Finalist for the 2015 Walrus Poetry Prize
After Joseph Boyden “The Wonder and Danger of the Mighty Moose River”
Islands so big they look like mainland,
sturgeon large as man nudge rocks, turn
them with snub noses, suck up crayfish.
Poplar, aspen, thick along the shores,
above, osprey glide. Loggers know if
they harvest trees by the river they’ll
create mass erosion, kill off fish,
and the animals who hunt them, but
they want it still. They say they will get
it from the Cree. William’s camp,
where Onakawana slips into
the Abitibi, forest and river
giving us what we need: moose, pickerel
and pike. This is where I bring my son, to
reconnect when teenage years threaten
to unground him. There’s magic in
the Mushkegowuk, the Moose Cree
homeland, part of my son, and me.
