Playlist - Alberta

Courting Flute Three hundred children hang on an intake of breath. White Bear sings to her. 0:54
The Bagpiper Under the city canopy, many voices reach for the sun. One rises. Up and up and up. (Print by Albrecht Dürer, www.britishmuseum.org) 1:02
Solar Music She holds sun in her arms, beams. Called forth to music by Faraday’s child. 0:36
Macy singing Missing my babies from way down in Antarctica. 1:28
Canada Day The earth is an Indian thing said Kerouac, in Mexico, full of desert and staring eyes. And it is. In the way this island has been danced upon from before time. We are all but visitors here. Feel the earth tremble. 0:45
Riley Park No poetry today. Perhaps the sounds of my girls is poetry enough. In lieu of poetry, though, a comment: this is my 100th post on what began as a gift to an audiophile friend when our daughters were born. Ale had challenged me to use my microphone to listen deeply to the world; eight years and many changes in technology later (I’ve transitioned through an old minidisc recorder through Marantz clunker to my current solution for usually having my hands full — my smart phone), curiaudio remains my creative extravagance and my constant reminder to stop and listen. 1:04
Old Woman Song The song he sang: the woman who rocks her child, and then her man. Who will rock the woman? 3:16
Waiting for the plane The paint on her toes, curled against the cold, unearths me. How it begins. This winter light. She has: a dish to sell, and red soil ground into the fold of a letter. Her toes, curled against the cold. She gives me her name. Two bags that hold a spoon for bread, her smile, wide as the sky, and the years she has walked. Her toes, curled against the cold. How it begins. This winter light. 2:05
Helicopter This peak that keeps drifting in and out of the clouds. Each flake that lands stays, layers into history. Freeze, thaw. The constant motion of things. Wilderness, and this life we carve into it. 1:17
Thunder calls me from the dishes Thunder calls me from the dishes last night’s arguments dissolving in bubbles to the door. Open it: the world comes alive. Silver sky, wet earth, the great pause as the heat breaks. The leaves fidget, the dog fidgets, the baby fidgets in sleep. Then a ripple across the sky. I close my eyes and there is nothing but tree and sky fading to black in half lives. 1:19
Street corner violin In flip flops and jeans he calls up the pathos of a rainy Sunday afternoon, cars passing, the river muttering. He is thin as a scarecrow and missing teeth. At his feet, a complicated score that lies, staring up at the sky. 1:13
Dawn chorus with chives Pad out to the fire, listen for birds and the distant sound of trains, of traffic like water. Pause. Delight in the chives and other things hard to kill. 1:37
Bubble wrap They are mad syncopation, feet hungry for every last bubble. 1:41
Train passes The train passes and I kneel to touch the creaking iron. Expecting heat, expecting flattened pennies, my hand — rests. There are only locusts left, and the cool shushing of the river. 1:40
Two Girls They scream — one clung to the side as the other boldly goes, ferocious feet and a creaking gangplank foundered on this prairie soil. 1:22
Dogsled The dogs riot, drunk with snow. 0:40
Macy laughing 3:01
Popping lids Apples put to bed, the children’s voice distant. Rattle-tap, rattle-tap go the busy bottles until the gas dies. Then silence. Lids popping, shutters snapping closed on another summer. 1:05
Bagpipes Eyes and ears wide open, bums on hard wood, bodies twitching. Silver fish and the words washing like water. The rattle of medals. The mic listing in the waxy hand. The years unwound. Sisters grown into women. Not fallen, but dead. 5:00
Spring Thaw Box the crates of rejection letters, and stash them in the drip line. Ball up the sticky notes and stuff them in your cheeks. Shred the divorce papers, the receipts from houses ago. Stop at the top of the stairs by her meaty fist, years since you circled it with your fingers; years, as the days grow shorter still. The bohemians are here. 1:09
Thanksgiving walk In the season of Hush Puppies and leaves dry as brown bags, the earth wears tweed. 0:58
Press Sage advice if it were true. But five years out and the world full of stalkers & critics & ex-husbands with strong opinions on week-end show hosts and god know what else flotsam sitting righteously before their radios and I am quite prepared for this to be a good day to to die. If only a little bit. 0:37
Bath Time These ridges and hollows and uncharted land — side by side we sing our way home. 2:11
The Road to Wayne One-way bridge on the road to nowhere. You zig. I zag. Our footsteps on the empty earth. 1:14
Warbling A cloud of dust and my children’s voices warbling over gravel. The thing about going slow is that you get to go slow. 0:42
High Water How we recoil when the water rises, when software interrupts the news. Who’s in charge here? The thunder last night. The kids saw lightening everywhere. Now, the house quiet, their absence pulled taught, I pace, restless as a dog. 2:23
Foot Race Oh, we understand our ridiculousness. Our knee socks and plastic bottles strapped to our waists like warriors from the land of mini-vans and family calendars. Our matching jackets. Our lubricants. Our expensive shoes and cheap talk. The watches we buy. All the slaughtered mornings and the final snap of the gun. But run with us along the unsuspecting river and be buoyed by a hand clap and kind word. Surrender to the breathing. Be carried. 1:04
Kensington Bells Oh, hands on bells, your joy brief and ever so slightly disfigured. You stop us with our groceries to wonder. 0:45
Interlakes The sky falls, the fire licks. Oh, gentling smoke we are all dancing elephants. 1:03
Gooseberry Morning, minding its business. May two-four debris scattered to the wind. 1:16
River running The river clears its throat. Shimmies right, then left. The children’s cold fingers pulling at its coat sleeves. 1:12
Amazing grace Your fine bones and the weight of you. The night unending and the swell of this tiny song, humming. 0:35
Dishwasher Late, and the babies upstairs sleeping. Quiet but for this watery heart throbbing. 1:01
Patio door opening Put your shoulder to the ponderous weight of things behind glass. 0:06
Clothesline The sunny ripple of bedsheets and small clothes. 0:30
Twinkle, twinkle The woods and your red cheeks and the baby tucked, just so. You find the words and sidle up alongside, swelling with rhyme. 0:29
Bell at Stag Harbour Time stopped and the clear blue sky. We wait for a ship like all the women before us, chilled to the bone by the song of iron. 1:02
Red-winged blackbirds Call it summer, call it promise, call it radio from a Dodge patiently polished. We lay on our backs in the sun that month, holding vigil for September. 1:07
Train coming around the tracks The silence was the most disturbing part. The whole world standing staring at these metal sinews tripped and quick-frozen. Now with summer at its heaviest, the air burning with the ingratitude of August and the back-and-forthing of combines. There’s been much hail — we’ve huddled tsk-tsking, watching the sky like a felon. What did we expect? Of course there’d be something. Each time the wreck appears around the last curve, I think of lost freighters creaking, sinking. Of dead sailors still and white in the sand. 3:15
Dawn chorus with geese The birds and the reeds and the morning cows knee-deep in muck. Empty bleachers where the sky used to live. 3:02
Corral Gate Home is horseflesh, this salty lick across the prairies. A silver sky threatening rain. Home is these empty barns and the trail, still warm. 0:23
Auction The way it goes so fast. All the neighbours out to pick over the bones. The old men wincing. 1:16