Lyrics: Last Paddle, by Richard Sanger
Supper done and the August sun
about to go, the two of you
subtract yourselves from kitchen,
from dishes and grandchildren,
to take the blue canoe
out for one last paddle
round our summer sites,
these swimming rocks and heron swamps
north of Pointe-au-Baril.
There’s a lurch and a curse
as you embark, old antagonists
always ready to go
another round, to skirmish
as the canoe wobbles,
to spar over ancient foibles
or a loon that’s just popped up,
then laugh it off like drops
off a duck’s back, splish-splash,
resuming your old truce
with gentle, rhythmic strokes
and the laughter I hear echo
over the glowing water
as I stand and watch you go—
the two of you in silhouette
in the blue canoe, now black,
just an outline that merges into
the dark islands, their ragged skyline
of wind-tormented pines,
and re-emerges, as the sun
consumes itself behind,
yellow and orange and blazing red,
and the two of you paddle on,
paddle out towards the open,
the great big Georgian Bay—there,
there’s no troublesome strip
of earth to get in the way,
no horizon left to hold you back,
no more pain, or sorrow,
no ego, it’s all washed away
in mist, in this grey-white glow
the lake climbs right into the sky,
as I stand and watch you go,
your canoe just a speck
in the silver distance,
the whirls from your paddles
undoing, unspooling like thoughts,
or sentences trailing off
on the lake’s metallic surface
little galaxies that spin
and expend themselves
and vanish into dark,
in which, having stood and watched
you subtract yourselves from us,
I see nothing but you gone—
you are the darkness you’ve left
and the evening’s first faint star.
