OF PINES AND CEDARS allure of northern woods and waters copyright Doug Blair, Waterloo, ON, 2017
Georgian
The rock has left a gap And a crack and a niche And some lichen for nutrition That my tendrils barely reach. And the sun draws out my best Ere it sets into the west.
The wind has left its mark Since the day my green arose And it pushed my every upreach To an odd and eastering pose. And the sudden lightning crack Took a neighbour at my back.
The waves have measured time As their force invades the shore And they crash and ebb a rhythm Heard a million times before. And the white gulls ride the spray ‘Til they float at end of day.
And so this little isle I command as epochs pass. First the beaver, then the hunter Then the paler face at last. And so few, my tales have heard. Just the rock and wind and bird.
Northern Night
The lake is calm, Without a breeze. Bedecked with stars, Above the trees. And Ursa Minor Points the way. While moonbeams On the ripples play. And standing on The dock, I hear, Kathunk, kathunk, As boat bunts pier. Some plashing faintly Down the shore. A creature lands To rest once more. The birches rustle Just behind. A single puff Of cooling wind. And peeper frogs, With chorus sweet, Perform where grass And lilies meet.
Then basso bull, In search of love, With thunderous throat His troth to prove. Mosquitoes skim The fluid face; And water-bugs Their etchings trace. But then a hush, A freeze, a pause; Some recess called By Nature’s laws. And dimly, faintly, He is heard. The eerie voice Of diving bird. A plaintive low, And yodel sighs.. Raised far out there To Northern Skies. Primordial scene, And timeless tune. The concert of The Common Loon.
Into the Cedars
I enter the cedar stand With muffled footfall. The Bay wind Traveling at my side Did not make it into the canopy. Decomposition of years beneath. Carpeted mosaic, Dead-fall, granite, root-fingers, lichens. Gnarled, ruddy sentries In light-green camouflage,
Note my arrival. Guarding the Past. Guarding the Present. Guarding the Peace. Guarding the Plan. A barking raven-my herald. Doubtless, chipmunks and White-tail freeze in their fashion, Wondering if I mean harm. Temperature drops a few degrees. Shades are drawn. Hospitable host, though shy. Quietly checking out my manners. I sense I must stand still, Waiting. Honouring timeless laws Of territory. As if to be waved in. Frozen moment. (Excepting only the Carpenter ant dragging Moth five-times-his-size Along a fallen trunk.) Some Conductor flips his baton. Green-noise musical score resumes. I am in. Perhaps given the tour. Nuthatch sidles around a trunk To give me a peek. Above, though hidden, That clarion white-throated Summer sound: “Chee-chee-chee-CanadaCanada-Canada.� All around me traces, Evidences Of the continuing symphony. Rabbit pellets. Fox-fur snagged on a branch. Tree-trunk porcupine lacerations. Persistent flies Around remnants of a red squirrel Mishap.
Somewhere out there The bright relentless sun, Open Bay, lapping. Sparkles in the marsh grass At the sandy shore. My Evinrude. In here, community, concord, calm. Occasionally, a burst of brilliance Overhead. As if Sun-God Attempts invasion through the roof. But the assault diffuses Through lacy green And settles disarmed, Muted member of the carpet-floor. How much more, noble red-man Would have studied, Sensed, smelled, heard: He, in suit of two-year doeskin. He, in feather, clam-shell breastplate. He, the sum of many travels. He, apprised of cedar-house rules. He, the watcher of its ways. This is his, and theirs. I love it. And seek adoption. If only for the weekend.
My Slim Bark
My slim bark, my slim bark Glides smoothly cross the lake. A common loon, a father Thinks this a strange mistake And flounders, a seeming wound To lure me from his brood As if my ever paddling here Were something wrong and rude. But I know so much different The waters seem like home And play with me from dawn to dusk As happily I roam.
Sometimes they roll a coaster-ride And I have scarce to pull Sometimes they chop in drizzle's haze And work is plentiful. The sky affords a canopy Of God's most vivid art In clear blue heat, in threatening clouds To thrill this wanderer's heart. The air is fresh, my lungs are clean The smell of pine delights A moose looks on from evening's shore And oh, those northern lights! And such has been the legacy Of voyageurs of yore Who crossed these lakes, and camped these rocks Through many moons before. A small fire sheds its warming hue The limbs all happily ache And small frogs close the day in song As sweet dreams overtake.
Brebeuf Ending
I wonder what price For this journey From textbook To strange tongue Tall pine From abbey And penance To portage And comrades All hardy in line. The trek to
The New World So dazzling The ocean skies Beckoning on And red faces Stare at our larder And implements Toted so long. They sense There is help In this process The prayers Ministrations so new The children All laugh in the stories While parents see Snows to get through While parents tend Fields of the maize corn And cut needful pelts From wild friends And murmer Of enemies looming Will our Jesus Ably defend? Then quickly The arrows And shrieking
The night sky So vast Turned bright red And we to The last rites Committals To honour Huronia’s dead. Tomorrow The hostiles so numerous Will this be The price of it all? The totem And torture and taunting The worst evidence Of Man’s Fall? Dear Father I rest in your presence A strange Interlude in this war Afford me The calm and the courage To bless you As never before. (1649)
Tom Gone
Canadians have the thrilling privilege of a unique impressionist art form grasping the goodness, colour and flare out of our varied countrysides and environments. Frozen wasteland. Mountains. Sea shores. Northern lakes and forests. Small towns. Large metropolis. As of the first 40 years or so of the twentieth century a Group of Seven had been celebrated; friends who grew around the increased national enthusiasm for unique national art pieces. Tom Thomson was an early dear associate...
Have I kept ya wondrin How northern lake consumed me Was it from a skirmish Or woman in the wings? Stop the silly meddling And try ta see what I see Dancing crystal waters Up where the white throat sings. Coulda made a bundle At logging or the deep ore
But that forest gripped me And took away my soul Packed up sparse for paddling My paints and planks a-ready Colour and creation My happy splashing goal. Had a group of friends Who talked of naught but canvas Said the city’s market Was getting close to prime Talked of light and texture In glacier, mount and stream-side Slap dab of a moment Dominion’s charms sublime. How I loved the thunking Of paddle on the gunwhales How I froze a watchman For heron, moose or bear. Lattice work of branches Or red leaves by the rapids Couldn’t find a better thrill No not anywhere. Never weep this youngster Was taken seems too early Musta packed in three lives In doing what I love Oh the smells and stillness Of pine and borealis
Crackling fires near reaching That Painter up above. In respectful memory of the days and ways of artist Tom Thomson who died mysteriously of drowning in Algonquin Park in 1917. Many brilliant examples of his pioneer style in Canadian art may be found at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. There is also a museum in his birth town Owen Sound.
Nine Mile Road
He had left the streetcars And the Volvo ads The smirking pan-handlers And flower ladies The smell of bagels And urine in subway corners The cadre of blue suits And padlocked briefs. In his forty-fourth year Of mis-direction. He bought the camp With the little green Patch out front. Traded dictaphone For a set of carver's tools Offered by Willie For beer money. Willie, that syllabus Of Huron lore and images Three miles down the Road And closer to Honey Harbour. Craftsman now And woodburner Taking treasured bits Of Huronia and the bush. To that flea market Up Highway sixty-nine. Bringing harried holidayers A sense of land and past. (They thought nothing Of the artisan's price.) Artisan Wood chopper
Bay boater Walleye troller Night sky singer Campfire dancer With the west wind Partnering. And rock gray And bush green With dappling of birch And sky blue And on the move. Even the driving rain Had become a welcome guest. Gloria had balked at the idea A time apart for re-grouping They had said. But even she had arrived Last August. And the cabin's little kitchen Had become a sanctuary Of pots, preserves And Georgian scenes in oil. CBC radio reminded them Of another life And sounds from across the Dominion. And political wranglings. But turn the page. The music of loons outside Now the featured performance.
First Nation
Bob Raintree works at odd-jobs He’s handier than most He’s good with wood And good with grass He drives a mean fence-post His hands relate an outcast’s fate So cracked and dry and scarred No rest for him Most days are grim His childhood too was hard. But once his folks caressed the land As Mother to us all And watched the seasons pass with joy By wood or waterfall And tilled the earth For speckled corn And watched the red-tail soar And shot the deer respectfully And trapped for winter’s store. Bob Raintree scarce remembers A show of kind respect Or hand in hand Or listening ear It’s mostly just neglect. He hears the talk As pale men squawk Of “drunken injun’s thirst” They don’t recall He held it all His people placed here first.