Fireplace and Wine
15 Canoe Poems for Winter
By Lenny Everson
Illustrations by Lois Foell and Lenny Everson
rev 1
Copyright Lenny Everson 2011
For Dianne, my paddle-partner
This free ebook may be copied, distributed, reposted, reprinted and shared, provided it appears in its entirety without alteration, and the reader is not charged to access it.
Cover design by Lenny Everson
****
Contents
Christmas is Coming
Popcorn Paradise
The Long December Night
Maps. February
The Devious Canoeist in February
It’s Dark at Second Portage
The Sweatered Grouch
January Paddling Lesson
Light
In January I at Last
A Deep and Secret Blue
The Christmas List
The Route We Once Traced
February Canoeist
Chasing Dreams in January
***
Christmas is Coming
the canoe was slipping sideways
headed for some cosmological union of
serpentine currents and
rock of ages
I wedged the paddle between
rock and rock, defying
four vectors of physics and
the water’s idea of predestination
even taped, the paddle
has never been the same
all I ever saved
was a canoe
but Christmas is coming again...
and I sure could use a new paddle
***
Popcorn Paradise
There’s snow upon Algonquin’s lakes
The landscape deep in diamond flakes
Drifting snow with cold conspires
And every sleeping pine tree shakes
In February, our main desires
Are wine, and cheese, and cozy fires
The dazzle of the ‘fridge’s light
Are all this winter route requires
No doubt the northland’s cold and white
No doubt the wolves are curled up tight
But our kitchen’s a popcorn paradise
And has anyone fed the cat tonight?
Algonquin’s lakes and streams are nice
But hard to canoe when they’re solid ice
So we’ll leave the lakes to cold and storm
Ah, it’s fine to feel so warm!
***
The Long December Night
The lake’s now closed with crystal
And topped with drifting snow
The loon long gone, the only life
Swims cold, and far below
Where I beached my red canoe
The snow fills tracks of fox
Where I cooked fish on open fire
Only winter walks
The portage trail’s deserted
A trace of white on white
Nothing moves but falling snow
The long December night
***
Maps. February.
In February the maps come out
Are pinned upon the floor
And I with wine and quiet talk
Trace lines of lakes once more
The world tonight is cold and white
The map stays green and blue
And every lake’s a route I take
In thought, with my canoe
This winter night canoes are light
The days forever shine
And a tent unfolds by waterfalls
On every thin blue line.
***
The Devious Canoeist in February
Ah, but I’m devious, making my plans
With the parallel truth of a map
And this time of year, you cannot suspect
You’re walking right into my trap
Now you’re making muffins with raisins and bran
The world’s in a Pleistocene grip
But I’ve got a scheme with sometime and sun
And I’m carefully writing the script
I’ve discovered a lake that we’ve never seen
Plotted a green rendezvous
Long shadows panel the February dark
But I’m already in summer with you
***
It’s Dark at Second Portage
It’s dark at second portage, now
The snow increasing deep
As evening comes, a stand of birch
Seems carved in winter sleep
A porcupine plows across the path
Intent on changing trees
Two grosbeaks fluff their feathers
To December’s mortal breeze
A rabbit pauses by the rock
Where I rested months ago
And listens for the owl’s wings
Above the sound of snow
It’s dark at second portage, now
The forest claimed by night
The place I knew is now defined
By shades of black, on white
***
The Sweatered Grouch
Late winter, the cat is wary
Of the indigenous sweatered grouch
Noisily chewing on low-fat food
On an old and flowered couch
This is a creature of the woods?
That's what we were told
Now restlessly, he dens himself
Against a little cold
Channel, channel, he TVs the scales
Then back to channel two
Outside, the wind shakes the eaves
And whistles in the flue
A pause in the faces flashed and gone
Upon the glowing screen
Is he dead – the cat looks up
– Ah – no – a canoeing scene.
***
January Paddling Lesson
Hold the paddle like this - yes
Lean forward on the stroke...
The evenings in January fall
On dreamer and wife alike
This is called a type of pry
And this, the basic "reach"
Reach - reach into the fluids your ancestors left
Crawling up to dryness and glare
From the Caesarean cleft of paddle and pull
In moving, we live
Reach for a weekend of black rock and pine
Gypsy days long on the lakes
Reach into water, coil and swirl
To suck down air, weeks, months, years
Till falling dusk
Calls us to camp
Till falling leaves
Call us home
Call us home
Pry, pry from the rocks where lizards sunned
Watching the world turning green
Pry from caged days behind glass
Places protected from rain on your skin
Pry to salvation from sharp sinful scrape
Find the good flow, find the best flow
Pry the bow, turn under the skies
To pass safely through, weeks, months, years
Till falling dusk
Calls us to camp
Till falling leaves
Call us home
Call us home
Pry...
Oh...
Sorry. I get a bit carried away.
Hold the paddle like this....
***
Light
In the evenings, the fireplace
Makes light again
I think light repeats endlessly
On this planet
/>
The light that scatters on the
Small bow waves of my canoe
Is returned through the leaves on
The following portage
Lines the amber leaf and twig
Comes blinding on banks
Of February snow
And icicles dazzling the porch
And a small fire
That was and will be
Out past Heron Lake
I remembered the loon call
And the fish making noise
At dusk, at dusk
Pour another glass of sherry
Put some more light on the fire.
***
In January I at Last
In January, I at last
Get out the maps from season past
And trace the routes I did not take
Every cancelled creek and lake
While the snow is soft and deep
While the world appears to sleep
I remember raincoats, weekends lost
Workdays when I mourned the cost
But now I grin, because I know
That there will be an end to snow
That those azure lakes will lie
Below the coming summer’s sky
And I and my canoe will find
What we never left behind
***
A Deep and Secret Blue
It’s all water, this falling snow
However still it looks
This glacial mortuary
Is springtime’s dancing brooks
The January hills recharge
The waters I canoe
The shadows of the snowbound hills
Are deep and secret blue
There hides, in every mounding drift
In every diamond flake
The sparkle on some summer stream
The surge upon some lake
***
The Christmas List
What I’d like for Christmas gifts
I’m not that tough to please
I’ve always got a lengthy list
So set your mind at ease
Some days, always downwind
Out past known and known
A lake beyond a range of hills
Where we can be alone
A campsite by the water’s edge
Firewood plenty and dry
A loon to watch us paddle in
A couple of fish to fry
A full moon to... oh dear!
Why the heavy sigh?
I really need... some warmer gloves
And... of course another tie
***
The Route We Once Traced
The snowmobiles have found the route
Canoe and I once traced
The first one up my lonesome lake
Has peacefulness erased
The ice-hut fellows drink their beer
Where I met summer loon
And lay dead fish upon the waves
Once silver with the moon
To this canoeist, January
Is fireplace and wine
For all that snow is bound for rivers
That will in spring be mine
***
February Canoeist
“Great day for canoeing”, they mock
The snow scudding past the factory windows and
The thermometer into double negatives
But I’ve canoed more rivers in February than
I ever got to in summer.
While the company’s paying me by the hour
While others poke at this week’s deadlines
I’m lining a canoe down Otter Creek, in my mind
I’m drifting downwind on Sparkler Lake
I’m two hours to campsite
Three hours to campfire
Only a thin hull from the depths
Only a glass daydream from the truth
***
Chasing Dreams in January
On the way up a portage trail
My skis sliiiiip a just bit
And I check the slope with mittened hands
Pawing twenty feet of it
And scout some awkward summer steps
When I go back to find my mitt
Can’t be too careful, you know
Looks fine to me; I’ll return
When the hill’s a somewhat greener place
When January’s degrees seem heavenly
To the sweat sliding down my face
I fasten ski-poles to my wrists
And create a caterpillar track
Envying some future summer self
World in a dumpy canvas pack
Stepping up this same steep slope
Canoe upon my summer back
*** END ***
Lenny Everson
[email protected] or Google “Lenny Everson”