosshair focus.
Arriving I imagine
The days before the roar
Of flow and current,
When the curvature
Of the earth was overstated,
Misdirected into confines
Hoping to ice the soul
From care.
V. Catching Out
Living all of life tonight —
One night
To force familiarity
Into endless American miles.
Roadside with open arms
And hands
I give you
Bandaged days;
Every tired moment.
The world collects its toll —
Nightshade-deadly
As a thirty-eight
Hidden in the hay-bin;
Strangers on the road;
Boxcars coasting in the yard.
Wind through weeds
Pulls tomorrow’s miles
Longer,
Stretches me through
Fields of pumpkins,
Over mountains,
To the sea.
Tonight we sleep
A crucifix
In tall grass,
Stars shining through
A distant surface
And bleeding ancient light —
Our eyes oceans
To accept it.
And grace at last is the diesel pull
Of forward and forever,
Trackside always in the morning,
Fires for the chill of Fall,
A glimpse of Jesu
Through safety glass,
And coffee steaming through
The sunrise
Where we part,
Where I am unashamed to laugh aloud alone.
VI. The Trestle
You have traveled north
To where the earth
Holds onto the sun
For as long as it can,
And still stays cold,
Sighed into a flat sleep
Against the sky.
You are stepping off of trains
That have brought you
From the door of one life
To the next,
And interrupt the journey
With this trestle —
Triple-layered lumber
Stacked
By unseen hands
To last the floods,
The winds,
The claws and the backs
Of bears.
You will catch the sun
Between the creek bed
And the rails,
Find Polaris next
And watch it drift
Into your tomorrow.
The Holy Ghost brought you here
To breathe aurora —
To sleep and then awake
To watch this trestle
Take the weight
Of pilgrimage again:
Strong shoulders give it all
In one deep groan,
Longing for the promised land;
Wishing it as easy.
In the morning
You will find all things new,
Beautiful and strange
As a dead bird’s wings
Spread open on the tundra.
And you —
You must let go of it and leave,
And catch out
From all these standing places,
Having dirtied your hands
Against all manner of iron;
Against the dust
Lifted up upon your palms from
Sifting through
The old-bone days;
Caught in all ways up within
The very journey toward
The unsaid things you seek.
