it’s always distant
the fractured call of wild geese
as it is now, high and distant
and breaking, after the first note
to a deeper key
creating a plaintive yodel of sorts
though scrambled today
as they battle the rushing air;
their call is the sound of the north
and there is rain
a bleak fall drizzle
dampening down the fall smoke
from surrounding farms
and this fierce […]
it’s reached thirty six
outside now
in this lush triangle
this green Eden
amid three Great Lakes
where humidity
weighs heavy
and my second shirt
of the day
embraces me
like sodden cling wrap
and I long
for the arid prairie summers
we left out West
dog or not
dog-walker or not
best to lie low
in deep shade
or, better
for this broken anatomy
this waning physiology,
to sit, near-motionless
reading, writing, editing
in the cool basement
with […]
it’s night when the convoy arrives
bringing expatriates from Wood Buffalo Park, Alberta;
plains bison, returning to bald Saskatchewan prairie
they’d once shared with the First Nations
71 ornery, wild-eyed hump-backed dinosaurs
wearing capes of tangled wiry wool
moonlight swathes the prairie in silvery blue;
a small crowd waits, to greet, to celebrate
they are all released at once
spectators reacting with the […]
