lanterns (poem)

{4 o'clock light on the north saskatchewan}

{frozen pool on the riverbank}

* * *

lanterns
(poem partially formed)

walking home from
the train station one night
i, sudden & spontaneous,
start to sing.

i don’t know if i’m afraid
tonight, stepping along soggy curbs,
traversing some slippery uncertainty –
or if i’m just thinking of her again,
my grandmother:

who always sang her way
down from the fields
on summer evenings
so fearless – no flashlight,
only songs:

& here i am,
singing these tiny streams of light,
spitting out the notes,
words like tiny candle-lanterns
floating out into the fog

& oh
i sing like no swallow!
but these notes
are still so spherical, soft
beeswax flowing
from the mouth
of the unseen sun:

phrases like yellowing braids
of the weeping birch,
golden words of a mother-tongue
papery palatals palpable,
gliding over leaves,
fossilizing on slick black asphalt

& the sweet crackly hum
of her voice now
broadcast into the mist, waves
coming back to me like prayer –

kudy ty ydesh? where are you going?

i always knew
she was never afraid of the dark,
herding those cows down cloudy
mountainsides, muted bellows
echoing like trembita –

& her protection now
little notes woven
into woolen mittens,
the warm glow of windows
in old stucco buildings

& my breath like her breath, like
steam on the panes, i sing
up my front steps

oi, de ty? where are you now?

fog whispers like a teakettle whistle

she is dancing home with the cattle
over the bridge on the lymnytsia
free now
& i am her lantern
sung from memory

i am not afraid now--
the light constant & steady
now
every time i open my mouth.