draft: part three of a poem not yet finished.

illuminated seedcoats, saskatchewan drive, edmonton, january 2009.

iii)

late october,
& i dream of you
in my kitchen:

o, doroha babusja!
call us in from the
fields now, from the

threshing & stoking
& singing, the chopping
of wood for the winter –

for we all eat round
the same table now,
you & every ancestor

who whispers in, pokes
a hole in the soft beeswax
of my cerebrum,

comes bearing gifts –

we’ll share that stubborn
gentleness, quiet relentlessness
& all that troubled wisdom

we’ll feast together
on roasted roots
that still taste of wet clay,

& the endless aching
centuries of sunshine
ground to flour –

we’ll make a toast
to this pantheon,
a pagan hagiography,

for there are no saints, no-one
except those who made us,
left us long before.