Saskatoon Berry

All bloom now, arriving like new snow
and a surprising sweetness
carried on the valley wind

I feel all right when the flowers come,
a certain spring in the green hills
They know that I count on them,
their radiant light after a long sleep

They never fail, so patient
for the sun and eager for the bees
to plant the summer fruit

The blossoms will fall in a few days,

absorbed into memory, these passing things

that hold up my world

Stairway

what is my music - but a driving rhythm,
the timeless imprint of a singular moment when a song,
a band spoke my name, called me out to hear
Dazed and Confused, and a man possessed
with an incurable guitar, the thunder of drums
and that wailing on centre stage
that led me away from everything else, saved me
from the ordinary, made me want to be more,
kept me stretching, longing, moving,
always the music with me, never deviating
as they grew older, grey and wrinkled,
beautiful men who understand the full glory
of their history etched in the hearts of boys
now aging with them