Kites by Bob MacKenzie [written for George Bowering when I was nineteen and he was not, and for such accidental inspiration dedicated to him.] Will you still be writing then, sending your thoughts downriver on the wind? What of your pen that stills the passing lifetime but, having writ, moves on, George? Poet time! And here is George, his nineteenth nineteenth birthday, searching the river for wind! He listens for the echoes of a springtime that was kind. He listens for the echoes of his mind. While the wind blows, will you still be writing then - forever on the river and nineteen? What of the years whispering downriver? Catch the wind, George, catch the wind and be forever nineteen. published: Poetry Canada Review, Volume 3, Number 1, Fall 1981 |