... a summer years ago now . . . Felix running . . .
Running to Lake Missawawi
“walking across the middle of the earth
they didn’t know where they were going
or who had sent them”
my father dreamed these words before he died
and I sat at his side then and searched his face
where the sweat poured instead of tears
felt for his hand on the edge of saying
how far we travel into this presence
off down the road on a morning in Canada
a point at the base of my spine keeps
me going, while I think of him,
my friends, all of us,
building some huge useless machine
on holy ground
goodbye to his hooded eyes
tired at the end, but blue as snakes,
goodbye the proud forehead, hawknose
and wry half mocking lips
curved with pain at the big joke
I run by these cleared fields
towards a baffling precision of choice
in which all, and nothing,
is as it should be
into a large sky running goodbye
to the small friendly lines at the corners
of those eyes, acquainted with fear and arrogance,
desolate galaxies now
hurling in a dim flicker of neon
the road opens on a continuum
of decision-making, a slow vision
painstakingly absurd, our work
- weeding the tundra
some plants must be pulled up
others bind the soil together
the truth will not be established
it is like an unexpected animal
I will keep running on the road to Missawawi
with the wheat, the clouds and the badgers,
when the flaps are closed I will sit and wait
with you all close in the hot darkness, praying,
I will write it down, father,
there is a kind of dying, like the wind,
which leaves only bits of paper behind
by Felix Mendelsohn
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