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Ride the Wave
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I learned to love the water watching your sure and
slow stroke breaststroke across Cultus Lake
to ride the wave without a board
To love the world
To know grief—
It’s not what I would have chosen
I would have been a dancer
I could be a runner and have a whole stadium sing, Waltzing Matilda
Come from Ethiopia and win every race
A poet … who brings a singer to her knees
A sailor on an Emerald sea.
Become Elmo in Baghdad and get on a hit list
This year in the Kootenays
wrote so hopefully
of leaves letting go
of Gai holding on
like you, like me.
Dr. Mel Reasoner says, “Our Grandkids should have the opportunity for as comfortable life as I have had.”
It has rained for forty day and nights,this year of the Lord 2012 in spring
The water is rising near the lake
by the rivers, creeks
The flowering maple trees left too soon
The wooly blossoms of the Cottonwood trees fall like soft snowflakes
Mountains Ash— pale lush spring green
The Chestnut’s candelabra, each blossom a painting of spring and peaches,
a butterfly woman fluttering by on the stony street in Sana
The day is warming a sky so blue I can almost cry
A wilderness where we have made our mark, embrace life, face it full on
a miniature sky dark evergreens floating in a lake
Like the wind going against me the morning I crossed over
A plethora of green, the trees reflection in a lake green, green, evergreen.
the lake waits and you return, I swim a few strokes, rise up and shout, scream,
My body tingles, its alive, it shouts and shouts
I step off the rocky ledge
I’m over my head; begin to dog paddle back to you
My Mom watches from the beach on Salt Spring Island
Why didn’t you save me? I sputter,
I knew you could save yourself.
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