Doing Only ...

Aug 13 2015

I am a caricature

in my red plaid shirt

insurgent beard,

hair tamed

with kitchen shears.

My weathered skin

is evergreen,

with the resinous scent of spruce

balsam's heady zest.

And my soiled clothes

are steeped in wood-smoke;

so the first wash will be dark as ash,

with the scorched smell

of badly doused fire.

Heading back

from a northern lake

most maps have missed,

a rustic cabin, off the grid.

Where days are set by the sun,

which seems in no rush

in the zenith of summer.

And where darkness

settles over the land

with density, and mass,

a cool heavy permanence.

Where I have accomplished nothing

yet feel no guilt.

No "to-do" list, no keeping up,

doing only

what needs to be done.

Collecting wood.

Cleaning fish.

Keeping pace with the dog

on bushwhacked trails.

And at night, a good tired,

unlike the exhaustion

of urgency, and busy-work.

And mornings, when I open my eyes

to preening birds, squabbling squirrels;

no alarm

no news of the world.

So on the long drive back

as the single lane doubles, and doubles again.

As campers, returning

and traffic is merging

and half-tons and semis

never stopping for a rest.

As fast food diners

and billboards, and signage

shout for attention

try to impress.

And as artificial light

only darkens the darkness,

beyond the faint incandescence

that clings to the side of the road,

those persisting smells

won't let me forget.

The windless lake

with its spill of silver moon.

The ululation of loons,

welling-up

with deep visceral urgency.

The state of mind

that feels more and more like home

the further south I go.

Once again, Garrison Keillor had a poet as a guest on Prairie Home Companion. She's from northern Minnesota (as well as of Finnish descent!), so her work naturally resonates with Northwestern Ontario. She recited a piece about her and her husband driving back to town from their lake cabin. That's pretty much all I remember about it; but I liked the idea enough that I wanted to see what I could do with it. And all credit to her for the central image of the persisting smell, which is how she ended her poem. ...So, should that be called theft, plagiarism, or homage?!!

I also have a place on a northern lake. But I have power, all the amenities, and it's a lot closer to town. ...Although there are only 3 other lots, and motorized vehicles are forbidden; so it does have the feel of a wilderness lake. Or a simulacrum, at least.

I took a big chance on cliché with the moonlit lake and the haunting loons. Hopefully, I managed to rescue the images with a slightly original twist. ...Nevertheless, I like the ending. Because you can stay at a sanctuary like this for just a few weeks of the year, yet it still feels like home: where you feel authentic; where you feel this is the real point of it all. And the idea of "home" is powerfully affective. So it's always good for a strong ending.

Found it!

Wilderness

by Kirsten Dierking

The first few days we have
slow mornings out on the lake,
long afternoons to walk in the woods,
evenings of leisurely innings of baseball
unwinding over the radio.

But time moves faster as the days
of the week accumulate behind us.
Friday passes in a flash of ease,
only now and again it seems the waves
washing on shore have reached an ending.

At dinner I say, tomorrow morning
it's back to real life, you sweep your hand
through the last of the day and say
there's nothing unreal about this.

But the scent of pine is faint on my skin,
as if I had been a wilderness once,
as we merge into traffic, as the lake
falls farther away behind us.