Where lava sprayed glistening rock
a glacier plunged and ground the mountain rocks to melt into a
lake and outflow river
out pours bluebunch and mountain rough fescue to roll and
merge with the wind to the grassland east
The Pelican Lake peoples flowed in and out
the Besant peoples flowed in and out and the
Kootenai peoples flowed in and flowered and wilted
but set their roots down hard
An old priest trudged in a black gown and
railways ran their trains in and out
miners plunged and ground for black coal
farmers pushed their herds of cattle in and out
rum runners drove their McLaughlin Buicks in and out
skiers drive in and up to slide the slopes
dynamite exploded out to build the grey river of
highway number three when it wound west and south then west
All flow in and out almost nothing stops this stop gap
not even a gravel avalanche or mine explosion
It took a name it didn’t used to have
flowing words about a perch on pine for the raven or
little brother of raven
or the band of Crow who met the Blackfoot there
Now a crow watches the traffic to the
cinnamon bun place from a power pole
until the day the flow stops
after what calamity,
when the cars on the highway disappear and
only flows the river,
and the deer, then only the wind, then only the
lava jettisoning its glistening rocks and
the mountains push themselves shut
without a witness
Questions and Answers
Is there a specific moment that inspired you to pursue poetry?
I can’t think of a particular time I decided I wanted to write poetry. I think many young people like poetry, and many young people write poetry, but that at some point someone, directly or indirectly, informs the young poet that writing poetry lacks practical value and therefore is not worth spending time doing. I have written poetry on and off my whole life, and the “off” times reflect my lack of confidence in my ability or some other distraction.
What poetic techniques did you use in this poem? How much attention do you pay to form and metre?
I focused on images that for me epitomized the nature of the Crowsnest region. I used quite a bit of repetition to emphasize the continuity and cyclical qualities of nature. I tend to write in free verse, so I selected line lengths and rhythm that sounded “right” to my ear. I tried to avoid punctuation to maintain rapid reading (that is, “flowing”), though I notice that the last stanza has a few commas. Perhaps there I wanted to emphasize a few phrases, and by “stopping the flow” with commas, I created emphasis around those phrases, probably to draw attention to reversals of the flow that I described in the earlier stanzas. So, yes indeed, I pay attention to form.