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Runoff

by John Barton

What we release into the river.
How we alter the current.

The irrigation dam on the Old Man flooding the sacred

lands of the Peigan who have lived
here for generations on the arid Alberta plains.

The salmon-ladders.
The transmigration upward

slowing on the other side of the mountains, fewer
fish ascending waterfalls now absent.
Hydroelectric

dams everywhere in the middle
of nowhere: an invisible
sustain

able environment that sells—bill
boards defaced at the gates of Banff National Park
Don’t embitter
Don’t starve the bears
The town site above Bow Falls
exempt from Parks Canada policy so it can

accommodate more: tourists unaware of

the missing wild

currant bushes we trans
planted from roadside
ditches along any highway that climbs into the eastern

slopes of the Rockies, the civilized
currants boiled
in treated Elbow River

water, sugared and cooled

cellophane sealing in their tamed
alpine savagery
which, like lovers, we grow

to forget the moment we taste it—
this confusion

of currants and river water
tartness
and intent, words

picked from the disturbed bushes and erased
of meaining in the ‘natural’

flow of discourse, it’s good for you

embossed on the empty
jars, sterilized or thrown away, which clutter
basements hungering for some purgative Boy Scout bottle drive or else

they are

dislodged from the landfill site during runoff
in the spring, residual tang mixing
with dioxins

in the water table
in the lakes and streams.
 
 

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The Danforth Review is produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. All content is copyright of its creator and cannot be copied, printed, or downloaded without the consent of its creator. The Danforth Review is edited by Michael Bryson. Poetry Editors are Geoff Cook and Shane Neilson. Reviews Editor is K.I. Press. All views expressed are those of the writer only. International submissions are encouraged. The Danforth Review is archived in the National Library of Canada. ISSN 1494-6114. 

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We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $19.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada. Nous remercions de son soutien le Conseil des Arts du Canada, qui a investi 19,1 millions de dollars l'an dernier dans les lettres et l'édition à travers le Canada.