Root of Light Description:

When Michelle Doege crossed over the border from the U.S.  into Canada, with her now wife of many years from India, she opened to the questions tugging at her psyche. She dug deep, wrote into the centre and crafted poems:

• What did my ancestors from Germany and Ireland go through, now so long ago, when they crossed over the ocean, leaving both home and homeland behind?

• What shifts inside when a border exists between us? Or when our close loved one crosses over that final border of life and death?  How does this shape our sense of place, of home?

• What internal borders must we cross over to be at home in our own selves, our bodies – in my case, my sexuality and writing into my own bold voice?

Her greatest learning: borders are also slippery, elusive – never as solid as they seem. That somehow, we remain intimately connected across borders, infused always by the great-green spirit, and love. These poems now energize her collection, Root of Light.

Evacuation [Order]

Helicopter flies over Okanagan Lake

                a tiny sand bucket tied

to the end of a rope. On a rare day,

                we can watch it dip

& disappear, swallowed

                by a coal grey sky.

A teaspoon of water dropped

                onto a raging house fire.

No evacuation order needed

for the chipmunks & squirrels,

coyotes & deer, ears perked-up

and running, choking on smoke.

We with our windows sealed shut

                blizzard of ash & black

chunks of tree against canvas

of orange sky – landing

on our Buddha, our tomatoes,

our green & flowering plant.

~Michelle Doege