Another Kaslo Festival

Maybe a thousand human lives,
Under belated northern sun,
Half of them in shorts or swim suits,
The better to sun or sink with.

Who cares about the band playing
Next on the boasted floating stage?
Summer has found the Kootenays
With scarcely a month left to spare.

Me, I'm more interested in them,
Those however hundred many.
I don't give a good goddam 
About their nations or ethnies.

I honestly don't think those count
Except to everyone and them.
I'm caught up in the real numbers
Of personal existences,

Every one as rich and detailed
As every other, full of plans
And particular convictions
Trying to make life of a world

That is their own and alien
As the sunlight sunk in the lake,
As each of them remains to me,
As each of me remains to them.