and then our exile

returned, arms and shoulders tanned and face burnt a bright pink, bleached hair turned curly through river water, legs covered in scratches and bites and bruises - trying to think of how to render the past while, if it is possible to explain days spent kneeling in a canoe leaning into cross-bow draws in bright sun, rushing through white rapids, or, floating into the unknown in warm river-water in the laughing company of twenty-five people most of whom i'd never seen before but with nearly all of whom sprung a sudden sense of community, or an early-morning run high into the hills where morning light revealed brilliant yellow canola fields before the blue sweetgrass mountains, gravel country roads on green rolling hills above river canyons, hoodoos in rushing wind. even christian passion, discussing worship and corinthians, and spluttering fireworks, singing jack johnson and joni mitchell, fajr on the riverbank.

the night we camped at poverty rock, after most everyone else had gone to bed, christian kathleen and i stared into the fire for a long time. the flames were casting flickering shadows behind us, there were meteors flying in the sky above, milky way, the dull roar from the river below. she had been quietly strumming on the guitar in the falling dark, asked if i knew the words to "the wind", we sang it slowly.

the next night, in calgary again, sitting on a floor drinking tea and talking deep into the early morning.

now it is 2.17am - moments from the past days, to remain. a time which was therapeutic - which had to be, i told linda today with a wry but honest smile, and here i am, now in the early morning, with so much to edit before saskatoon.