Canada's Poet Laureate

Last week, while hiking in the rainforests of Vancouver Island, I turned to my wife and spontaneously opined,

There was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run.
When the wild majestic mountains stood alone against the sun.
Long before the white man and long before the wheel
when the green dark forest was too silent to be real.

Yes, yes, they are the opening lines from Canadian Railroad Trilogy by Gordon Lightfoot who died last night at age 84. But they’re also a sign of how deeply the music of our national troubadour has been coursing through my veins for the last 54 years. Lyrics that emerge routinely whether walking or reminiscing.

It’s my 16th birthday and my parents have given me my first 6-string guitar. Someone else gave me a Gordon Lightfoot songbook. I was off and running, learning those few basic chords (with the help of a capo) and the songs they accompanied. I already had that first album of 14 songs with the boy who came through the United Church choir in Orillia sitting in the director’s chair with his denim shirt and cowboy boots slinging his Martin guitar. I knew the songs but who knew what those songs would do.

It seems futile to add anything notable to the outpouring of praise for Canada’s unofficial poet laureate, but I must feed the lake of tributes. The biographical tidbits are there for anyone curious to look. What’s I’m feeling and feeding now are those lyrics like those from the Trilogy.

They can be raunchy. “I can see her lying back in her satin dress in a room where you do what you don’t confess.”

They can be wistful. “Is the home team still on fire, do they still win all the games?”

They can be insightful. “Rainy day people always seem to know when it’s time to call.”

They speak to social ills. “A child is born to a welfare case where the rats run around like they own the place.”

They speak to aspirations. “Go first in the world, go forth with your fears, remember a price must be paid.”

They speak to the anxiety of adolescence. “Will you gather daydreams, or will you gather wealth? How can you find your fortune if you cannot find yourself?”

And yes, they speak to love lost. “If you could read my mind, love, what a tale my thoughts could tell.”

I’ll stop. The poet is gone. But not the poetry. And the songs will never leave me, emerging who know’s when, from both my guitar and my soul.