Northern Saskatchewan

 

The birch are forever

along the Murry Point road

for there is nothing to stop them

but the little dips and hills

and one place is the same

as all the places you have been

but the birch go on infinitely

in the space of the forest.

 

Always a mind’s width apart,

the forests are rare, seedlings

sprout without knowledge,

wonder drains out invisibly in

a moment’s consciousness

 

of other things demanding

space in the brain.  They say

the natural mind is no mind

and that is the birch forest

and the birch each clinging

to its space, and the road too

that cuts through the memory.

 

 

 

George Moore has published poetry in The Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, North American Review, Orion, Colorado Review, Nimrod, Meridian, Chelsea, Southern Poetry Review, Southwest Review, Chariton Review, and has been nominated four times for a Pushcart Prize.  He was a finalist for the 2007 Richard Snyder Memorial Prize, from Ashland Poetry Press, and earlier for The National Poetry Series, The Brittingham Poetry Award, and the Anhinga Poetry Prize.  His recent collections are Headhunting (Edwin Mellen, 2002), poems exploring the ritual practices of love and possession, and an e-Book, All Night Card Game in the Back Room of Time (Pulpbits, 2007).  He teaches with the University of Colorado, Boulder.