SPRING STORM

Spring Storm

Yesterday I burned the toast

so I went down to the rapids.

It was not a bright morning.

Close to shore a small twig

spun on an eddy. The eddy

was frilled like a doily, and seethed.

The twig was helpless to go anywhere

except around and around.

On the horizon plumes of smoke

rose like poplar trees. There was

the sun, punched into the sky

like the sky's navel. The river,

pricked and lifted by windhooks.

Mist puffing up, the sky black then white.

Columns of air I could have walked

like pathways to waiting jets,

walked into the skyhold. I'm telling you:

then the river reared up like a dragon,

scales flapping, the sun, smoke,

the far faint islands, all

collapsed in the froth of its lashing.

I had never been so small,

atomic. I was tossed. I have to

say "maelstrom." I wanted out.

I wanted time to turn back.

When I felt the ground again I was

shaking. It seemed I could reach

in any direction and touch the opposite

shore, the islands, the mist and smoke.

The gaps among things had closed.

I'm telling you this because I have not

been able to separate them, and now

all wounds are nothing, are blips,

leaf-loss. Nothing resists.

When I leave, understand, I will not be gone.

from Twenty Views of the Lachine Rapids (Gaspereau Press, 2012) and The Rapids (Brick Books, 2012). Image by Klaus Pfeiffer.