Behind the Curtain

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The prying eye of the beholder stares in judgment

Hovering like a duplicitous drone plucked from orbit

Every movement captured, no deed unnoticed

I stare back, wondering who will blink first

Tired of my reflection, I focus on the world unseen

Thoughts, emotions, curiosities all spliced in an endless loop

Projected on a wall of solitude in the theatre only I attend

No peeking behind the curtain when it is drawn

Distilled glimpses flash for all eyes on occasion

Scenes censored for critique by the screening masses 

Scripts written only after credits roll in silence

Play the villain or the hero, the choice always yours

The prying eye of the beholder stares in judgment

I stare back and see that we blink in unison

Our meticulous movements synchronized

No vision but my own in sight

Finding Peace

The river, always cold when my paddle awakens from hibernation, greets me with an unrecognized chill, a warning, a foreboding I’ve not felt in these icy waters. Excitation is mired with expectation of dark discovery.

For weeks my blades tirelessly peer through the unforgiving currents without sight. Their thirst for revelation, like mine, never satiated. No relief for the senses or the soul. No colour. No peace. I curse my character in this film noir and long for the curtain to close.

I try to sink these thoughts to the darkest depths of the channels through which I find passage. Try to rid myself of this unwelcome harbinger, but cannot. It persists, pushing me forward, imploring me to persevere. I protest in vain. I commit.

Exploration becomes indistinguishable from my search for you, yet I do not know if you even exist. I wonder if I have created you, created my own self-fulfilling descent, cauterized my sensibilities with embers kindled from within. Mistaken present for passed.

Then, absent reason, darkness recedes one day. Its noose allowing breath. Inhale, exhale, inhale. I wonder if my mind is a prankster, if it remains sound, or if a malady yet hides unhealed by the river’s caress. Serenity tiptoes from behind burden. Exhale.

I converse with a beaver’s sculpted offering navigating beyond my bow. It is perfect. I accept it. My paddle objects to its company though as I wind through forest cloaked in water. No solution, no traction, to be found. A decision must be made, live with or let go.

I see the discarded confused with the forgotten and the lost, all drifting, collecting, disappearing. A log, a paint can, a tire, a ball. Some waiting, still hoping to be found. Others resigned to their fate. I stop. I rest. I think. I see.

Yellow, I see. Too distant to know, to be sure. My heart responds. It knows. My thoughts slow. My paddle replies with sombre focus and revelation emerges. Silence speaks as sadness and relief collide. The import of this journey has come to light. Darkness fades to black.

I have found you. You are real. Inhale. Exhale. Water flows with the knowledge that my dispatch extinguishes life-preserving hope, that peace lies only in the closure now shared. I assuage the current. I rest. I think. I see.

A Paddler’s Prayer

Dip me in water when my madness runs deep

When it drips from my brain, out my mouth as I weep

Don’t bother to ask for I won’t comprehend

When wet withdrawal controls, all thought starts to bend

Sink me deep where I’ll breathe, the truth not the noise

Where the fluid filled silence will filter mind’s lies

Yes, I beg for immersion, no matter the time

For the water, it soothes me, like a womb of sublime

Don’t hesitate if you love me, just throw me right in

For asking won’t work, my madness will grin

On the bottom, I’ll open my eyes and I’ll see

The ache, like an anchor, I’ll let go, paddle free

Dip me in water when my madness runs deep

When it drips from my brain, out my mouth as I weep

From the darkness I’ll float, to life’s light I will rise

On my altar of water, by submersion baptized

Your Presence

Standing on this hallowed ground one wonders if it was your presence that made it so

Your existence pronounced by those first wielding pick and shovel as befitting, necessary

You offered protection, quiet comfort, to those mourning on this secluded hillside

One imagines you a confident, a repository of sorrow and words stolen by untimely loss

A reluctant collector of tears

Those days are now gone, your collection returned to the cycle of life

A decade, tenfold, has passed since you first welcomed your last departed

Still, here you stand, a testament to the foresight of those who laboured in your shadow

A living monument, a stoic stele, for the artist laid to rest, unmarked, in your presence

A beacon for the living who wander to Canoe Lake’s now forever present past

The comfort of your presence is still received by those who find their way

Those whose footsteps congregate on the peaceful pathway that guided me today

Seen as a passage to the unknown, to uncertainty, for a hundred years

Now more than a curiosity, a pilgrimage it appears, for those appreciating your company

Appreciating the reclamation of your significance, and this place in history

It appears your visitors are few, but one wonders if the death knell for solitude has sounded

Now that mystery has departed and his final resting place remains to be seen

Now that eyes of the four-legged, not silent speculation, peer from the surrounding foliage

Now that doubt has been exhumed and wonder reborn in these woods

Now that we know what you have witnessed

I have come to pay respect to you and the departed with whom you have become one

To listen, to reflect, to appreciate the living as well as those passed

To impart your narrative, your vision, your influence, on those who join me

To linger, securing your image in my mind so that I may wander to your side at will

To behold your timeless beauty and thank you for your presence

Your Loss

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I am sorry for your loss

It was profound

Its implications never imagined by your creator

Your life, your task, simple in nature

Essential, like breath, on the waters you travelled

You shook the hand of greatness

You were a trusted companion

Reliable, true to your calling

A friend of sorts, a witness

Conjecture yet drifts across Canoe Lake and beyond

Like late summer mist clouding the view before us

Your whereabouts still secret, part of the century-old mystery

Alas, did you come to pass the same day as your friend

Am I speaking to a ghost, a spirit other worldly

Speculation abounds

Did you depart without words in an unmarked grave

Now all but fully returned from whence you were born

Now friends with the creatures below the landscape so beloved

Did you swirl above the lake and the forest beyond

Ignited in haste to dampen the chill of deception

Your flames casting shadows understood only by unknown eyes

Is whisper of your demise premature

Your life not yet extinguished

Your story yet growing, one day to be told

Are you hidden like the darkest of secrets

Are you cherished, your provenance quietly known

The mystery lives on

Much has been said of you, your loss

Yet the truth may forever evade us

Lost like the souls of those who know

I hope you have survived, still strong like the west wind

Tasting familiar waters as you shake the hand of an unknowing friend

Living out your days in the beauty of nature’s canvas

I am sorry for your loss