Wednesday Poems

Image:  Into the Wild, oil on canvas, 20” x16”

One thing I love about holidays is getting more time to curl up with good books.  Every once in a while I come across one I know I will re-read, and that reminds me of others on my shelves that I’ve read more than once, and will no doubt revisit again. Just one of those is Mark Hume’s gorgeous River of the Angry Moon: Seasons on the Bella Coola (with Harvey Thommasen; Douglas & McIntyre) – one of several he’s written about the ecology of BC rivers from the perspective of a fly fisher/conservationist. His description of bears at rubbing trees inspired my poem, Footsteps, in Suddenly, So Much (Exile). It feels like a fitting poem for my first Wednesday post for the new year…

Footsteps

At rubbing trees and only at rubbing trees, bears walk in the paw prints of those who have gone before them. — Mark Hume (River of the Angry Moon)


How does anyone know whose steps to follow, where
anything, even your own footfall
alone, might lead?

                                      Somewhere in the rain forest,
a quiet, like the moment after a raven laughs,
is falling.

                  A Douglas fir rises into the silence, exhales
the resin scent of a permanent wound — its ridged bark
worn away by bears

                                          who approach this tree, step
by measured step, sink into a lineage of tracks
the long-since dead laid down,

                                                            observe the meticulous ritual,
then scratch their backs.  A small thing prefaced with such
reverence, there is

                                      a hint of wonder in this place,
a mysterious ursine way preserved in these huge prints,
as if the bears must honour
                 
                                                      those who have gone before,
and choose to do so here instead of there, bowing
their great heads

                                   in a humble dance.  Then again,
I have seen two coyotes, north of here and snowbound,
traipse one ahead of the other,

                                                            shrugging their shoulders
at the cold as they snuffled white air for otters
near a fishing hole.  Almost
 
                                                      without looking, the one behind
placed each paw precisely in the leader’s tracks.
                                                                                             Nothing

to it.  Heel, toe.  See?
                                          This way.


Mark’s latest book is Reading the Water – Fly Fishing, Fatherhood And Finding Strength In Nature (Greystone), another beauty, full of moving insights about becoming a fly fisher and how that inspired his approach to fathering his daughters.

By the way, the book I just read, and am sure to re-read is Orbital (Grove) by Samantha Harvey.  Meditative and philosophical, full of intriguing information told with countless deliciously original and exquisite sentences.