presence of affinities

a pairing: river as muse, by Janet Kvammen

and

May 22, 2025

*river as muse* (series), by Janet Kvammen (Patullo Bridge, Fraser River, New Westminster, B.C.) A metal print of this piece was purchased by the City of New Westminster as a gift for the Chief of Tsleil-Waututh First Nation

Today I offer art from a series called river as muse, created by friend and colleague, Janet Kvammen. She is a mixed media, lens-based artist, poet and community volunteer, currently Poet Laureate for the City of New Westminster, Vice-President of the non-profit New West Artists and President of the Royal City Literary Arts Society. Find more of her work here and here. My poem is a revision of one that appeared in an anthology, A Poetry of Place: Journeys Across New Westminster (2020, ed. Alan Hill), published by the city.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

workshop at Douglas College (riverward)
 
classroom centre 
a flame is kindled 
it quivers woo & 
within the hour
will be snuffed
out

we occupy tiny desks
a tight florescent circle  
to fitfully breathe 
the beat of a tom
if it is possible even
to quicken 
long-tempered blood 

but something like heat
does stir & smoke up rising 
lifts my pencilled jottings 
   weightless
out tiny windows 
down steep sidewalks 
past store fronts stop lights 
railway ties the foot of 8th St. 
onto the Quay—
cement pilings sunk deep 
into generations 
of gathered silt

all the shapes 
that shape bind us
& crumble 
in river-time

so query me
affinities of presence—
am I the boom 
or the echo
do I burn burn burn
or do I roam 
imbiber of tepid spirits 
& ash 

how long before  
my feet are fit to sink 
into Fraser River mud

will I forever drift
   (a glassy current 
   mocks the sky!)
unto an unknown sea

so 
presence of affinities—
I query you

man of aran

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