LOON'S CALL IN MANITOBA
The speckled loon on a lake in Manitoba,
is about to call into minus thirty winds.
From the warm throat of a solitary bird,
the haunting, lilting note takes wing.
The call brings the lost, to those great
frozen lakes of civilization, star light
shepherding the cold, the loon's call,
the loons call, sorrowful, forlorn,
is falling off the edge of an icy world.
The loon's call, stirring up the water,
like fingers quivering above a string,
or lips, pursed on the edge of a flute's tip,
where the moonlight at midnight,
only appears to strengthen the cold.
Hush, the loon will call now, claiming a lake,
or still grey trees along a lake's glassy edge,
with this age old strange harmony, in
the eerie company of forgotten lives ...
The loons call, sorrowful, forlorn,
a quiver, a breath, loosened,
then received not, like a seed adrift,
a faint kiss blown, moving
through time and space forever.
Warm breath from a throat, the lung of life,
with the consistency of snowflakes,
or lichen afloat, in a wood, in the evening.
The loons call, on the edge of October,
is a seasonal lullaby, now heralding,
the long sleep of winter's approach,
as it blankets the spruce, bringing ice to a bay,
broader, wider, than Manitoba.
The new moon strings this call
and sets it afloat, sailing sailing,
amongst the sub arctic stars, migrating
like snow geese, a long time from landfall
and the dream and intimacy of her ivory egg
in the soft nest of moss and sticks,
this haunting note continues ...,
Hush, the loon will call, reclaiming the lost,
it's on a mission of blue hoarfrost,
with the consistency of moving vapour,
along an ever deepening northern winter. |
