Thunder's Ghost

Thunder’s Ghost

By peace and obscuring walls,
by field and forest halls,
by silence of a sacred type;
your voice, lost in the muskeg,
calms the building squall.

Your breath, in the morning,
leaves me low beneath the weight of oceans.
Your heart, a heavy Albertan sky,
that hides me under stone and loam and silent water.

Yesterday, in the rain, we were
the low sky and the earth,
eager for the touch of current.
Today, the storm, unbroken, passed
and we, by token, formed of stone,
deny the thunder’s ghost.

Estuary Hymns

Estuary Hymns

When summer drops, out of the green Spring folds

and scatters in a flight of waking bees.

When owls rise in warm twilights

to add their baritone praise to the chorus of growing pains

just behind the dark of every tree –

In this spot, at this time, on this night

(no heron mars your sight) you know

what lovers know when their temples flush,

or crickets when their ankles rub,

or the night when it sees,

or the sea when the tide – swells potent to the moon.