Finding What He Can of His Own Way Home

by Pamela Porter

                             Grand Canyon, Arizona

There is a precision in nature.
The way air is a living thing. Taking form, 
changing form. Like the spirit when it has left the body.
As though the walls of this canyon were cut 
with the sharpest of tools. Wind. Sand. 
Olga, my mule, prefers to walk on the brick edge 
that holds the trail in place. 
Beyond the edge, the canyon. 
At its deepest point, the river. The body 
must go with the mule. The mind must trust.
The day gathers to itself pigment, and gradations
of earth. Beyond what we imagine.
The way the heart turns inward 
over the intricacies of love, and the one who has died. 
We say, Bless this man who died. 
We have carried him this far.
When the mules need to rest, we stop, 
turn their heads out over the edge, into sky
as a mountain climber will swing from a solitary rope
in sleep. Bless this man as a raven
spreads its wings, an island in the air.
This one who died. As the spirit lifts and rises.
There is a sacredness, a gravity, 
where the hour between present and past 
is a point in the palm of the hand of air.
There is a bridge we cross, strung over the river. 
Bless him. Who died, this man. 
We have crossed the river with him
and do not know how to go back.

in memoriam, Patrick Lane (1939–2019)
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Finding what he can of his own way home -- Patrick Lane, “Apples in the Rain”
Bless this man who died -- Patrick Lane, “Fathers and Sons”

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Pamela Porter’s work has won more than a dozen provincial, national and international awards, including the Governor General’s Award for her young adult novel The Crazy Man, as well as the Pat Lowther, Raymond Souster, and the CBC/Canada Writes shortlists. Among her 14 published books, her most recent is Likely Stories, released in 2019 from Ronsdale Press. Pamela lives near Sidney, BC with her family and a menagerie of rescued horses, dogs, and cats.