Soper River Song
© Alex Sinclair
from The Song the River Sings on Pipe Street Records
A foot can fall on this moss-soft ground
And leave no track and make no sound,
The wind blows all your words away
Blue water rolling through a blueberry day
The clouds settle over the hills of brown
Like a soft, soft cover of eiderdown
Caribou float like old grey ghosts
Through the mist that drifts on up from the coast
And the rain blows in and it tumbles back
From the Meta Incognita to the Kuujuack,
The river rises and the river falls,
From these hills you'd swear it barely moves at all.
But it dances down the mountain cold
Past tent rings glazed in lichen gold,
Over marble white and argillite black
And the wind blows like it's trying to push it back.
Past the high cliff home of the peregrine
And the willow creek clump of the ptarmigan
Rusty trap set high in the rock,
For the ghost of the hare and the wolf and the fox.
Every ridge has a ridge beyond,
Where a caribou stands to call you on,
to where you can watch the river wind,
On down to the harbour where the icebergs shine
From dogsled team to snowmobile
From skin and bone to vinyl and steel
Coleman stoves and ViseGrip pliers
Twin Otters skimming in on tundra tires
Sealskins stretched in the sun to dry
While high above the ravens cry
Spirits in the night air call your eye
To Northern Lights in a southern Sky
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