28 Monday Apr 2014
Posted in Thousand Islands
In early evening
Sitting on the green chair
With birdsong all around
I noticed that the stick horse had gone.
I guess that he exists only in late fall
When trees and bushes undress
In preparation for winter
And tentative sprinkles of snowflakes
Try to cover the sparseness of bare limbs
with a white warmth
But now green is everywhere
An abundance of springtime
And the cycle reports itself
Again and again.
ARW
28 Monday Apr 2014
Posted in Thousand Islands
We came upon it by accident
While following a trail along the
length of the island.
A small graveyard on a granite hill above the river
With generous stones marking the places where the
unforgotten lay
Well-tended with patches of island flowers
Those small orange colored ones that
fade so quickly when picked
One of those intensely blue days on the St. Lawrence
when river and sky are nearly one
That is why the epitaph on one small stone
has never left my memory
Describing the short life of a young boy with the words:
“He loved it here”.
ARW
28 Monday Apr 2014
Posted in Thousand Islands
Early this morning
in the gray of a steady rain
I saw a solitary duck
probably one of the dozen
who fed all summer
with the wise and watchful mother.
He was feeding with purpose
like an automaton dipping up
and down in the shallow water
near our dock.
Was he banished from the family group?
Did he grow restless
and swim off using his own compass
for direction?
Later in the afternoon
arrived the rest of the flock
I counted and there was one
duckling missing
This omission didn’t seem to disturb
the symmetry of the leader’s parade
and the remaining followers –
unmindful of the desertion.
ARW
28 Monday Apr 2014
Posted in Thousand Islands
In the pine fragrant cottage
Just before the pink flush of dawn
There comes the sound that frightens into wakefulness
The tamping, stamping steps
Crossing the small wooden bridge
That connects our little island
To the larger one called Tar
The footfalls of herons with near-human sound
Metamorphosed creatures moving with unerring grace
In the moon-filled night of Pan.
ARW
28 Monday Apr 2014
Posted in Glimpses
Tags
Long after the dimming of time
Memory’s glances make explanations possible
And pull aside briefly the curtains of forgetfulness
Little vignettes of the past speed by with cries of
remember this, remember this…
Never mind that scenes resurrected from
a different reality
What we glimpse is the synthesis
of what the heart considers memorable
ARW
28 Monday Apr 2014
Posted in Thousand Islands
This was the year when the river gave up
its ghosts
So did the islands of youth and exploration
I looked carefully
But they were gone
The black and white past is overcome
By the powerful colors of today
Where have they gone?
The two young sisters with the green canvas
canoe
Voyageurs reborn
Rediscovering all those islands
In the blue and mighty St. Lawrence.
ARW
28 Monday Apr 2014
Posted in Thousand Islands
A dark place
With windows boarded against the light
We thought it our personal playground
The bolted doors to keep out the others
The faceless intruders
Who scrawled names and dates on unfinished plaster walls
Rooms without number
Decaying ceilings, stairs without planks
five levels of adventure and exploration
The turreted roof made six
But then there was the basement
That fearful place
Black as pitch with rooms filled with crates
cimmerian cases of sculptures, tapestries
Ornaments to fill this monument of love
To a woman who died too soon.
ARW
Andree Robitaille Wood 