These are just notes, Lao Tzu
Don’t rattle in the rucksack so.
1
There’s a detour here
Where the freeway is breaking up
And this old
Oldsmobile
Is stapled together with braces and bolts
But we’re moving;
Alive
So we crackle along
In the warm wind and carbon monoxide
Seeping up through the floorboards
And the stars are out tonight
All this
To the tune of the highway, and the howl
Of the eight-track — some drunken
Downer freak
Screaming in a South Dakota lounge
2
A convoy of pelicans lopes by
Over the broadsword of light
Lime-green and gold, flashing and fading
Under the waves
A jazz band slurs
For a blind man stood
Beside his dog, chewing potato crisps
His head turned up for the warmth
His calloused black hands
Glove puppets, in angular
Motion
A veteran, caught
In a dance on the sidewalk
Casts about for a gap
In the crowd, a low wall
So he can rest his stiff and heavy
Leg
The seabirds are dancing a round
Doing their black-shadow ballet
In the fading sun
3
Red pallette fringe
On the mountain
Sun rising
– Bird squawk!
And a distant mill smoking
Steam on a pool
Mist in the valley, black
Cattle-shapes moving
The gas station opens up
As I hike to my truck-stop breakfast
Eggs and potatoes, jelly and toast
Coffee and jukebox
4
Just arrived, unfresh
In the cowtown
Calgary, fresh with the memory
Of two proud ravens
Strutting in the rain, heads
Tilted, looking for a handout
At the firearms check in Glacier
– The forest never ending
– Hanging in the sky
5
Evening now, and the lake
Is warm with the sunset
Great bald eagle dives over the bush
Slices across the fire, stalls out
Into a tall pine: an old woman
Cleans fish for tourists
Six strokes — two for the fins
Two for the head, two for the fillets —
The Indian way suffices
It’s only the old way, the way
It’s always been
This is the way she learned to clean fish
Watching and waiting
Watching her father work
Waiting for the knife
To fall quiet and right
In her hands, so the fish
Comes apart easy; the simplest knowledge
Like leaves off a tree, water
Bending with the river
Behind me: a perfect rainbow
