Mister
Across the brawn of the river
St. Lawrence from Old Montreal
In a park tree topped by sunshine
We walked and only stopped
Once because we just had to
Listen to a man off by himself
With no hat down or instrument
Case open who sat straight up
On a bench with his both feet
Dancing ‘cause you see beside
This water and flowing up into
The trees and looking back to
The city we all could hear
Dirty Old Town
We used to have a rat that lived in the house
A big old rat who lived under the bathroom floor boards
Being an old house with so many holes the rat had
his own way of coming up through the floor and
onto the bathtub and stealing the soap, he loved the soap
We’d go in to take a bath and see the rat had eaten a bit more of the soap
There wasn't much you could do, you had a rat in the house
Until I shot it, because I had to, because we had a baby and
you can't have a rat and a baby, so the rat had to go
I used to have a friend who always brought up how I
shot the rat right in front of him right in broad
daylight, almost nicked the toilet
I remember the rat, and the rifle, the toilet, but not the friend
Sweetheart had a fat pink warm and cuddly chair
in the kitchen that she would curl up in on the coldest
mornings and we still get a little sick to think that
the rat had moved into the chair after it had moved
out from under the bathroom floor boards and still
After Awhile
you’ll notice —
the toughest wood to split
burns the warmest
You Can
toss an apple
core to the
river
but never get
to float that
free
Answer
We wanted to know
Where all the snow was
All winter no snowshoeing
But long hikes and ice-skating
Near spring we drove out
Of the valley up to
The mountains and there a
Lonely road of deep snow was
____________________
Bob Arnold
Heaven Lake
Longhouse 2018
