"The Skater" by Charles G. D. Roberts

 

N.D.G. Winter Carnaval, February 19, 1955; photo taken at 
NDG Park (Girouard Park); St. Augustine Roman
Catholic Church in the background.

My glad feet shod with the glittering steel
I was the god of the wingèd heel.

The hills in the far white sky were lost;
The world lay still in the wide white frost;

And the woods hung hushed in their long white dream
By the ghostly, glimmering, ice-blue stream.

Here was a pathway, smooth like glass,
Where I and the wandering wind might pass

To the far-off palaces, drifted deep,
Where Winter's retinue rests in sleep.

I followed the lure, I fled like a bird,
Till the startled hollows awoke and heard

A spinning whisper, a sibilant twang,
As the stroke of the steel on the tense ice rang;

And the wandering wind was left behind
As faster, faster I followed my mind;

Till the blood sang high in my eager brain,
And the joy of my flight was almost pain.

The I stayed the rush of my eager speed
And silently went as a drifting seed, —

Slowly, furtively, till my eyes
Grew big with the awe of a dim surmise,

And the hair of my neck began to creep
At hearing the wilderness talk in sleep.

Shapes in the fir-gloom drifted near.
In the deep of my heart I heard my fear.

And I turned and fled, like a soul pursued,
From the white, inviolate solitude.

-o-

Note: As of 8 a.m. today, 22 January 2025, it is -16C with a windchill of -23C. Milder by Sunday...

A shaman on the back of a grizzly

The bear is a symbol of rebirth, for the bear hibernates during the winter which is a kind of death, and then in spring he emerges from his cave, as though brought back to life, as though reborn. The shaman is a representative of the world's oldest spirituality.

Witness the white bear of the poles, and the white shark of the tropics; what but their smooth, flaky whiteness makes them the transcendent horrors they are?
                                                 —Herman Melville, Moby Dick

That inescapable animal walks with me,
Has followed me since the black womb held
                                                 —Delmore Schwartz, “The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me”

The moon was high now, sailing in icy splendour of solitude
over the immensity of the ancient wood.
                                               —Charles G.D. Roberts, The Heart of the Ancient Wood

                                          Cave paintings from the Cueva de la Vieja, Alpero, Spain. 

Years ago my brother gave me a wood cut print entitled "Shaman on the back of a bear"; I kept this wood cut for many years but when we moved to this house I was hasty and discarded it. I regret that I no longer have this piece of art, but I did write a poem that was inspired by it. Here is the poem:

a shaman on the back of a grizzly
the black fur a black streak
moving between the trees
then across an open grassy field
a shaman eyes blackened
hair hanging limply down over ears
& arms holding to handfuls of bearskin
he leans slightly forward
knees pressing to flanks
the grizzly face down & mouth open
a bewildered look on his face
we see the white of his teeth
we see the shaman mouth open
we see him see us
we see them disappear back into the forest
they see us disappear back into the forest
we see them disappear back into the forest
we see him see us

(1972)