No Ordinary Place (7 page)

At evening my father lays down his tools

while the sun sets the sea on fire.

Who among the heavens knows

why he heaped lumber in the yard

as he did when a young man, and now

my father, sudden maker

of a shed,

 
is Noah building an ark

for his hammers and his saws.

Rain-tight, mitres snug. Plumb.

 
It will outlast him.

The rains, when they come, will be long.

Destiny shook her head at me and said

at the appointed time, he must cross alone.

Then bring your lamps, your bundled flowers.

Bring lupines, lilac, apple blossom.

Leave your oars and your grief.

 
See the waters blazing, lit.

The darkness may not have him yet.

Tonight I awaken

to the bright coin

of the moon.

Light and shadows,

light

and shadows.

In the field, the horses

do not graze

in the half-light

but stand, quiet,

looking out from the dark

stones of their eyes

as though this night

were holy.

On my windowsill

a red leaf

thick-veined as a heart,

the compass

of a snail shell,

the smallest

of feathers — abundance

of my wandering.

These are yours;

I give them to you:

the last detritus

of my lost wing,

my compass,

my heart.

Sleep now, my weary father,

you who have gathered the leaves

of years into your arms —

blood years, bright years,

the burnished coins,

the weighty stones.

Your little flickering birds

coo to each other

under the moon:

sleep, go to sleep
.

At dawn

with their attentive wings,

they will watch

for the moment you appear

bearing their bread

in your hand, bearing

their cup.

 
Before the first light

my father rises and peers into darkness.

Stars provide the only light there is.

 
My father

rises in the still dark and goes out

under stars or into the rain

 
at the dying end of the night

and waits for the day to come.

Morning, and my father’s eyes

 
witness the breaking

of dawn. Two fawns form out of the night

and follow their mother carefully

across the lawn.

 
My father knows the light will come,

and yet he rises before it

 
to see that it comes.

I want to believe it is my father

 
who brings the dawn.

The morning has no father, and cannot

fear all I know,

 
that a day will come

when he will not rise.

 
For now,

I imagine him going out into the cold

light of stars, into the dark,

the starry choirs of nested birds

 
waiting

behind the darks of their eyes

for my father’s raised hand,

 
when the first music may begin.

I am so happy you have come,

first bird to the feeder.

I have waited all this time.

My downy-headed sister,

in that last rain and wind

I looked for you, dreamed

your nest of horse hair and moss,

heard that flock of pines cry out

to the predator storm.

I, your angel of bright and tiny suns,

of sunflowers’ black tears,

hungered for the day

when the lost twins of your wings

would find each other like hands at your back

as you discovered the gift.

It is no easy thing to bear

the weight of another’s offering.

All the long winter I have done so little,

yet the rose is profuse again with buds,

and again she will permit me to watch her

bare her dozen yellow hearts.

Sparrow, here is your gift. It is enough,

the exquisite cage of your bones,

the hymns you sing at dawn,

to make the tight red bud in my chest

unfurl its myriad wings.

I found you in the season of clocks and burning.

I carried little in my arms but loss.

You, an ocean beyond my human beginning.

Something in me knew you were living

in the far world, calling. I dreamed your voice.

Year after year, that constant seeking.

Inside the bell, the wind was singing.

You walked through my nights like a ghost.

And what about the heart, alone, and counting?

And what about the heart, alone, and counting?

You walked through my nights like a ghost.

Inside the bell, the wind was singing.

Year after year, that constant seeking

in the far world, calling, dreaming your voice.

Something in me knew you were living,

you, an ocean beyond my human beginning.

I carried little in my arms but loss.

I found you in the season of clocks and burning.

What if, by
song
, you mean

the space before dawn

when the birds have yet

 
to awaken,

and I mean clouds smoothed thin

by the palms of the wind?

And what if, by
dream
, you mean

the darkness before you open your eyes

and begin to change your life,

and I mean knocking on every door

 
to find the one

whose name and face I do not know?

And what if, by
empty
,

 
you mean
full
,

and I mean a breath opening its wings

to the morning?

And what if I name you
clear brook

 
murmuring over stones
,

and you name me
little cloud

 
shy behind the moon?

Then let us drink tea in silence

 
but for the song

of the liquid pouring from pot to cup

as a cat will leap from a fencepost,

while small birds lift into the sky,

 
holding in their beaks

the words we don’t need to say

which they carry to their nests,

placing
hand
next to
cheek
,

 
tea
beside
communion
,

separating
age
from
sadness
,

and like little feathered gods,

 
proclaim it good.

Pamela Porter is the author of three previous collections of poetry:
Cathedral
,
The Intelligence of Animals
, and
Stones Call Out
. Her poems
have garnered many accolades, including the 2010 
Vallum
Magazine Award for Poetry, the 2011 
Prism International
Poetry Prize,
the Pat Lowther Award shortlist, and have been featured on Garrison Keillor’s
The Writer’s Almanac
. Her novel in verse,
The Crazy
Man
, won the 2005 Governor General’s Award, the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award, the TD
Canadian Children’s Literature Award, and other prizes. M. Travis
Lane has written, “Porter’s poems are pervaded with a sense of
grace, of mercy, beauty and benediction.” She lives on Vancouver
Island with her family and a menagerie of rescued horses, dogs,
and cats.