| The Loons Are Thundering
Their Lake is all I remember of the wild poem lost somewhere on a black-spruce portage, permafrost pushing up to bog, its dainty carnivorous flowers its mosquito clouds, the whole bog-meadow sublimating to thunder, an end-of-summer wind blowing us south, the spruce retreating out of range like loons from a stormy lake, that wild poem sucking energy from blackbelly clouds. Horse Dance She used to have nightmares like this: dancing barefoot with steel-shod horses, the gravelly earth sparking and flashing, shadows shattering, sweat flecking off black shoulder muscles, withers and haunch. Of course she couldn't run away, that's what nightmares mean. The horses pranced and arched their necks, snorting horse- song. And so in time she learned to dance like she's dancing now, with a sudden joy. |