The Voyage                                                                                         

 

I am

         meat

                   for my journey.                                                    

 

This canoe made of birch and ancestors’ bones,

 

is laden with fleece, apples and rye bread, stuffed

cabbage and coffee, a map of charred margins, a rusted

 

nail ripped from Jozo’s Bosnian home, a ring of blue

lapis my other grandfather, and a photo of lovers—

they’re smiling--on a great canyon’s edge.

 

Voices shine friendly through rain-fall and fog across these big waters,

 

                these here in stillness      those already gone,

 

while grenades of stars volcano such love through somnolent skies.

 

We’ll glide in silence over depths painted with eloping and cancer,

      maples and moonshine, soup pots and opera, pie ala’mode.

                                        

Through silver waters      black mud         this voyage continues its flowing,

 

                     woven and nourished by dark bread and story

                      of  Jozo and Ana,  Ruth Raymond and Norma

                                      

                                    to whom I am bowing:

 

                                 I am meat for my journey