I am somewhat afraid of poems.
I do not wish to wrestle belligerent ones into submission.
Nor do I wish to flood them with klieg lights to get to
  the guts.
A poem like that, I find it sensible to avoid.
In fact, I would march myself right out of that cell,
and even as the lifers are rattling their stanzas on the  bars,
I will be looking for an outside door.
 
Bring me a poem of light and shadow,
                  noonday sun, glaciers,
                  aspens that rattle in the four o’clock wind.
Bring verses filled with meat and potatoes,
                  Chevrolets and tapioca.
Write to me about three-legged races and dear Uncle
              who came to put down the dog.
Show me breath rising from a beaver house,
                  the smell of August-raked hay.
Bring me a brother with periwinkle eyes,
              sisters who remember, bring a Sears catalogue,
              an aerogram from Poland, homesickness.
 
I am telling you this.
There were four small people in sturdy shoes.
A dog named Bob.
They lived in a house bordered with gooseberries
  and red currants.
They slept under Wedding Ring quilts.
Beside the potato fields. Between the rivers.

From Four Small People in Sturdy Shoes (Houle Printing, 2014).
This poem first appeared in the Ontario Poetry Society's 2012 RopeDancer Anthology.
Used here with the author’s permission.