“Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern
resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

Posted this quote for I have been writing of the stars. They are close here on Bowen, on any clear night create an enchanting tableau. At breakfast this morning I spoke of my father lost in a blizzard. He had been posted in the Yukon during a stint in the RCAF. He was wandering for four days and finally able to navigate back to the base by the North star which figures largely in my poem, “Whore In The Eddy” wherein I fantasize about lying in a puddle with a prostitue. A dead prostitute.

Whore In The Eddy

Gazes up at ballooning clouds as if imagining
frogs. Giraffes. Corvettes and barns.
As if Neptune’s head has heard
her pleas. Sent me. She looks like a mannequin.
As if by law of nature, a stripped woman’s body
looks like a mannequin after it floats
to the surface in a rainforest denuded
by steam donkeys and timber sales. All matter
from the depths is netted by log jams.

She stares at me. Cannot see
the pebbles embedded in my knees.
Or my face, not so sweet.
No bubbles, just the stillness
of standing water. No trace DNA.
No hard earned cash. Only cool airstreams
of aspen leaves. My grasping hand
takes hers, skin gliding onto my fingers
like a glove. A device. We share features
any porno-masticating, regular working stiff
joe wants in his garage
between the red pickup and the Crestliner.

We watch the rim of night, a coiled
arm of stars, their slow light two million
years too late. Naked eyes decipher
Orion the hunter. Cassiopeia. Bright knots
of the Double Cluster. Mars appears.
I look the other way, to the North Star.