Eyeshine

EAST OF OSWEGO

Ticonderoga to Lake George,
the classic invasion route
up the Richelieu valley
past Plattsburg,
Verdun,
à Montréal
across the North Shore
reroute again

to savour Albany;
last of the trading posts east of Oswego
before New York
protective sanctuary
lodgings,
free from the scalping knife
barrens and
the horrors Fenimore Cooper described.

Apple crisp, fall damp the air
with an unbroken stretch of forest
and Adirondack mountains,
there, delicate slip
of fair womanhood
bliss, she lies, gentle as the finger lakes
clothed in autumn crimson.
24

PRESENCE OF MIND

Spring heralds the summer with lilacs perched from that door.

In snows, a swarm of bushes lie black and apparently
rootless as the town's iron-gate bridge collapses under the centre part of the main road.

Little enclav