Unidling

begin start the first
the music of care and four
women saying it again
to circle and stop

the prairie nations carrying generational
the way to the start and the eighth

to circle to stop to
turn off the tap
roots rooting further

the women don’t stop
the place and their will

the fraser, the skeena nations
will stand a circle against lines
stopped up with haste

the round the drum in
hands for a turn—
to circle a stop
and a recreation story

toponym 5

the North, a medium-tall scrub

at eye level, the other layers flowing

into and out of

the poem

but for now, the moment

is this line of willows, second-growth

awareness

burned-over areas,

Labrador tea against the thigh

and a rustle of being

scrub birch, black spruce,

listening for connection

the thin tree cover wetland

buzzes away the afternoon drowse

soaks though shoes,

holds you here

toponym 4

contingencies blend and/

or collide and the root structures

                             flex with input

the political economy

of the space is a             constant

negotiation of flow

the energy of a word’s

motion across paths

of light, water,

generosity

the name of the place is

consumed: chewed and changed,

shit on the road,

washed into a gully,

reorganized

in transition moments or/

and ecotone zones the shift is

a turn and sway and knows

nothing of revolution

the needs of this area

will be met

toponym 2

maps lose us
in their          accurate
lines, boundaries of own and
out and here
there and when it was

this separation--the gap
of space and standing
             (a glance around
              for others there too
(and love         love for
you placing yourself
all your relations
defining the next
step, the next
meal          time is land

the measures are story
the place neural
           inaccuracies scrounging for survival

Blockade 4

dawn, prescient, bulldozer      |       the flow of resources go also through our mind                                           |              cardboard boxes and broken crates on fire; three white-tails further down                                  the ditch            |               first, what family’s land               | the road, the pipe, the                             terminal, the tanker, the destined port, the profit—all going away and leaving       |                              resting crouched on the ground, feet planted, listening to the sounds of small creatures,                           the air, the rich smell of hoolhghulh powering the ravine, the trickle of water everywhere,                      the place is not numbers, the place is not yours           |         a tourniquet would seem so                      enticing too                  |               enbridging v.  :   to make a leap in logic that dismisses                            all other points of view           |        “nation-building” the minister’s claim staked          |                         what else is a 1991 Civic for              |                 named Tehwehron, named MacBlo                          Brutalist in 1993              |                  this passive act of war, this bodied word

Blockade 3

|    you were there, hobo, ostrich-rider            |            a knack for being in the wrong place and a disregard for personal safety            |            can’t stop can’t slow can’t give can’t care can’t live can’t recant can’t not can’t             |            by the sign saying ‘watching for trucks turning’, by the sign that something is awry            |            the territory’s family name            |

sub-boreal spruce and balsam: picea speaking outside the frame                        |            the result is not conclusive, but the intervening language moved back south            | what is it  about the interruption of the normal?     |      wild rose cattail soapberry and raspberry

|            the first bulldozer here 1969 under Socreds     |            gravel from Chetwynd

|            asphalt   |            center line            |            is the message delivered or stopped?    | flows and system analysis concluded that the excess was not accounted for                        |   an oily patch on the way            |            the BC Access Office is where you renew your driver’s license            |            a prepositional phase            |   the reason for the media is a place to record the movement of public emotion            |            can’t go, further   

How I Joined the Seal Herd Too

                                                I learned

to let my body give                  it was not I

who controlled the rocks

                                                  Robert Kroetsch (1927-2011)

for an instant                        I thought

of the difference between        air and

without thinking             her flipper

buoyed me                         out of

gender and the institution        was

what                         I forgot

ankle turned       into the fin

I always wanted    to know

something other         than air

float      belly-centered in love

and it was not difficult         this

landlessness                        at the pivot

of our dance                        what matters

what touches      in what language

when the others join                         too

the curbs and spiral stairways

will all dissolve into       swirls

of joy and         breaches

and when I spun          surprised

in the blue-grey     to look

surprised            at her eyes               she

even more   surprised  was

there too       really          really           

the waters were       words mostly

verbs of being       ecstatic     and            

I did not miss                        my groin

at all               sleek we swam         away

iceflows and schools of             ideas

art and movement       through liquid

ease she teases and          swims better

than I ever                        dreamed

another state of         being

intimate with        oneself            water

a wet embrace of care                        full

of promise         loveswirl

and swerve      you            sped

ahead and             I                learning

floundered after       eyes

finding new    colours the shape

of your longing           receding

a moment of doubt         would

you leave        adrift      I wonder

how would I find land again     but

by body knows now      it will not

turn back      arched   

dives                           deeper

where currents meet         and fishes

are rich            we reached       fins skyward

stretching the surface of the

possible           beach pebbles against

skin a sound of                  release

the a waffling wake of        

past lives            land-bound slow

walkers and linear      thinking

maybe you and I        maybe

water riffled around         our discourse

of love bubbling with the             future

my sore ears disappeared      overused

to the inane blathering of news

your paper fell apart        paint ran

books disintegrated into soggy messes of intention

clothes dissolved into            sensation

our house became the many

horizons        became a progress toward

on nervousness 2

whining at the door of

ridiculous requests

hoping that the rash

is not related

stuttering on an explanation

with no question

blabbering on about

herbs and balloons

the century that can

shatter the human myth

the man leaned out the driver

window with his bad teeth

all the reasons are piled

against the wall of the artery i keep forgetting the name of but it is an important one and in real life not at all the neat shape you see on hallmark cards and if i gush will i come clean will the toxins spill out into the river and kill fish eggs aorta it’s the aorta i am thinking of and it constricts when i say i love you but is it the climate my aging cells or true

writing and deleting the same

message 44 times

writing a message and sending

it but before you where were ready

chest pains are a sign hung

on the door saying ‘i am still here’

The Acoustic North

The word “scenic” stuck in the back of your throat
as you trample the mycelium. The word “wilderness”
as the multiple slime moulds cleanse the spill. The
word “refuge” as the word “recreation” is nailed up
beside the highway. The word “cut” as TFL tenures
cease. The word “resource” as the job ad for customer
relations is posted. The word “plastic” blasts through
exterior of everything. The word “tree” caught in traffic
at Robson and Granville. The word “contour” as a
measure of where you are standing, askance, watching
the subtle movements of a place, its inhabitants, the
busy living that is not you and catching the wave. The
words “joint review panel” sets the stage and lighting and
charges admission at the door and chats over drinks at the
hotel bar, tips big.  The word “compassion” sidles up the
scree slope hoping to the catch the human world by surprise.
The word “road” stretches you from the word “here” to the
word “if” and in between the gravel base rolled tight under
asphalt is a desert. The word “Ahbau” from China—a lake,
a street—and the movement between.  The word that drifts
downstream in the spring, charging the vegetable matter and
spurring the heat coming from the south face of a civilization.
The word “progress” squats at the side of the road too lost to
hitch, too broke to imagine, too tired to wish anyone ill. The
word tugs at the sleeve of the uninitiated, saunters into the
reading like an outsider, dumps her packsack in the corner,
turns to you, asks a question about water. The word 
“bedsprings” dumped in the creekbed and taking on moss. 
Whatever stands in place of something else, a metaphor for 
actual contact, laid overtop or sketched in chalk on the 
sidewalk. The word “echo” choosing to return angles 
etched from machines, windfall, lecterns, and corporate 
manifesto. The word “north” carries you back to camp, 
puts an herbal balm on the wound, tries to explain where 
you went wrong.