What Last Golden
River Run:
17 Canoe Poems for Autumn
By
Lenny Everson
rev
1
Copyright Lenny Everson 2011
For Dianne, my paddle-partner.
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****
List of Poems
Octobering My Soul
But I Had Red Mitts
November Paranoia
September Question
Tying Down Canoes
What Last Golden River Run?
To the Edges of Drown and Sing
Sonnet for September
Sonnet for November
October is the Church of God
The Vanishing Month
November Dance
The One-Pine Inn
Camping Alone
The Canoe Becomes the Passage
Necropolis
Not Because
****
Octobering My Soul
October:
Rain at
dawning. Warm breakfast, but I
ended up at the window,
gray-feeling.
At nine the clouds headed for Quebec
leaving
stunning blue on the world's ceiling.
Got the canoe on the
car, feet soaked with dew, and
on the water by ten-thirty, making
paddle-whirlpools,
Octobering my Canadian soul. I tell you, I
went
down the lake for no particular reason.
Portaged just to step
on crackling orange leaves
or maybe just to ruffle a grouse. I
think
eternity could start this way. I wouldn't
mind. I
wouldn't mind at all.
--
The
days in October are short, and often cloudy. Rain, sometimes snow.
Not the best way to end anything, including a year. The rivers, and
Ontario’s one million lakes, are abandoned to the winds and the
occasional duck hunter.
But there are usually a few topaz days in
October. Clear air and clear water and all the hills are a-dazzle
with colour.
The warm sunshine competes with a chill breeze, and
the geese overhead remind you that this day is a present, wrapped in
coloured ribbon.
I can read this poem and I hear the sound of
bright leaves underfoot on the portage. This is where time should
stop for me. (If I don’t get a lighter canoe or lose some weight,
it just might someday.)
****
But I Had Red Mitts
The river ran brown
past brown trees
The sky slid, brown, to the south
Brown ducks
flew by
Brown on brown on brown
It was like canoeing
through
A Victorian photograph
I had red mitts
Thank
God
****
November Paranoia
Warm day in late
November it's raining
It happens
They say winter never lasts
forever
- trees turn green
- ice melts
- the river turns
blue again
Hey, I don't know
As I grow older, I get more
suspicious
--
Q.
What’s long and hard on a Canadian?
A. Winter
In November,
sometimes, my soul becomes the colour of long-fallen wet leaves. Some
days I’ve learned to love the brown, brown land, the scudding
clouds, and the cold rains. Some days I take pictures of those
landscapes and don’t know what to do with them.
But some days
just remind me that winter’s coming and I’m a summer boy.
Nobody
but me likes these two poems, and I like only the first one, anyway.
****
September Question
Ah, love, could we find
but one
Of all the dreams we lost
Would we pick it up
again
Regardless of the cost?
Would we trade
September’s days
For what we missed back then?
Would we take
a different portage, now
Or do our route again?
Almost asleep in the
canoe
In the quiet of a weedy bay
You touch the question
carefully
And smile, as if to say:
It doesn’t matter how
rough the route
When you’ve finally camped in peace
Sometimes
the shelter matters most
And the passage matters least.
--
In
the September of our lives I wrote this poem to ask the question, “If
we had to do it all again, would we?”
It is Dianne who answers
the question, and only with a “sometimes.”
We’ve always
loved September, every year, because the crowds are gone, and we have
the lakes and quiet bays to ourselves. Our daughter, our only child,
was born in September. But not, rumour to the contrary, in a
canoe.
This poem is a popular one, maybe for the sense of
tranquility, or maybe for the answer to the question.
****
Tying Down Canoes
Somewhere past Alberta
the winter walks on diamond feet
Shuffles across the prairies in
sparkling shoes of sleet
The day, today, is sunny, but the
northwest whispers rain
It’s November, in Ontario, and I prepare
the canoes again
And yet, the moving sun is warm on me
And yet
- the river outside town is sliding free
And tying down canoes is
hard on me
The hulls are
hieroglyphics traced in curving lines of white
Two passports
stamped by passages I didn’t get quite right
My heart, too, is
marked by river brook and lake
I tie the blue canoe to another
driven stake
And yet there’s five more hours to this day
And
a lovely stretch of river not so far away
And I find covering
canoes is hard this day
A heretic pause
lengthens as I contemplate the sky
And snow and moving water and a
thousand reasons why
The last brown leaves of willows where the
river makes a bend
And the aching way of autumn things that may
not come again
The moment lost has not been spent on me
Tethered
to the truth is never to be free
And tying down canoes is hard on
me
--
Sometimes,
even in November, a weather system called an “Alberta clipper”
develops out west then comes barreling eastward towards me, my
canoes, and the places I like to canoe. It means the season’s over,
and it’s time to put the canoes up off the ground, cover them with
tarps, and tie them down.
I think the first two lines are among
the best I’ve written. And maybe I’m partial to the last line.
Because season endings are hard. Many endings are hard.
****
What Last Golden River Run?
In the autumn
sunlight
What new route shall we take?
What last golden river
run
Cross what last blue lake?
Do October’s embered
hills
Mention the small word, “where”
Or, like some neon
Vegas act
Can they just “be there”?
Ask me some other
lesser month
For schedule, reason, plan
Today laughs at “I
shall, I will”
And blazes out, “I can!”
[[[canoe filling with leaves lois]]
There’s
no time in autumn to redo the canoe routes we did in warmer weather.
The year is running out and it’s dark way too early. The last
chance to find new water comes in the fall. Maybe I want to end the
year the way the trees do – going out in glory.
There’s an
intensity to the fall experience. The lake waters clear out and the
air’s so clean the sunlight almost gouges me.
We’re both
older, now, and we take each lake more slowly, enjoying reflections,
leaves falling onto water, and the last flowers growing out of a
crack in a shoreline rock.
****
To the Edges of Drown and Sing
It was too cold to be
on the water
The shores of winter groaned at the edges of the
province
The sky was the arctic’s lesser brother
Out to
conquer souther lands
Much too cold to be on the water
What the hell, I
thought, that’s what a canoe
Is for
To carry us to the edges
of cold fish and air
To the edges of drown and sing
And in the
long run, cold white hunts us all
Life was always an edge
of sorts
Our unwilling temporary challenge to cold white
It was too cold not to be on the water
I
wrote this for a guy up at Algonquin Outfitters, who wanted a canoe
poem about canoeing in November, but didn’t care for rhyme.
Algonquin Outfitters had taken to putting a copy of my poems,
back when I wrote and mailed one each month, on the men’s toilet
wall. They made extra copies because people kept stealing them. I
took it as a compliment.
So I wrote him this one. He liked the
line about the “edges of drown and sing,” he said. So I’ve made
it the title.
I’ve gone canoeing in November – and even
December – and I’ve seen the cold look in the eye of the water.
It’s an experience.
****
Sonnet for September
As I canoe September’s
quiet days
I leave another summer in my wake
Receding, fainter,
fading into haze
Like passing ripples fade on summer lake
As I pass, the waters
close behind
The bass returns to watching rocky ledge
No trace
I leave for man or loon to find
The smallest ripples die at
water’s edge
Summer’s wake is
fading gently, now
The mind forgets the dates, the scenes
misplaced
And I, near some September riffle-pool
Pause while
Ontario turns cool
To wonder at the season’s routes I’ve
traced
And all the waters gone beneath my bow
September is the month for contemplating things. (October is for exhilaration, and November is for watching movies.)
****
Sonnet for November
Compass Lake is cold
and dark these days
Clouds slide by, just touching barren hill
The
atmosphere goes east, the dampness stays
It looks like rain, and
maybe further chill
November’s gusty
winds recharge the lakes
With air that ought to last the fish till
thaw
I’ve come to watch the way the land retakes
Itself from
me. The winds grow further raw.
I’m three portages
from the highway now
And have the feeling I’ve been told to
leave
I cannot trust this wind, nor like the sky
And when I
feel the water, I like not how
The shock of cold is felt.
Believe:
November lakes bid summer men goodbye.
Winter
is when Mama Nature stops playing nice with you. November’s her
warning.
In winter, when the lake’s covered with ice, there’s
not much oxygen for the fish. So the winds of November have a
purpose. But in November the winds seem stronger, the waves bigger.
And the canoe seems too small sometimes.
****
October is the Church of God
October is the church
of God
Built in yellow leaf
It calls for not the slightest
doubt
Impels, instead belief
Each lake’s a chalice
deep with time
Craft with fish and dreams
That give us faith
the world is more
Than merely what it seems
The final portage takes
you through
Aisles of quiet beech
The geese the choirs of
Eden
Now brought within your reach
--
This is one of Dianne’s favourites.
****
The Vanishing Month
Halfway home in the
sunshine
In the slow and patient September sunshine
I picked some late
violet flowers
That you set in the canoe beside you
Without
comment
The pond is stiller,
now
The sky and water become
Clearer again, the fields
yellow
With patience
Ah, love, September
The
vanishing month;
Ten degrees cooler at night,
And Canadians
start preparing for
Winter again
--
Each
September I pick a flower when the canoe gets close enough to a rocky
shore or deep enough into swampy areas to find a lotus. I put it onto
the flat of my paddle and pass it to Dianne, at the front of the
canoe.
Strange, the way the waters are abandoned in September. The
weather people say summer here starts in the first week of June and
ends in the first week of September. But as soon as school starts,
the waters are left to those of us unlikely to be successfully
further educated.
Some days I think I am too much like September.
****
November Dance
Too early, the wind is
dancing with the night
The canoes are blocked, plastic-wrapped and
still
By nine, the rain will dress itself in white
And waltz in
darkness’ arms across the hill
In the basement,
varnished paddles now reflect
The ropes and hats and sundry summer
gear
The packs are hung on pegs, the shelves collect
The sorted
debris of another year
Outside, November
dances with the year
The trees outside tango in the rain
I make
sure the basement floor is clear
And, carefully, I roll the tent
again.
--
Tents
don’t really want to go back into the nylon bags they occupied last
spring in the stores. But things have to be put away or I’ll be
tripping over memories and stakes all winter.
All summer nature is
my lover, but when November comes, she’s out dancing with forces a
lot bigger and meaner than I am. Then it’s time to retire to
interiors.
****
The One-Pine Inn
The evening water’s
still as space
And as clear as London gin
I sit beside the
fireplace
Down at the One-Pine Inn
The residents murmur
quietly
And inspect my tender skin
Approving of the evening
meal
Served at the One-Pine Inn
There’s dirt beneath
my fingernails
And hair on my unshaved chin
But nobody seems to
really mind
Here at the One-Pine Inn
The supper is stew, as
usual
Served in a sooty tin
But it’s hot and filling and what
I need
For my stay at the One-Pine Inn
I had to park my own
canoe
And drag my own stuff in
And after midnight it gets right
chill
In October, at the One-Pine Inn
But the Management
responds to all complaints
With an awkward lunar grin
And
serves an after-dinner round of peace
Again, at the One-Pine Inn
****
Camping Alone
Don’t camp alone; in
the early night
Pterodactyls leap
And thrash in trees above
your head
Gnashing about, as you try to sleep
The long October
darkness brings
Krakens in from the dark, dark lake
Touching
the shore, caressing the canoe
Keeping such as I awake
Wraith winds threaten
midnight rain
Dead leaves fall, starved and bent
And close
outside, the pad, pad, pad
Of direwolves snuffling around the tent
Unless you’re
deaf, don’t camp alone
In bed at six, asleep at four
The
autumn nights are far too long
When spent alone, on forest
floor
--
When
I camped with Dianne, I was pretty sure that she wasn’t going to be
able to protect me from escaped tigers or misplaced grizzly bears.
Yet I slept like an oak log (except for my snoring, of course) in a
flimsy nylon tent the middle of nowhere. The loons on the lake and
the rustling of leaves just lulled my weary body.
But when I
camped alone, it took till after midnight to get to sleep. There were
always sounds which I couldn’t identify and which my subconscious
refused to ignore, despite my civilized logic. When I’d eliminated
anything in the current biology books as being capable of making such
sounds, I was left with things imprinted onto my genes by ancestors
long gone.
Part of me was always surprised to wake up in the
morning, uneaten.
I’m the only one that likes this poem,
actually.
****
The Canoe Becomes the Passage
But still I think of
distances
With time enough to share
I would not give you
promises
I would only take you there
The canoe becomes the
passage
The paddles suffer love
The moment comes from
gravity
With nothing from above
I’ll show you where
the river ends
Beyond a hill or two
I’ll bind within an azure
line
The moment, me, and you
For us there are
distances
In October’s jewelled air
I’ll teach you where
the rivers end
Come - if you dare
--
Holy
Mazinaw! What the heck am I talking about in this poem?
Send
answers; maybe win a prize.
****
Necropolis
Half a day in
Sepiatown
Six miles on the Grand
Necropolis of November
River,
sky, and land
Brown. On brown. On
brown.
A norther threatens rain
The nudge and nuzzle of amber
flow
Shoves us downstream again
Two neurotic nomads,
centered
In November’s numbing hue
The colding wind attacks
the skin
Drops leaves on our canoe
We paused to steal some
apples
And left the cores behind
So shared the water with a
resurrection
Cold, deaf, and blind
--
Al
and I went on an afternoon canoe ride on the Grand River, north of
the covered bridge. It was only a few hours, but it was a world where
everything else that wasn’t dead had either gone into hibernation
or was heading for warmer climates.
Along the shore was an apple
tree, with apples that had fallen into the water. We tried them: not
bad. I bit into the core and saw the seeds there,
and suddenly it
struck me that the those seeds were a promise of spring. Then I knew
that the whole landscape wasn’t dead; it had just gone to
sleep.
I’ve always liked this poem. That makes one of us,
anyway.
****
Not Because
Not because I promised
myself
Last winter, kicking snow off the car
Not because I told
myself I would
When summer's heat was gone
Not because of what I
almost told
My boss's boss on Tuesday
Or because the veranda
needs shingles
And the garden should be turned over soon
Maybe because the
prices of apples
Is less than the round of donuts
And the sound
of small birds
Is soft, like melted copper drops
Maybe because I'm
out here on the lake, chasing bass
Only because the canoe was
blue
This September day is warm, the tackle-box brown
And
the aspens a darling shade of yellow.
****
End
Lenny Everson lennypoet@hotmail.ca or Google “Lenny Everson”
Illustrations by Lois Foell and Lenny Everson