First its stillness held me captive—
A fox snake in the grass.
Then, when I nudged it,
It rattled its tail to fool me.
When it curled up
Into a striking position,
It was like copper melting,
The essence of hydraulics
Came into view,
Like a rope of water
Collapsing into itself.
Strangest of all
Was how energized
I was by the encounter,
Like I’d been envenomated
With energy venom,
Or a spirit snake
Was crawling round my spine,
And I too was seeking the sun.

When I did peyote,
I heard ceremonial drums,
impossible to place,
and chanting, low and rising.
Later, I told the shaman on the reserve
about the drums, the chanting,
and he said, “The spirits liked you,
that’s why the earth was drumming,
that’s why the spirits were singing.”
That was nice to hear.
Better, I thought, to be liked by the spirits
than by what passes for humanity.

Floating over puddles from last night’s rain,
May apples and trilliums carpet the woodlot,
Birdsong and light darting between branches,
This walk, endless as the light that follows me.

for Bruno Ramirez

I met a guy in Montreal who knew Giuseppe Ungaretti,
A Nobel Prize winner in literature.
He said the old Italian poet would repeat words,
Over and over, mumbling and murmuring,
Like a madman, chewing the fat out of them,
Leaving behind a short, lean poem
With just the right words, enduring the chaos of war.

At the cemetery the light rain of tears.
Half the sky is cloudy, like my grief;
The other half is lit by the sun, like my hope.
I start my car and turn it toward the light.

I find a wild bundle of asparagus
Growing in the woodlot behind my house
Like coming upon my family somehow.
Nature always returns what it takes,
Even from memory– and plants it–
Where you wouldn’t have dreamed.