Poem for Autumn
You came back to your life on a Saturday
by walking out into the pinkish-golden light.
The neighbourhood dogs smelled you for miles—
& came for you. Starting with a black Lab called Gus
who dove right into you—
A father pulled his boy’s hand across the road.
Everyone walking on leaves—Do you hear it?
The sound of things dying & splitting open—
Is this not everything we’re after? Each other.
A particular kind of sugar in the air.
The leaves on the oak trees the colour of tangerines.
Has it occurred to you that you know everything
you need to know to do the next thing that matters?
A black dog with a greying snout told me so.
Reveries of a Walker Walking Among Others
You have to be very keen and very alert to recognize the new manifestations of just one person.
—Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear
At night I count
not the stars
but the freckles
on your head—
*
When I walk to the sea,
the tide rolling out
& in
is a feeling—
*
I see the sea of them:
on your forehead, face, elbows, arms, you
asleep on your hospice bed
your hair a white
bolt of lightning
childhood storms
cracking me open—
*
As for the feeling,
that everything is
always moving—
coming
going—
*
You asleep:
the body
I climbed onto
& claimed—
*
Sleep’s a sea
I want to be set
free in—
*
“When you died
it was like
a whole
library burned down—”
*
You: tiny, bobbing
black arrow pointing
this way & that—
utterly
inconspicuous.
*
When you left
the shape we took up
grew.
*
I see you in
our feet—
*
I hear you in
the crows’ abrupt
trades
of code.
*
At night I leave
the house
with a leash & keys—
the dog meanders
alongside me.
We stop & stand
at the edge of the trees, squint
inside the blackness lit
up by the moon
& listen for you.
The Messenger
My name comes to me like an angel.
—Tomas Tranströmer, “The Name”
Your name comes to me like morning light wavering on the water
Like a plate of butter biscuits like butter
Like a bicycle in flight
Your name comes to me like the fuchsia shirt & shimmering copper pants
you put on after we woke up this morning before sunrise
& danced in your living room
& all the dreams of my childhood came back to me
Like the ravine we grew up in like the creek water that ran through it
Like rivulets popping out of rock
Like clay bursting open
The earth gives us so much:
This morning’s foggy walk through X̱wáýx̱way under cedars
The ocean water we dip our hands into
The salt on my fingers
The flock of Barrow’s goldeneye ducks who
flew together just above the water at Third Beach this morning
flying like dancers in unison
The coyote who appears before us who is part wolf
He looks at us like family
He looks out for us like family
At night, after we fall to sleep together
we come here like dancers
like wolves who are part coyote
In our dreams we clean up the microplastics
In our dreams we restore the reindeer
We travel north in solidarity
In our dreams the brown bodies the black bodies
the children in prison here and yonder go free—
In our dreams the ebullient silver bodies come back as salmon
The coral is beautiful again
In our dreams not all the birds return but
our home is the aviary is the apiary is the open sky—
Your name comes to me like the birch tree I climbed each day of my childhood
Like all the daytime reveries I was punished for
Reveries so delicious now that we’re free
When the children come they come as clowns
They come as pirates their booty is butterflies
They ride their ponies They wear crowns of peonies—
Your name comes to me like my father’s
gentleness speaking to us from the cedars
Like a black oystercatcher eating a limpet
Like a black oystercatcher whose red luminous beak
calls to us this morning against this backdrop of grey
Like a glass-bottomed boat
Like a pod of orcas swimming in the seas that need healing
Your name comes to me like an utterance
Like a half-conscious trip to the toilet in the middle of the night
Like the textures proffered by your testicles in my hand—
In another life we rode a starship together we rode a steamship
I wore a bonnet, briefly—
We eschewed the gold rush & the gold
In my dream you poured ambrosia over my head with a ladle
& I lasted
What I thought was wrong with me was not wrong
What you thought was wrong with you wasn’t wrong
Will you try to stay open to me like an egg?
You know of my body’s coldness you know my thin blood
Sometimes in our sleep you wrap my body in your body
Sometimes your heart’s a wavelength, the only arrhythmia of
the night—
Sometimes I dream you are catching a fish to feed us
Sometimes I feel the fire that belongs to us all
At night I dream you are braiding my hair
& the wolves come to keep us company
& their breath smells like fire like honey
Between my green eyes between your green eyes
so much moving in unison so much laughter
& fumbling & endless coconut butter—
Your name comes to me like the sound of pirate children playing in the boat
Like the first light of my girls like their pink faces like the vernix they wore like coats
Like the silence we swim in that sounds like love.