After Visiting the Teaching Rocks (poem by Simon C. De Abreu)

After Visiting the Teaching Rocks

After visiting the Teaching Rocks
life in the city grabbed me by the throat
Enough is enough was my response.
The city with all its pavement
Fast moving digital water, and metal bison
Away with them

After visiting the Teaching Rocks
They won't get me all up in arms
In their small backyards
Let the city hall chieftains threaten war

Upon returning from Kinomagewapkong
I have not lost my "petroglyphic perspective."
I have not forgotten to read the stars
before I go to sleep.

The Great Rabbit, Nenabozhoo
a.k.a. Nanabush, walks
confidently in my, wide awake,
sleepy heart
and mind.
I sleep soundly.

After visiting the Teaching Rocks
I thank you Great Porcupine, and Big Skunk,
Thank you Poet Chris from the hamlet of Malone,
You brought me to the park and out I came ...

After visiting the Teaching Rocks ...
The city and all those frantic people
will not be allowed to nest in my mind.

The city and its fast pace living
will one day soon overwhelm me,
I am sure

Memories of the Teaching Rocks
will only
revive me
lovingly embrace me

After visiting the Teaching Rocks
They kindly call to me
Their songs asking me to keep going
until I can return to speak with them
in the flesh
Warm and cold
Living and dying
Under the stars surrounded
by the owls, turtles, snakes,
coyotes, wolves, crickets
turkeys, bears, mosquitoes
and frogs.

After visiting the Teaching Rocks ...


Simon De Abreu
The Pearl Company Gallery and Theatre
Hamilton, Ontario

note: Last summer, in the week of camping at ZenRiver Gardens leading up to PurdyFest #4, one afternoon we crammed four of us (Simon, Melanie, Katherine, me)  into my testosteroned Subaru and motored 50 minutes to Petroglyphs Provincial Park. As Simon beautifully recounts here in poetry, the spiritual power of this ancient First Nations site was overwhelmingly transformative. Afterwards, we continued on to the village of Buckhorn, where we sat in an open-air cafe by the locks and ate veggie burgers and sipped imported beer, sharing the powerful spell the Petroglyphs had most willingly cast on  all of us.