Northward Journal 20

The Stray

The marsh hums
and swells with
renewal
and ripe sound
spills from the turgid water.
Peepers trip over new notes
redbirds creak their calls
swaying on last season's
sere rushes
tender green pushing
through the straw
as reeds
and rushes
perpetuate cycle.
A sparrow-hawk
soars on a stray wind
casting its
predator's eye
on spring-tizzied mice.
A tulip
grows conceitedly
at the edge of the marsh
ready to burst
into nonchalant colour.


Voyageur Route

We slip in where
the Ottawa hungrily laps
a sandless beach
paddle straight across river
slicing rollers
humping waves
for the mouth of the Lievre
then cut current
kissing the motherstream
paddle now-quiescent water
where cottages lean from banks.
Seagulls ornament a cloudless sky
and in the distance a hawk hunts.
We head upriver keeping time
with a muskrat
submerging surfacing.
The water seems turgid
swelling with message
as pulpwood heaves on the air
and a mountain of pulp appears
at the CIP installation
and the intake of a powerplant
greedily sucks the river.
We turn downriver
see giant cranes and chutes
spew pulp like corn popped
from a titan's mouth
rumbling like thunder.
Effluent eddies laying a slick
of filth particulating the surface
scumming the bottom
revealing the enigma of
the river's opaque turgidity.
We paddle to the Ottawa
into a lagoon thick with
luxuriant waterplants
flowering in shades of purple
like bruises on the landscape.
Raw sewage skelps the backwater
faeces languidly blossoming tendrils
swirling on the dips of our paddles.
We turn in rare panic
from this historical river
this voyageur route.

Rita Rosenfeld
Published: Northward Journal, a quarterly of northern arts
1981