He is better than he ever was

He stepped on the train five hours ago
Then later he stepped off the train
And 50 years of clinging and suffocation
Dust, puffed off his pant legs
With the jar of his feet on the concrete
The dust of others’ ancestors
In his dreams would see him
Had swirled and gathered
In eye holes and laces
And cuffs and seams
As grit and slip
As he had walked the hard packed clay roads and black spruce paths
Trying to be someone good for people.

His clothes were rumpled
But in a way that said they were worn well
That they collaborated with his needs
Of the six season:
In deep cold, soaked drying,
ice-cracking breakup,
exhausting heat, drowning wet,
and freezing over
He had gone out
He had gone here, and here,
And over here,
And in coming home
Realized he had already been home
There. And there,
and over there.
Really now, just like he had two eyes
for seeing himself in the world
For seeing the world in him
For seeing the world as the earth and people it is
He had two homes that would hold his heart
And his brain
And his life
In the dust that rises from the ground
In the rain that falls from the sky
In the green that smells from the trees
And in the muffled scuff of mossy swampy ground
He had been walking on and perhaps never quite understand
Until
Until
Until
The bend of a river tells the story
The tilt of the head of a black spruce nods in knowing
The crinkle of old man’s beard scuffs fingertips
The startle of fish jumping out of water beats a rhythm
The look of a raven or crow pierces his guilt
The break of a mouth into a smile
And the run of feet into his arms
The smell of cedar wafting hot on a feathered breeze
The choke of smoke from afar, from near, from fire
And fear for others camps feels somehow personal.

Five hours
Were fifty years
How could that be?
It felt like time travel
But it was only train travel
On a train that I thought was leading
Was really guiding
A little seed of a dream
Back into what I likely knew all along
But ignored and resisted
Until
Until
Until
The land suddenly seemed to stop resisting
And the water suddenly tasted new
And the natural beauty of the earth appeared sunlight bright
And the people’s stories became aha moments of breathing.
The moose knows with a munching raised eyebrow
The goose reminds with return flight
The pike flows up and back
And the crow laughs
Silly old you, you were always here, you never left
You can be here AND there
Do you see that now?
Do you see us now?
Trickster got you! Ha ha ha ha ha ha…

… . . …. . ….. ……… .. ……
Moose Factory, ONR train, May 10, 2024