downtown -35

This time last year I joined a two week expedition across the frozen lakes and forests of Northern Ontario. For days a small group of us pulled toboggans containing tents, stoves, food through miles of the Canadian wilderness. It was a disorienting experience, I am unbelievably glad I did it but still have no idea why!

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Made solitary,
We came out of the wilderness
Through eight days of snow and the grinding wind
Along the ways of the Cree and over the creaking lake
A land where the dragging earth and the heavens were separated
By no more than the distant smudge of
White Cedar, Spruce and Fir.
And the translucent hide of a weary sun
Faltered at the edge of the world
All life seemed suspended
Only the circling hawk
The marks of lynx, otter and snowshoe hare
And ourselves bore witness that things breathed upon this land.

We were bent like old people against the strain,
As frost biting fingers reached up through the slush and grasped
And clawed at the underside of our toboggans
Making us curse and sweat even as the ice froze around our legs and feet.

And each night we had built our camp,
Cutting the bushy branches from the spruce to lay over the snow and frozen waters
Swinging axes against standing dead wood to fire a battered stove,
Scraping a hollow to catch the depth of the cold
Pulling stiff, reluctant, ill-fitting canvas over frame
Sawing a hole though dark ice to draw up brown water
Then dropping into a half-sleep watching in the rigid darkness.
That we might feed the flickering flame
Until we woke before dawn
And began again.

To downtown
Where people greet you with razor wire smiles,
Eyes narrowed against the neon wind
And the scent of cinnamon, clove and hot oil lingers outside from the whirling eye Of the Lebanese restaurant,
​The sweet sour smoke from the snout of a Chinese dragon
Frets upon on the sidewalk
Above which the towers of the possessed rise like giant fists with outstretched fingers
And the sports bar zombies dance to silent flashing screens

Like renegades
We might hold onto the wilderness keeping
The songs of our days like lightening in a jar
As we walk towards the first embrace of loneliness.
In this wasteland of dreams

​Steve Bonham 2017