{"id":85,"date":"2006-04-06T11:14:14","date_gmt":"2006-04-06T16:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/2006\/03\/26\/returning\/"},"modified":"2007-03-07T10:10:50","modified_gmt":"2007-03-07T15:10:50","slug":"returning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/2006\/04\/06\/returning\/","title":{"rendered":"Returning"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Ulysses finally reached that homeward shore
\nIt was alien to him, for the land had grown sere
\nAnd his servants knew him not . . .<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I asked the question again, pointing across
\nthe small lake at the massive hill: “Are you sure
\nyou never heard of a ski club over there?”<\/p>\n

The clerk, possibly all of thirteen, regarded me
\ncautiously. “No, but I heard there was
\na hiking club there once when my father was in school.”<\/p>\n

She looked at me for a moment
\nwith the same noncommital smile
\nshe gave to all the tourists
\nand then repeated her question:
\n“Would you like anything? Hot dog?
\nHamburger? Coke\u2122 Ice cream bar?”<\/p>\n

“Thanks, no,” I said, and headed out
\nto find the place just a half hour hike
\naround the lake, the ski hill
\nwhere I had spent my entire youth
\nevery northern winter weekend.<\/p>\n

The great hill towered above me
\njust as years before it had dominated
\nthe trees above us as we had hacked out
\na road through the bush around the lake
\nIn winter you could look across the ice
\nand see roughly brushed in jagged strokes
\namong dark trees the steep white twisting trails
\nI had learned on, competed on, worked on
\nthrough steaming summer and bone-cold winter
\nwith horses and augers and hammers and saws
\nand had strung copper cable we had harvested
\non climbing stirrups from abandoned power lines
\nand dragged in supplies and built the tiny chalet
\nand tow-line and when finally winter came
\nwe stomped in weekend mornings and coaxed
\nthe frozen oil drum stove to send the sweet smoke
\nof cedar, birch, tamarack, jackpine up the stovepipe
\nand over the silent endless coniferous woods
\nthen nursed the cantankerous ski tow’s old gas motor
\nand ate frozen sandwiches and icy apples somewhere
\nwhite and silent dusted by cascades of crystals
\nencouraged by breezes to simplify our patterned wool toques
\nit had to be here somewhere in the tangle of
\nwild twisted bush that hampered detoured me
\nthrough unfamiliar muskeg and ancient roadless wilderness
\nI came upon swampy remains of a rotting plank duckwalk
\nand at one point a weathered broken sign,
\nlying half-under a fallen tree: “Kirkla \u2014 king Club”
\nthere was nothing else but bush and swamp
\nno hut, no ski shack no towline no trails
\na little farther on, I came upon a clear narrow trail
\nthat meandered over to the lake opposite the camp grounds
\nit featured a wealth of unpicked blueberries sweet and ripe
\nbut although it was well-travelled I had to duck in places
\nFinally I realized when I reached the beach
\nand saw water just starting to fill in large fresh
\nbear tracks that I had to retreat.
\nCautiously but quickly I headed back to the camp
\nlayers of wood and water had grown over
\nmy youth; there was really nothing left there:
\nno pyramids, no tombs, no bodies no
\nrecords \u2014 no place, just
\nwhat I hold in my heart
\nand bring to life in dreams
\non my sweet island.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Ulysses finally reached that homeward shore It was alien to him, for the land had grown sere And his servants knew him not . . . I asked the question again, pointing across the small lake at the massive … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aging","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}