The Ghosts of Jay MillAr Read Online Free Page A

Memories
so quick they do not happen, and yet these are what we, here, as the sun gives
way to the cold nights, rely upon for warmth, i look at myself from the doorway
in the sun and we are always dreaming about the various highways of my
life, where i was, where it was we were taking ourselves, where we were
    between places and the sound
    of the wind and the radio, sitting in the back seat of the car with my
brothers, as it was, we were destined to find ourselves day after day
travelling back and forth across the landscape of that country during the
summer, we were human thought crunching along the road, ready to stop at
any time to look, moving at the speed of trees, our faces in the wind of the
open window, reaching out with the stillness of the mind, that wind,
it lifts up my heart that way by the gentle removal of one or two ribs,
all these gaping holes where we have been, awake and dreaming, alive
and dead, everything and nothing, home and away, the rock slides stand
    so still, what creates a pattern in the human mind.
    the back roads of South Western Ontario so deep within my back,
rolling up and down my spine, the tiny mice, mushroom the size of
my head, how many times have i been in the woods near Tilbury Ontario, noticing
how the leaves have changed ever so slightly over the period of a month.
how many times have i driven past the ostrich farm there, and past
the small, flat graveyards and the slanting gas stations?
Sunday afternoon mosquito buzz jazz monotone. Windsor Ontario
would eventually become a heightening of my own consciousness, a long drive
that allows old friends to find each other at the end of the country. The Bruce
Peninsula under my knees, resin and rainwater, chipmunks and rattlesnakes.
every species imaginable will eat out of your palm there, take what you
give them, (thank you), the cliff we climbed up from Miller Lake grew smaller
every time we returned, became less of an adventure, more of dreamfact, the birch
trees would shrink over the years yet we could still peel the bark away
in large, paper-like strips to start the fire, in a rowboat with my dad
and the mist as the sun appears, it was about five a.m. I’m sure this
is a place in Eastern Canada, though in my mind it has various qualities
like that of a dream, wide awake, just as the sun opens up the fog a crack.
dad rows the boat and my hand drags through the blackish salt water
to the sounds of such strings. Point Peelee is here too, undoubtedly
beneath the soles of my feet. Matt and i spent hours skipping stones into
the flat grey surface of Lake Erie while Hazel gathered shells and rocks
polished by time into her skirt, in the water where we meet ourselves by
chance along the way, speaking to the various species of birds present
there at seven in the morning watching no, feeling the wind rustling through
the lush foliage. Western Canada somewhere not entirely transparent,
ever, never ever there, each morning i would rise at five a.m. to check
the trap lines, sometimes sitting and watching the pinkish clouds hover
above the cool wet morning conifers and rockslides like old gods reborn and
walking between the mountains, during the day i would race the ridiculous
silver RVS up and down the hills on a borrowed bike, i could finally feel
small in the midst of the world, so huge i could choke on the wind.
hiking up the sides of mountains i would stop for a moment to look down through
the lake to see the very centre of its cool gravity, you could sit there and
concentrate openly listening to the ominous call of the pika
hiding among the rocks, the very creature my father had studied for years in that
landscape, yes, i say, raising my hand, i am present and looking around.
    and where am i?
    i find in the end but what am i to make of all my feelings? i might think of
my first memory but it is ALL memory, all those highschool weekends on
mushrooms with Matt, on mushrooms with Peter, on mushrooms with Chuck,
walking the streets of London