My first post ever.....I went to the BWCA for the first when i was in fourth grade and have never looked back. Both of these poems are inspired and written in the BWCA although contextually travel the globe.


Down River

Envy the grace
of a rainbow

the way its lips slip surface
long enough

to cradle a mayfly
you spent all evening unraveling

between threads of hair from a squirrel’s tail—
a sudden release

in spirit, fighting for its life,
dragging you down river

not a goddamn thing you can do about it.



Pictographs on Warrior Hill

Maybe if you would have known me as a child,
when I drank a bottle of Tinkerbelle perfume
in order to fly and whispered secrets
to my deaf neighbor Maria
as I rubbed dandelions
upon her temples. Or as I sat and watched
the flecks of my father’s beard
surround the sink like
fresh
fallen
snow.

Maybe if you would have known me as a child,
when I uprooted our garden filled with pansies—
or when I left my echo
without voice to return.

Maybe if you would have known me as a child,
when I waded into Nina Moose Lake
to sleep with the northern pike—
I could leave you this moment
as a wolf leaves
his leg between the teeth of a trap.

Thanks for sharing!

Really love the second poem...very nice

Is there more you could share?
I like your style
elegant with the word
and powerful with the image
thanks

Three more BWCA inspired poems..............thank you for all the nice comments.

Birds

I don’t talk much
unless I am certain you’re listening
to someone or something else

more to your liking
than the story I start telling—because you
have finished yours and keep watching

my lips to see if they know
any part of you—and, we both hear the loon
lost in wake,

a fawn born in grass,
the stillness of birds
beneath my tongue.

I look you in the eye for hours,
pile driftwood deep into the afternoon
without a word, and as the sky locks waves of darkness within—

you grab hold of me
amidst the pulse of its storm—and whisper:
My God, how long have you been singing?



Winterkill

My brother fell through the ice
on Croxton Pond. He was chasing the wind
thrown hat resting in the middle. I knew
the ice was thin,
but he was much too young to understand
the way ice pushes and pulls
till it weakens.
I didn’t stop him from leaving.
I didn’t scream
as my mother might or shout
as if his father.
I watched and listened—no different
than if he were chasing a passed ball
during a game of catch.

For weeks I’ve witnessed sleet
glowing as it falls
in front of the streetlight—something beautiful
wavering in the wind
like a dress.

When a pond is shallow
it freezes to the end
of its mucky reaches.
“Winterkill”
is what most Minnesotan’s call it.
Yet, somehow fish
are always there come Spring.
Maybe someone seeds them in,
one by one,
someone who doesn’t believe
in what this earth has to offer.


Saying Goodbye

So much like hiking

alone

in winter

pissing
on
your
frozen hands

in order to fasten your bootlace

walking miles

miles

in shame.

Ah, Birds is a truely lovely piece of work! Thanks for sharing....

Thank you, Dogwoodgirl. I hope to read more of your poems in the near future......so keep posting them (please).

PT

will do, PT, thanks for the encouragement!