What Fox Knew
By Mary Barnes
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About this ebook
Mary Barnes
Mary Barnes is of Ojibwa descent. She is a graduate of the University of Waterloo and a winner of the Tom York Award for short fiction. She has written book reviews for The Antigonish Review and currently writes for Prairiefire. Her poetry has appeared in literary journals such as the Prairie Journal, Tower Poetry Society, and Voicings. Inspirations for her writing come from the landscape of her youth and everyday encounters. Her first collection of poetry What Fox Knew was released 2019 by At Bay Press and received two award nominations; The League of Canadian Poets Pat Lowther Award and the Manuela Dias Award. Born in Parry Sound, she now lives in Wasaga Beach with her husband Bob and writes, gardens, and talks to the birds.
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What Fox Knew - Mary Barnes
Come to the River
The voice calls.
Come sit on the flat rock
and watch as water glides over
these ancient stones.
Smells good eh? The air clean
the scent of pine gum piquant in the heat.
Listen. Listen. Hear that?
Beyond the calls
of crows and gulls
beyond the keening
cry of hawk
a drum beat
a dry chant
the Old Ones telling
you that you matter
that you are blessed.
Forget the day
on the school bus
when the boy with
the white teeth snapped
out brown girl
as if the words were
something dirty to be bleached
cleansed and rinsed.
But I sit here dreaming
snow falling past the window.
Birds flit in the juniper
for berries
and I discover I am
at the beginning of winter
the youthful summer
fading but not forgotten
while the town plow rumbles
echoes
along the floor
to my old and
slippered feet.
Long Time Ago
My father built a house of cured lumber
pounding nails into ceilings,
walls and floors. There we lived, my brothers,
our mother and I. On long winter nights
while wolves howled and
the arctic air cold-shouldered shorn trees
he warmed the place with a black and silver stove
that radiated heat into rooms
and into each of our souls.
My father tended a patchwork garden amidst
cedar, rough rocks and tall pine.
His murmurs in soft summer nights
no match for the whippoorwill
spoke of chipmunks at the ripened strawberries
of raccoons in the crumbling compost
my mother’s reply lost in the pillow
as September dreamed its way into fall.
My father sat on the cool veranda,
robins silenced by the noon sun,
rattler languid under the lilac.
He spun stories of cousins, uncles and aunts
gave us lessons that we be kind
that we be fair-minded to those we met.
The breeze beguiled
lingered and listened.
Now the house,
the land and my father
sleep
while we recall the quick days we knew bliss.
Some Things Are Remembered
There was a summer
I heard the clang of a shovel
as my father
jostled the wheelbarrow
to the garden
to pull bindweed
that could choke the peas.
There was a summer
I heard flap of sheets
the sound crisp and white
as my mother
pinned them to the line.
There was a summer
my brothers brushed past me
riding invisible steeds
bound on an unknown quest to save
the world from danger.
Some things are remembered
the joy of a rainbow
the beauty of dew on morning grass
the flutter of wings in the maple
the snort of a deer
underneath the window.
Now shades remain
flitting
beneath the lilac
from the corner of my eye
on the path leading to the garden
reminding me
these are tokens of innocence
treasures to carry
through the days ahead
like the hand of the sun
on my back when there was a summer.
In That Place
Tree shaded the old house on the hill
nestled birds and squirrels in her branches
the little girl the brothers seated
backs against her rough bark
telling stories
they knew Tree would keep secret.
In that place
Tree accepted the warm rain
spread her roots into the soil
stretched tall and waited
for the father to come home
for the mother to call supper.
In that place
Tree guarded the sleeping family
as twilight settled on the flowing river
as Wind rustled leaves
shushed creatures large and small
as