Today is the birthday of the late and much-beloved, unofficial Canadian poet laureate, and rock star like no other ... not Cohen, Lightfoot, or Mitchell, but Gordon Downie. Unless you are a Canuck or outrageously cool, you are probably asking yourself who that is. Well get ready to be cooler.

I wrote this poem about a year after his passing. The truth I couldn't even listen to the Tragically Hip for a year without crying, and I wasn't alone. Gordon Downie is close to the heart of just about all of us. Here comes the poem and the music the lyrics/music that inspired the lines. Give them a listen, you won't be disappointed.

Under Gord's Moon

when the rain comes down
when with a little courage
and determination

maybe some grace, too

you could swim in a parking lot

pothole oceans
cracked pavement streams

through the mist and the drizzle
melancholy tosses an unseen tsunami

when the clouds deluge the land
when foundations turn to muck
liquefy and join the flow

nothing like being at one with the crowd

my thoughts are flooded
my landed reality doused

have I a right to this abyss
I didn’t really know you
somehow you knew me

rain storm to a nautical disaster

each drop a monsoon
throwing crested rapiers
with devil may care
cutting, seeping through
sinking my defences
dissolving my paper bag hull
washing away sanity
within the surge

then your finger starts to wiggle
and landscapes emerge
a bittersweet vista, for sure

but come now, all you bunch of dancers
you ship-wrecked Canadian surfers

only when you let the clouds clear
and the sun come out again
can you also have a morning moon

look up; now you’re under Gord’s Moon

Words and Images are my own.
Under Gord's Moon is published Monsters, Avatars, and Angels. All titles are available in paperback or digital through amazon and your local libraries and bookstores. Click on any title below to further explore and support my writing.