On Manitoulin Island  
Lake Huron, Ontario  


We have come so far north, we are in another country.
There is no language here, so we listen to the loons,
and when we cease to say loon, tree, star,
the nameless return to their original state, as though
the rule of speech had never singled them out.

We are not wrong to pluck from the night sky a “star” —
to translate a burning mass into a sound.
Unspoken, the night sky is a spilled necklace. 
So we say the cygnet, the swan, the charioteer —
and darkness is restrung into maps for pilots,

and wishes — makes no difference who you are —
the words as helpful and handy as pocket knives.
But here, we have climbed a rocky escarpment
to a lookout where the boreal appears, a vast
velvety pelt, flowing as far as the eye can see,

and far beyond. Before this scale, we grow
as quiet as the contemplatives who reason
that anything minds can think or say about, say,
reality, cannot be wholly, precisely, what it is,
but what we, in particular, perceive.

Such judicious humility, about mind, by mind!
Could that be reason’s pinnacle? From this high cliff
we follow the trees (who, we’ve learned are speaking
among themselves, signaling in a latticed tongue),
until they meld into the pale-blue visible horizon.

First published in Green (Graywolf Press, 1989); revised 2024
Homage Travel Stories & Essays | Poems | Contents at-a-Glance