Push Day
By MIKE FISH
Seven portages already, muskeg up to here
Big water, stiff headwind all day
Hands hard, good mates, no fear
Where’s the site, you say
Around the bend and through the narrows
Sun baking down, visions of a place
Esker topped with pine, plenty of space
Shoulders sore, fading daylight
Where, where’s that site
Round the bend and through the narrows
Hailstorm of insults, hate all round
Grotesque
Rights pushed underground, free press?
Where — oh, where — is that new sight?
Round the bend and through the narrows
End of another river day, 1971. Three pots going, and bannock in the reflector oven. Author, foreground, who guided a 50-day canoe trip to Hudson Bay via the Attawapiskat River, opens a can of corn for dinner for 10.
Reaching Hudson Bay by canoe – after 50 days of paddling – takes a bit of work. Even a push day or two.
No roads. And no tolls. Except two-load portages, clouds of black flies, and splitting standing dry wood for 150 meals.
This poem, born by a river in early 2017, is dedicated to journeys that matter. Around the bend and through the narrows. Perhaps we’ll get there.
Mike Fish, former reporter for The Post-Standard of Syracuse, is Assistant Editor of Nastawgan, the quarterly journal of the Wilderness Canoe Association in Toronto.
Sense of Decency 
Nice meditation, Mike.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Reblogged this on Sense of Decency.
LikeLike
LOVE THIS
LikeLiked by 1 person
Beautiful poem, Fishy. It reminded me of a few canoe trips we took that wore me out but were filled with laughs.
LikeLiked by 1 person