DRIVE-IN 3: The Magic Boomerang

 

          There was some show on TV out of Australia I would imagine, not Skippy the Bush Kangaroo or Untamed World, where the hero of the show, this kid, when he threw his boomerang always just at the cruxus crisis point of the show where when the ne'er-do-wells were causing trouble,  like some Oz superman,  while his winged boomerang sailed suspended,  time too,  time would suspend.  The effects were uncanny,  the superboy could flit tag about the frozen stone statue figures of his friends to set things right,  save the cat from the well or what have you,  and get back in position before deftly catching his 'rang.

          I believed this shit.  I return to the cistern in my dreams.  I believe in flying carpets,  Paddle to the Sea flying,  Coureurs de Bois and visions of their magic flying canoe shepherd Ike earthward. 

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          At the cottage we waited for the float plane's arrival, the distant drone approaching and bursting forth from overhead,  behind the treetops,  over the tree fort it sailed impossibly winged and lunging out over and up the lake we would sail later in our Laser taunting the wind during when we were marooned, sail luffing I taught myself to stroke on the left side until, mind drained of words, of thought I couldn't remember which side was which:  which side my favorite left or right,  forgotten I'd fly pulsating the wood gunnels humming against the slap and splash of the oncoming waves we'd fly airborne,  no longer of this earth.

          I believed in Aladdin's lamp,  in magic carpets,  in other worlds,  inside and out:  I believed.  It was because of the infection.  I wanted to believe in UFOs more than I believed in Jesus.

          Himalayas melting what lies beneath the river beneath subterranean river hollow earth i journey the centre of my earth

 

DRIVE-IN 4: Big Machines That Can Vanish You

 

          The snowfort that third Ottawa winter more coffin- than galaxy-like,  glowing white breathing from within, hearing the gap between breathing in and       out again, the hand-curvatured, domed roof glistening with infinite snow crystals in a certain light more than stars in the firmament i keep digging awaiting the others putting away their laundry.

          Don't build your snowfort across the street across the street there are no houses and the Machines pass in the night heaping beige Himalayans where summer grass lies brown and sodden 'neath ten feet of snow

          I learned how some days I felt a yearning,  a hollowed out feeling beneath the snow,  away from school a timelessness like nectar we gather plan dig chamber bubbling to interconnected chamber stalactites appear overnight we call from one hushed space to the outer world, or from chamber to chamber forever linked an airline for each room a leg coming through from above in spring when the snow softens.

          The Martians are coming we chant, ululate, our arms outstretched aloft knowing we are safe by the driveway.  Build it higher.  To the moon.  So we can touch the moon

          Eye unblinking cosmosis universe.  It's different at night,  not sad just cold,  different when the others have departed to help set the table smell of pork chops on our clothes the next day don't hog the applesauce or to get a couple of toboggan runs in the backyard test the ramp before wash your hands dad's almost home it’s different I feel my freckles more alone one star winking through the airhole deep azure blue framed by sparkling ice cave it’s warmer somehow alone in my thoughts I enlarge the main chamber for the others,  pause before retrieving D's long striped toque and heading in to do the dishes.

          The mineral smell of chiseled scraped snow ice chipped layering over exposed esthetic, broken grass our heels had inadvertently exposed to the dim half light, forever twilight, emerging to streetlights a single star glimpsed passing beneath the airhole our lifeline umbilicaled to the... chores and vacuuming brownridged broadloom, the panelled mirrored wall spectral im a shadow passing bedroom door left slightly ajar

          Before Sunday lunch there would be time enough to finish that extra snow chamber, a third space so deep and dark that only my feet could reach the linked chambers like a sideways snowman,  empty,  sometimes I would excavate with a free hand and both feet churning deep where the head of the snowmass would be, propped on one elbow my arm losing circulation,  pins and needles when I would finally shift position to clear freed snow,  thinning the membrane of the ceiling of the main antichamber snow cold on an ankle where pant bottom had hoisted up the roof never so thin that we couldn't clamber and shout down from above, our words muffled barely discernible the others going ahead i was alone

          Come spring the pure joy of a leg falling through into the hidden space spelled the end of winter, the roof now crashing in peals of laughter as the sanctuary roof collapsed, our snowfort rapture complete before a surprise bonus mid-March snowfall…

          ...and shoveling for 25 cents an hour would restore the snowbanks, so much snow we would have to heave up and over and cast off to disperse the height.  At times shoveling the driveway meant shoveling the tops of the snowbanks,  shaving the peaks away from the driveway so we would have somewhere to shovel to.  Our goal always to maintain the ideal depth and compression for yet better and more cavernous snowforts 

          What lies beyond my only thought: if infinite is forever, what lies after that phantom trees gliding by i can taste the smell of winter