- .mp3

[00:14.48]In October 2015, I was out in the yard
[00:22.93]I just finished splitting up the scrap two-by-fours into kindling
[00:30.44]Glanced up at the half moon pink chill refinery cloud light
[00:38.65]Two big blackbirds flew over, their wings whooshing and low
[00:45.35]Two ravens, but only two
[00:52.23]Their black feathers tinted in the sunset
[01:07.48]I knew these birds were omens but of what I wasn't sure
[01:15.56]They were flying out toward the island where we hoped to move
[01:22.68]You were probably inside
[01:26.88]You were probably aching, wanting not to die
[01:31.18]Your body transformed
[01:34.19]I couldn't bear to look so I turned my head west
[01:40.78]Like an early death
[01:44.87]Now I can only see you on the fridge in lifeless pictures
[01:52.43]And in every dream I have at night
[01:56.78]And in every room I walk into
[01:59.80]Like here, where I sit the next October
[02:03.69]Still seeing your eyes
[02:08.51]Pleading and afraid, full of love
[02:16.18]Calling out from another place because you're not here
[02:26.08]I watched you die in this room then I gave your clothes away
[02:35.67]I'm sorry, I had to
[02:41.49]Now I'll move
[02:51.88]I will move with our daughter
[02:55.58]We will ride over water
[03:00.64]With your ghost underneath the boat
[03:07.02]What was you is now but bones
[03:11.00]And I cannot be at home
[03:15.46]I'm running, reef flailing
[03:37.34]The second time I went to Haida Gwaii it was just me and our daughter
[03:44.93]Only one month after you died my face was still contorted
[03:52.47]Driving up and down, boots wet inside, aimless and weeping
[03:59.77]I needed to return to the place where we discovered that
[04:07.38]Childless, we could blanket ourselves in the moss there
[04:18.18]For our long lives
[04:21.79]But when we came home you were pregnant
[04:25.77]And then our life together was not long
[04:31.12]You had cancer and you were killed
[04:34.28]And I'm left living like this
[04:37.45]Crying on the logging roads with your ashes in a jar
[04:44.49]Thinking about the things I'll tell you
[04:48.18]When you get back from wherever it is that you've gone
[04:56.88]But then I remember death is real
[05:03.43]And I'm still here in Masset
[05:06.65]It's August 12th, 2016
[05:10.79]You've been dead for one month and three days
[05:15.65]And we are sleeping in the forest
[05:19.38]There is sand still in the blankets from the beach
[05:24.76]Where we released you from the jar
[05:29.81]When we wake up all the clothes that we left out
[05:34.74]Are cold and damp just from the air permeating
[05:41.38]The grounds opens up
[05:45.79]Surrounded by growth
[05:49.19]Nurse logs with layers of moss and life
[05:53.53]Beyond the cedars, the sound of water
[05:57.68]Thick salal
[05:59.92]And God-like huckleberries
[06:04.85]The ground absorbs and remakes whatever falls
[06:12.36]Nothing dies here
[06:15.43]But here is where I came to grieve
[06:18.66]To dive into it with you
[06:23.67]With your absence
[06:26.69]But I keep picking you berries