Along the bank, some stones are smoothed by
algae and water-spill; others dry, pock-marked.
In several, tracings of ancient marine creatures,
glyphs grooved into the surface.
Some days, the river, pushed by wind, vibrates.
On others, deafening, it pounds,
rock layered over millennium.
On calm afternoons, it is fricative;
in the narrows, erosive. Today, as I walk,
it is pluvial, inflects my shoes, incises my head.
Here, as a boy, I swam among log booms;
there, inside that concave of boulder, I sunbathed.
I slip and slide. Past and present. The river’s
chronicle. Waves against shore’s membrane,
repeated drum beats, heartbeat of Pinesi and
his people who on their journey, stop, gather
in a circle before they push further and further
upstream. Their lands encroached. Their paddles dip,
plunge, catch in the current. Blades above water.
Paused pens. Treaties unsigned.
I linger. My steps’ jottings on limestone fade.
I scamper up the incline to the path, press
forward. Then as now, footfalls sequential,
dogged and persistent.
—
Blaine Marchand lives on the unceded territory of the Algonquin – Anishinaabe people, known as the Ottawa Valley. Hi’s poetry and prose has appeared in Canada, the US, New Zealand, Pakistan, India, France and Ukraine. He has seven books of poetry published, a chapbook, a children’s novel and a work of non-fiction. Active in the literary scene in Ottawa for over 50 years, he was President of the League of Canadian Poets from 1991-1993.
