This poem is one of a series of dramatic renderings of obscure corners of real and imagined history.

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what a day!

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at the Basin2 dove from the tufa overhang

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into the water, playing my trick of

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seeming to drown, not coming up until I finish wriggling

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through that underwater chimney

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and burst into air. always startles the tourists.

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—feel the late summer heat, saw young birds

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now half-grown, flying

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the ones that survive the cats,

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woodpecker, chickadee

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the juncos, usually close to the ground,

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black-headed,

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a couple on the way to Bow Falls

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where I sit, watching the waters clashing and lashing—

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remember when Daddy was building our house

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on Squirrel Street

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and I had whooping cough

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first saw the river with Sue Macklin

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from a high bank

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it was dark and seething

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—our fingers touched

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we were so scared ran to the tent.

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now to the bike

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bought from selling door to door

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Canadian Pictorial subscriptions

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and those smelly sachet powders

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grab the handlebars, run,

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fling myself into the air

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land on the seat, pedal

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till the trees on either side this path

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are a green blur—

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—on the way to buffalo park.

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that Englishman3 I talked to earlier

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when he bought the newspaper,

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he said war was building up

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in the Old Country. he loved Germany

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but England was holy, he said.

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how I had startled him with my trick

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at the pool! wonder if he believed

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that whopper I told him

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about grizzlies soaking in the Cave

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to cure their rheumatism?

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that was really the caretaker’s story, old Galletley

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with his tam-o’-shanter,

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but he really knew some true facts

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like the Indians using the springs before us.

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maybe after hunting buffalo. tiring,

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chasing the herds, shooting arrows

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twanging off the bows—

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or else creeping up on them

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covered in buffalo hide for disguise

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stalking, but not here by

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the paddock,

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where they wander shaggy like

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old brown blankets over them

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mouldy,

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fenced in, not free:

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by the river I found that arrowhead

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a piece of red flint chipped

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to the sharp cutting edge—

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I would like to join in the hunt

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now on my horse4—zm zm zm

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off to the Lux theatre to see

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the late matinee: Flaming Arrows.5

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_____________________

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1. Birney’s family moved to Banff in 1911, and stayed until 1918. He is here nine years old, proud owner of a new bicycle earned through sales of Canadian Pictorial subscriptions, and of sachets. He has recently branched out to peddle the Calgary Herald.

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2. The Basin was the natural pool created by the outflow from the hotsprings of the Cave and Basin, now a historical site.

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3. The English poet Rupert Brooke visited the Banff area at this time. After stops in Calgary and the Stoney Indian reserve at Morley, he stayed over at Chateau Lake Louise. He left a record of his visit in his Letters from America, where Chapters 12 and 13, “The Indians” and “The Rockies,” deal with his sojourn in the region. He neglected to mention his encounter with young Earle.

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4. The bike.

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5. Flaming Arrows (1911) was directed by D.W. Griffith, and deals with the savage redskins in a sneak attack on innocent European settlers.

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