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.