The Madness of Joy (My Sweet Georgian Bay)

To feel the madness of joy
Torn away from the body
Maddens me more, but its void of the joy.
I've left my Bay,
My sweet Georgian Bay -
The land of dead mountains
Raised from water as the island
Stone faces of nature, desperate, beautiful;
Now she will sing the sad tunes of winter's keep,
Hailing the ice to come and cover her changes
As her spirits rise up to order new summer songs,
To allow welcome for the travelling few
And make peace for the joy she revoked.

I wait in vain for next summer to arrive
When I can be taken back to the madness of joy
And feel the warm knowledge of purpose divine
In the crass wilderness of God's deliverance.
But for now I am sundered; Torn from my Bay.

When I finally wept I held my fists to the sky
To threaten the dim stars of my light polluted home.
I spent thirteen hours birthing back to the life
I hope and pray is not the reality of my dear time -
Where cage after cage holds joy at bay
And freedom is a flag that says "Label me Nothing."

Georgian Bay, I look for you every day,
I smell you in phantoms off the banks of the Charles.
You beckon me always to find the still waters
In a soul that knows nothing but waves,
And I never can have peace without you.

This time with you, this summer's span,
You showed me your secret and I wept for it aloud.
While boating to the Western Islands
Our caravan of motors stopped in open waters
To jump into your cold, blue embrace.
You took me into your virginal depths,
The darkest parts where no man can live.
I looked into your beauty abyss of water and saw the blue nothing
Staring back at me.
Then I looked up and saw blue sky's expanse,
Reaching over and under
Staring back at me.
And the horizon of water and sky blended into infinite blue nothing
Staring back at me.
And I heard your secret whispered:

I float alone in eternity
But my purpose is exact -
to keep floating on until I am horizon too.

Back in the boats we continued to the Westerns,
The wind from our speed raced to dry my hair,
The sun bleached me blonde,
The islands came closer
And the madness of joy came and drowned all my fears.

That same night the Perseid Meteor Shower
Rained on into blue morning like diamonds fleeing caves.
All was quiet then, or maybe it was alive with the voices
Of drunk teenagers drunk on the rampant stars.
There was no wind to deafen the visions of escape
And my heart felt stretched over a thousand nights
Convalescing more pain than I'd like to admit.

And I know
f ever there is a time
When I think I cannot have greater love
I am defeated and it ends there.

I've left my Bay, my sweet Georgian Bay,
The madness of joy is gone all at once,
But I will try, I swear, to cling to the joy
And forgo the madness I've been stuck with before.
My sweet Georgian Bay, I've left you for now,
For now I have left you, I've left you for now.

08/09