The Yukon

The river keeps roaming north
before winding west,
beyond noise-encroached borders,
beyond bricks and cut lumber frontiers,
and beyond the persistant moans
of distant highway trafic.
The river is caring
in what she leaves behind.

The water is closed and black
from a distance,
but clears with your focus,
quickening,
without reflection of clouds or sky
The sun angles low,
peering into the river’s chest
at cool, speckled nuggets
and jagged grey cuttings
defying treasure,
lightened with perception.

At her shore, immersed
to the elbows and shins in her cold,
I empty my labour into my pan and slough,
pulling the sand from the gravel,
refining the black from the sand,
peering for gold in the black.

This Raven, my harsh-throated familiar,
dives from my shoulder,
as an arrow pointing towards
the river’s northern dream
and I am alone.

I let the water filter the past
and let settle the deposits
through time where they would rest.
Naked birch and pale pine
shoulder around me.
Beyond, dark mountains weigh down,
blind gravity covered with white cloths of snow,
carefully tucked into thin etches and creases.
Beyond, more distant harsh mountains.
Beyond, more bearded snow,
more furrowed grey and layered pale blues.
Beyond, more sunlight arching low
between layers of grey troubled silence.
Beyond, more spaces,
more rocks, more sand, more gravel.
Beyond, more passion, more heartache,
more stories to tell.

But now, with patience,
I keep working the river.
And now, with more patience,
the river works on me
and I am naked to its torrents.

Numbed, bruised and weary,
I keep pouring myself and sifting,
pouring myself into the pan,
pouring myself into the river,
pouring myself and sifting.

The river is caring
in what she leaves behind.