While driving through Mount Robson Provincial Park on a clear day in late May.
This is a nature poem
Train tracks run along a lake.
There is a trestle in the distance
and above, a snow shouldered mountain.
At its foot the new green of spring
is still in the mind of May.
The lake is not quite calm,
like the hide of a cow shedding flies.
This is a nature poem.
It parts lakes and mountains
with trains and body parts.
It reaches for immediacy.
It suggests deep parallels.
It ruminates on secondary properties,
then settles for a cow.
Now it takes a leaf and a yellow flower
and makes tinted glasses.
In this way you can see God
patiently put everything back in place,
so that you may again
take lakes and mountains
as they are.
—
“The lake is not quite calm,
like the hide of a cow shedding flies.”
How do you come up with these ideas?! I would never link lakes and mountains with ruminants.
Nice piece as always Stephen.
Thank you Diane. Spent part of my boyhood on the farm is all.
This is a wonderful poem and picture. Kathy and I travel this road frequently and it is always a gift when Robson is clear like this. Several friends climb to the small lake part way up each summer. Are the tracks the ones that run beside Moose Lake a little further east of the mountain?
Thank you for the picture in both text and photograph.
Ivon
Thank you Ivon! I believe the lake you hike to is “Berg” Lake:) It has been many years since I made the walk.
The train tracks are actually west of Robson, but I’m not sure the name of the lake. Anyway, thanks so much for your comment.