Minimalist Art

Sept 7 2015

I paddle my canoe

with easy practiced strokes.

It is red, of course.

All canoes are red,

even the blues and the greens

underneath

their trendy paint.

Canoes, which come and go;

but the same paddle

for over 40 years.

It's richly burnished cherry.

A hard wood,

strong enough to be made

with lightness, and grace.

It has a long tapered blade

thin neck

finely shaped grip,

that fits my hand

like something warm, organic.

It could very well be hung

as a work of art.

Because the true test of sculpture

is that you want to see it from every side,

circling, and circling again.

And that you can't resist touch,

warm wood

with its fine-grained gloss.

But its beauty

is not so much aesthetic

as utilitarian.

An engineer would admire its efficiency,

material pared down

to bare necessity.

And how perfectly

it suits its task.

Because there is no improving

on a canoe paddle.

Nor the canoe,

another triumph

of minimalist art.

I cut through still water

in a setting sun.

Its liquid surface

mirrors the sky's red glow,

my reflection

paddling in tandem

stroke-for-stroke.

The blade seamlessly enters.

Small vortices

spin-off in its wake.

And then the return,

skimming the surface in a perfect arc

trailing tiny silent drops.

In no direction, and to no particular end;

muscle memory

that seems effortless,

tracking true, and straight.

I paddle my canoe,

an old paddle, and an older man

in the cool dusk.

A secluded lake

that still retains

summer's fading heat.

 I have a beautiful cherry-wood paddle. It's a Grassmere paddle, and I had it made (custom ordered at what I then thought was exorbitant cost!) at the end of my last season working as a very poorly paid counsellor at summer camp (Pine Crest, out of the Toronto YMCA). It was a traditional camp: boys only, general interest outdoorsy stuff, and centred on canoe-tripping. I don't think camps like this exist anymore. Now they're all (quite sensibly!) co-ed. Now they're all about computers, or hockey, or music.

Actually, it's displayed more as a work of art than a functional piece of equipment. We would have called this a "style" paddle: no good for canoe-tripping; more for show. But even if it isn't used as the poem suggests, it's used in other ways. It connects me to this long ago past ...to a very significant stage of life ...and to a time of passage to the next. I'm not sentimental. I'm not much interested in "stuff" in general. And I have very few artifacts of my past. But this is something I'm very pleased to possess.

I thought of a paean to the canoe paddle while reading a review of Roy MacGregor's new book Canoe Country: The Making of Canada. I've written about canoes before; but never the paddle. Yet every time I look at this one, I think of its exquisite combination of aesthetic beauty, function, and minimalism; how it so perfectly ...suits its task. What could be more deserving of a poem? (I also wanted to include something of my snarling contempt for those who, with the blissful ignorance of the dilettante, call them "oars", not paddles. But manfully resisted!)

I think the ending could be read metaphorically. As it progresses from old paddle to older man, then calls back to the heat of summer, it seems to say that not only has paddling called up the narrator's long-ago youth, the summer of life, but that it actually restores him to that youth: he is the lake, and the heat of summer is in him once again.

I added the 2nd stanza in a last read-through I thought was just a formality that would confirm the poem was done. The original was this: I paddle my canoe/ with easy practiced strokes/ with a paddle I've owned/ for over 40 years. The repetition of with struck me as a little off. (Now, as I re-visist, it seems to work extremely well! And there's no doubt that the original version gets right into the meat of the poem with an elegant economy of words.) Nevertheless, now that I've written it, I can't bear to lose the line All canoes are red; even if it is an unnecessary digression. In fact, it may be my favourite line! I know italics are highly problematic: attentive readers resent being led by the nose; and if the context itself doesn't call up the emphasis, then it probably means I've failed to write well. But because all is so essential to the idea, and even though of course probably adds enough weight, I let it stand. (I don't at all mind using italics to indicate dialogue. I think quotations marks look clunky. And I think italics alters the reader's voice in a way that works better than quotes.)