Skipping Stones, poetry

First Edition: LukivPress (Quesnel, BC), 2000. [Distributed through the Quesnel Public Library]. Revised Edition: LukivPress (Victoria, BC), 2022. An excerpt Hoarfrost-mittens,
Bony fingers protected
From mist rising
From the ice-chunked river. Spiny roots lie naked,
Except under snow-dust patches.
Even small rocks jut up,
Soaking in the wintry sun
In the pink sky. A small boy, bare-faced,
Shakes a young tree,
Draws ice-dust into
Short lungs;
He coughs, gasps,
Tastes cornflakes
In his throat. But the spasm passes;
He studies silvery crystals-
Still falling,
Searching for a bunker. He runs to the next spindly tree,
Determined to shake it clean,
But he won't breathe so quickly,
Or deeply,
Because coughing on hoarfrost
Scared him. The author Dan Lukiv, published in 19 countries, is a poet, novelist, columnist, short story and article writer, and independent education researcher (hermeneutic phenomenology). As a creative writer, he apprenticed with Canada's Professor Robert Harlow (recipient of the George Woodcock Achievement award for an outstanding literary career), the USA's Paul Bagdon (Spur Award finalist for Best Original Paperback), and England's D. M. Thomas (recipient of the Cheltenham Prize for Literature, Orwell Prize [biography], Los Angeles Fiction Prize, and Cholmondeley award for poetry). He attended The University of British Columbia (creative writing department), the acclaimed Humber School for Writers (poetry writing program), and Writer's Digest University (novel writing program).