Traveller's Advisory

Gary Hyland
From:   White Crane Spreads Wings. Coteau Books, 1996

For Robert Kroetsch

Wherever you go others are absent.
You feel the spaces they make
in every foreign landscape.

Some you placate with postcards.
The others, always in mind,
speak at unsuspected times.

Momentum takes you over borders
not shown on the old map
you study at every stop,

the paper thinning into space,
light riddling the cities,
roads, coves, memories.

Where is time taking you this
time? What distance will you make
before the past presents a shape?

No scales, no legends translate
voids to voices, empty reaches
into longed-for faces.

You always know who isn't there
and turn half expectantly
to where someone turning ought to be.

Poem 1 | Poem 2 | Poem 3 | Poem 4 | Poem 5 | Poem 6

Gary Hyland's works copyright © to the author.