My former lover loves a good hike. I felt like our relationship was one long trek through the wilderness. In fact, she gave me the best vacation of my life when we went to the Canadian Rockies. She had an idea what she wanted out of that vacation. We spent most of our time in the forested mountains in the area of area of Banff and Jasper but also in the Canadian Glacier National Park. My best day was in that park but only just, since there were so many good days. She decided that she wanted to live in Field and I sort of mark her decision to emigrate from that vacation. We hinted to each other that we would return to the resort that was built on the lake beneath the Burgess shale formation. That sounded to each of us that we were headed toward a honeymoon. We never made it back there, never made it to the marriage either. We hiked around that lake. On the back side, there was a territorial fly of some sort who decided to defend its territory from us. It buzzed us all the way across that swampy area in the back of the lake. When we reached a certain point that fly abruptly stopped bothering us. Guess that was the end of its territory.
I could not go to Canada. In any case, I was not invited.
The Long Path
Ah, a blank canvas
to smear my ink on,
to say anything I want,
to remark how fine
you are in the wind
with all your long hair streaming
as you scan your land
and step past the end
of the long path we once shared.
May 26, 2009 12:29 PM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
to me there is a sadness in this, how she stepped of your canvas, the painting done. But you say it so beautifully and how you leave it to the reader, to see that always we can start again with a blank canvas, even if it's just to paint the memory of her long hair in the wind.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, there was a sadness. I used a prayer discipline for a year to make the transition without rancor. I succeeded.
ReplyDeleteMarked her decision to emmigrate...
ReplyDeleteThere is always a ground zero, the first dollar that caused the crash, the first drop of a torrential rain, the hand that placed the chisel that felt the hammer that cracked a life in two. Seems as if these moments are only visable in hindsight, and more painful because it is too late to have made a difference in the matter. But then again, that's as it should be.
With Frances it was more overt than that. There was a kind of foresight to it, but as well I did not want to see it because my going was never possible. I don't have the money required.
ReplyDeleteI would also have to get a legal name change. I am no longer qualified to get a passport though before 9-11 I could and I had one back in the sixties. My two qualifying documents do not contain the same name, so I have to either go back to my birth name or else legally change to the name I have gone by since I was six years old. I can't even visit Vancouver without that. This even though several years ago and post 9-11 I was able to get to Canada and back without a passport.
Oh, I'm ridiculous. I set about not believing in impossibilities. Ha! Sometimes the impossible things were in fact impossible, but then I think, that was because two did not believe.
ReplyDeleteAnd then I am given another impossible situation. Ha! I refuse to believe in impossible again. Guess what? Two believed and it actually became possible.
I do set out with a clear agenda to screw countries and rules. That much is a given. Farq boundaries! There are enough between two people, never mind two nations.
That being said, I am a romantic and wish you had a woman fresh and wild to hike with. And I know you'll shush me, but that's just me. You're poem is soft...to smear your ink on. That is mighty fine.
xo
erin
Erin, I continue to hope for a partner. I can't really envision life going on like this for the duration. I don't want it.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, though I feel like a good partner, I know that I am not so good in fact. I wonder if I am better now. I have had a good deal of practice. Still, every one of my partnerships has disolved. That counts for something and is not hopeful. That my partners and I did not stop loving, that's the hopeful side. That we separated anyway, hmmm. That we still like each other. Yay.