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A Canadian Fable of the North
Lackadaisically flapping sand
Onto their blubbery backs,
The obese elephant seals,
These bulky darkened mounds,
Laze on the beach slate sand
Below the twisted red rock cliffs,
West in the crimson's setting sun,
Far below the viewing windows
Of Hearst's Castle on the coastal ridge—
A long sea's journey down from Canada.
Like rotund sleeping rocks,
These sloping boulders of flesh—
Hundreds of them—crowd,
Dominating the narrow beach,
Mammoth cradles of will
Basking as bloated slabs of fat.
Only their days are numbered
And even foundlings underwanted
Won't survive to reach the cold seas
Crashing against British Columbia.
Several gray seals rise and lope
See-saw fashion toward the rolling surf
Like carriers in a bouncy fantasy ride
In Disney's world of wonderful,
But the horror of the north already calls
For two monstrous males rear up
Hurtle echoed tuba sounds,
Face off and bash their walrused noses
At each other, covering in blood
Their wrinkled snouts.
Enveloping their crowded harem
Sealed against others with a bite,
From their Dar-winning mouths,
They trumpet their triumph
Posting the surviving
Message from Spencer;
Many will never swim
The icy waters off the
Queen Charlottes
For already behind one
Of the torpid mothers
A nervous sea gull
Hops and pecks
A white belly
Of a baby
Signed
Sealed,
But
Not Delivered—
Return to Sender.*
My Canadian Memories
Growing up on the plains of Nebraska
Far below Canada's fertile dominion,
What I first knew of you way up yonder
(If you get the drift) was deeply sensed,
The polar bearness of your blistery winters
Blizzarding down icy cold white over us,
Leaving snow higher than I to shovel.
And while I sledded down Terrill's hill
I never snowshoed, ice fished, or played hockey
But did move to 'skyed' Montana where a Cheyenne
(Not shy) maiden gave me a red hickey
Next to the silver Reservation water tower
Only a cool night's drive from your Alberta,
Which I never met though both are under the stars
Until I fished in the lucid Boundary Waters
And once wandered by boat into lakeful Ontario
Because we couldn't see the lined border in the
Sky blue waters but only the many rainbow trout
Who swam around my dangling bait 20 feet down
Refusing to bite, evidently not liking an alien,
We turned back before the Coast Guard came.
So call me deprived, so unCanadian
Well, that's not quite true. I did see you on TV—
Dudley Do-right and the Royal Mounties
And read dog sled "tales" forested in the snow banks
Of your goodly country so vast and richly cold.
So how is it that I have traveled the world
Half way round but never snowshoed north to visit?
From Below The Line
From below the line,
(Invisible and all)
Where I used to fish
For walleye and bass
In the northern lakes,
I still look up to Canada
As many a good soldier
And civilian look back
And up to Officer Montcalm
For his bravery and honor
In the Seven Years War.
From below the line
Where we killed Canadians
And Indians first by George
Washington's attack of
A diplomatic mission from
Up above; (our manifest destiny
Brutal ugly to a faulted fact);
Only last spring
Did the truth burst forth
In to my deluded mind,
Reeling from a surfeit
Of spurious print and
False American celluloid
Twisted and tangled down
Legends all falling wrong;
From below the line
I finally read academic
History and found Canada's
Montcalm opposed the killing
Of civilians and the disarmed,
For his northern honor
Was soldier to soldier,
Unlike us down under who
Paid 200 pounds
For a man's skinned head,
Half that for a woman's.
Up from below the line,
Yes, we cleansed the north,
Deporting Canadian civilians,
Enslaving thousands after
Killing the Field Marshall,
Who fought fairly; then
We fired Catholic churches and
Farms, but that's not terrorism
When we're so "right,"
Yeah right!
Yes, we're still below the line
Where we caught Chief Joseph
Trying to escape with civilians
To you, our northern foe;
Surely we're now ashamed for
All those our old Orwellian lies,
And I hear that Montcalm's
Bones have been reburied
And his honor restored;
But what frozen skeletons may
You Canadians have hiding
In your own secret closet
(We Southerners don't want
To be the only ones walking
The line)?
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