At the Writer's Festival

the sadest old man painted a picture

of how he felt dying

I saw a river in the Canadian north

with rapids and calm stretches

completely surrounded by wilderness

while he painted he told me

he gave up on art when the cancer took

hold of his wife

he told me now of his aloneness.

yet somehow he was here, with a quivering voice

and a tear in his eye

delivering his message to untutored youth

when finished, I saw the darkness release him

and he smiled

sitting in his canoe without fear of the inevitable

Colin and Co.