Summer goes into hiding –
hard-hurled rebuff
to plough, husk and stirred starling.
The horizon bleached of blue, old and worn;
the furrowed fields lying still, chilled
by hibernation and dusk-dawned; silver
birch and aspen surrendering to cold Huron
slowing the final wave round the port.

Good black night, father,
say the rocks, stones and bones
caught kneading the light snow.
Broken, feather-tethered gulls
sweep the frozen shells; rubber fish
snore to death – wind silencing
the quick fright – laundered clouds
hung out in expanding night.

Will the maples keep their vows to autumn
leaves grieved in their fallen dance? Mothered
to the soil, will quiet patience sire chance?
The arced legs of your youth once climbed
the barked and sunlit willow, rooted in earth
but courting the sky. Will winged winter rise
in its bleak beautiful span to devour a lie
of cold and blight and endless night?

Spin in the stars, not in your head, your arms
no longer reaching to light long dead. Imperfect
rain on breakers where your children dive; down
to the lake’s sculpted bottom, moving with the pull,
shadows like dark nets full, for a second here
in ancient sand austere, remembering your lessons
with sheltering hand on crested surf – a wet view –
wild flowers in cradled shore pushing up to renew?

—

D.B. Goman, an educator, activist, and singer/songwriter, has an M.A. in history. He has traveled extensively, working in the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent; he currently lives in Canada. His poetry, stories, and travel essays have appeared in various publications including Ditch, Eye Magazine, Jones Av., Poetry Montreal, Quarry, Storyacious, and The 2River View.