My Slim Bark Poem by Doug Blair

My Slim Bark

Rating: 5.0


My slim bark, my slim bark

Glides smoothly cross the lake.

A common loon, a father

Thinks this a strange mistake

And flounders, a seeming wound

To lure me from his brood

As if my ever paddling here

Were something wrong and rude.

But I know so much different

The waters seem like home

And play with me from dawn to dusk

As happily I roam.

Sometimes they roll a coaster-ride

And I have scarce to pull

Sometimes they chop in drizzle's haze

And work is plentiful.

The sky affords a canopy

Of God's most vivid art

In clear blue heat, in threatening clouds

To thrill this wanderer's heart.

The air is fresh, my lungs are clean

The smell of pine delights

A moose looks on from evening's shore

And oh, those northern lights!

And such has been the legacy

Of voyageurs of yore

Who crossed these lakes, and camped these rocks

Through many moons before.

A small fire sheds its warming hue

The limbs all happily ache

And small frogs close the day in song

As sweet dreams overtake.

POET'S NOTES ABOUT THE POEM
Remembering the happy, healthy canoe trips around Georgian Bay.
COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Brian Johnston 19 April 2014

Reminds me that astoundingly I have yet to write a poem about canoeing. What an oversight! Into my future poem list. Thank you! From my youth when I spent a summer in a boy's camp on Cass Lake in Minnesota (the Mississippi River flows through Cass Lake) I have loved both canoeing and canoe camping. I can already feel the birth of at least two poems because of your poem. We are both Christians as well. You would probably like my poems 'So Many Questions' and 'One Man's Miracle.' Look forward to reading more of your work!

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Dave Walker 27 April 2013

A great poem, reminds me of when I used to go canoeing as a school boy.

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Doug Blair

Doug Blair

London, Ontario, Canada
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