Driving through the Gatineau hills

Driving through the hills of Gatineau

I see the ancient giants of the Shield

Lift their bony heads and hands

Above their stone wracked bodies.

Bent and doubled by the earth

Flattened by the rain and wind

And dropped by disappearing ground.

Their mossy faces stare

From grass lined mounds

As bikers cycle up their sides

Like flies all swarming.

 

We stop to look at lakes

Like dull emeralds embedded in the

Bowls of crust

Upthrust and turned again

Like the mud pies of

God’s children

Hardened and baked

To receive the rush of water

From the depths of old and weathered soil.

We hear the birdsong echo through the tall pines,

The younglings of this forest

Who in their first exuberance,

Dare to claim it as their own.

 

We stand upon the crest

Of ridges cut by the saws of

Nature’s rumbling mantle

And see the flat lands around about

Painted with fields and roads and the sinuous blue river

That snakes its way around the borders of our vision.

We see the shape of the world

As if we could reach out

And touch the hazy circle’s edge

Sketched against a bright blue sky streaked with white scratches.

 

We kiss and chase away the flies who have no purchase.

We hold hands as if we too could claim this universe

And coddling the wonder and awe and beauty between us

We embrace to trap it in our hearts

And pulled by this force of nature

Together

We drive the beauty deeper in

Until we’re left breathless

And unable to speak

And unable to say in words

What we both now know.

O Love what wonders lie

In the Hills of Gatineau!

Dream

Last night I lay between your legs and pushed

Like a mother giving birth

And tried to turn my inside out

And into you,

You tender lover

Taking every thrust

And turning it to yours

Like sinusoidal waves

on a sinuous snake

That moves through time

like mountains.

Until I fall

full fathom five

into that depth

that resists me

And presses my body into

a spout

that drains my love

and pours me out

A curled up form

that suckles on the tips

of tulips

and drinks the nectar of the gods

from the clefts of oysters.

The swollen weight of love

still fills

the sack of pollen

carried from the flower.

The tender teats of cows

engorged in pain

until the gentle squeeze

brings forth a steady stream of white

like a star that shoots

up to the sky and bursts

leaving brilliant lights above

and me

all empty of the load I bore

and nursing the single thought

of you

that fills the empty space

like a meal.

Like a sated babe in a cradle,

I smile

and sleep

and dream of you.