Night Wind On Halliday’s Road

How gratefully I sink back into Mole End,
into Ratty’s River Bank. Home. I’ve sung, 
seen friends, sent my feet running
over a rainy street to find lost music.
You can go too far, rev the car and end 
collided or just deflated. The dark lawn leads
to the lit white gingerbread of our porch.
The familiar tables, books, pictures, plants.
Just ourselves who understand each other.
Our deep knowledge that nothing is needed,
everything is here between us. The lit spot
in the clouds of the dark road, even
sizzling and sparking at every transformer
along the way, offers some celestial
recognition. Welcome back walker.
Sinks down into rest the aspiring heart.

—Judy Gaudet

Judy Gaudet is a poet with two books, Her Teeth are Stones (Acorn 2005) and Conversation with Crows (Oberon 2014). She’s also written a baby board book that her daughter Christina illustrated, You’re Flying, Baby (Acorn 2016), and edited a collection of poems about Canadian history, 150+ (Acorn 2018).

Each month Bren Simmers selects a poem by an Island poet for The Buzz.