Seattle 91, or another poem draft

2010 poem-a-day project #19

the forgotten song of the quebecois canoe

for A.C.E. Bauer, with love.
(though the 'you' is not you)

when you arrived
on this dirt patch stone hill
of moss and shedding evergreens,
you came by water.

generations of your children caught frogs
in the pucky kneecap of the lake,
pricked their feet on sharp grass,
popped bubbles of spruce sap,
watched blueberries rise
from the ashes
of careless campground wildfire.

you played Risk, Jenga, Mille Borne, Monopoly.
even the adults read comic books.

when they finally chopped down
enough trees to carve a car path,
you didn't have to name it anything more
than "the road."

every day was a talent show;
who knew your father could make such bread,
your mother, so keen with a woodstove?
where else could you appreciate
the cousin who used a jacknife
like an extension of his own thumb,
your sister, effortlessly rising from the foamy wake
on splintered water skis two sizes too big,
your own penchant for making fires?

and do you remember
how you pressed your lips
to the spruce tree by the porch
when no one was looking?

how you promised to return,
your sticky sap-stung lips
parting to breathe water
and pine.