My thanks to William Stafford

Big sky of the Saskatchewan province in Canada

Tonight I read through the poems I wrote on my trip to North Dakota and Saskatchewan during the summer of 2004. The poem below pays respect to William Stafford, a poet whose writings that I ate, breathed and fell asleep with during those six weeks. The 49th parallel is the border between the U.S. and Canada. My words echo his poem, “At the Un-National Monument Along the Canadian Border.” It has been almost nine years since I visited this overwhelming space, and it is far away from my home on the Atlantic Ocean, but I can return by walking down these lines of words.

Reading Stafford at the 49^th Parallel

This is the voice I carry, lines to wrap round me,

when I float too close to borders of despair.

This is the voice whose hope carves days,

where no hatred ever strays,

and green breath fills my mouth with prayer.

Birds still pilot blue skies unbound

above yellow fields that heave, swell, rise.

Led by you – I bless anew – this pass-through ground

charted by pursuit, desire, waste and greed.

Left behind for young dreamers to seed.

Weekly photo challenge: Peaceful

On the tall grass plains of Saskatchewan.

A few summers ago I spent six weeks in North Dakota and Saskatchewan studying the literature of the Great Plains, including the work of Wallace Stegner and Willa Cather. It was a wonderful experience to have so much time to devote to these writers who put their love of the land into their writing. Here is just one poem that came out of that summer.

“That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great.”
                           Willa Cather, gravestone inscription, Jaffrey Center,NH

Chasing Cather

Her chiseled words gouge readers who edge too close.
But she didn’t linger long among white mountain pines.

Her ink still rents rooms in a scrabbling prairie town.
But she doesn’t haunt lanes humming dance tunes

Her desire scatters in grass, sky, wind, earth, tongues.
But she doesn’t watch pious suns kneel down in canyons.

Today a back door wandered open in a barren farmhouse.
Inside, she fingered cobwebs like strings on a foreign fiddle.

Common Ground Review, Spring/Summer 2008