Going South Out of Canada

My family left at the end of October,
bags packed, clothes folded and our books
stored in boxes.

We left behind blankets, mattresses
and everything we loved because of its place,
there, in that house surrounded by aspen.
A leather easy chair, the hideaway bed too heavy
to carry out the half a mile to the cars,
the book about the one eyed man
that scared me for years
diamond willow
book shelves, my bed, hand built from pine,
the TV we watched hockey on every Saturday
night during winter,
the fireplace, the sauna

We left our rock-bottomed creek behind
and the sucker run every year. We left the Big Ridge, named by us,
spruce bogs and cedar swamps, Northwest Bay and lake water we drank
without boiling, springs red from iron, Wolf Rock
that sheltered a bear instead. We traded them for softer lines,
the artificial mountains of the Iron Range
and hills covered by trees and leaves instead of bare glacial rock.