FROM THE ISLAND

I get a big kick out of the wind. I mean a good strong wind— The kind that means drawing up the canoes And double-pegging the tents And drenching the campfire Before you turn in.

We had paddled and portaged all day And were camped on an island— Pokegama the Indians call it. The kids were all rolled up in their Hudson Bays, The canoes were up and the tents were staked And the fire was out. It was dark. Black.

Smoky clouds were roaring across the sky On their way from nowhere to God knows where.

You could hear them move— 'Way up there you could hear them roaring by;

And down on the island we felt the effects: The way that wind roars through the pines is Very definitely nobody's business, Not even a poet's.