Ransacking The Archive: Voyageurs

Lawren Harris.Afternoon Sun, Lake Superior.

For Brendan the Navigator. 1995. The hardest conversation is the one that may be the last.

Voyageurs

When my heart started again
I was naked on a steel table.
A catheter snaked through
the coronaries like slow fire.
A millimeter, breathe in, another,
breathe out -

When I was running out of time
I waited for you, Brendan.

Rollers swept the north shore
as we clawed off Scoville Point.
Loons wailed on Rock Harbor.
A raven squawked in the trees.
Our keel slapped up and down
slicing straight across the swell.
One paddle stroke followed another,
yours and mine,
two bodies, two minds,
a four-chambered heart
timed and turning to the waves.

If I leave you now, remember this.

Look windward, son
where the earth curves
don’t stop now