Great White North

 

Where’s that fruity banquet

of saucy air?

 

My tender, tropical

Blanket of splendid air? gone

In the slap-face blast of an incidental

Plane, bereft in the aft

Of a motorized kite; melted far,

Far behind in the flight

 

To man-made Canadian light.

Where's that lush drama, that calabash

Sun and colour-thrusting musk?

Where’s dancing baretoed in the

Thunder and road-steam and lusty

Insects’ juicy thrum; the sudden

 

Thirst of dusky veldt

And morning’s instant, pulsating

Melting-pot hum?

Snapped off in stiff stalactites.

Filtered through frigid nights that

Linger for months; paralyzed

 

In ice; blessed hubbub buried

In a bloodless snowbank cover,

Whited over; the blazing transcript

Of your former life flash-frozen

In pen-prick hints of stars drawn

Upside-down, in foreign ink.

 

Here, indigenous cold-huggers insist

You show more intimacy with

Their tongue, embracing an Inuit

As opposed to the eskimo kiss;

Grinning when your sultry soul

Mutates into an arctic chip; a mote;

 

Just another note in their lexicon

For the subtle typographies of snow.