lorne lake, a year later
I remember we used to stand in the middle
of the frozen lake while the wind spoke in tongues
over our laughter and raw-skinned hands.
I remember the Canadian geese milling
their rubber voices over low waters—
how the sound bore itself back to us
long after the birds left our sight.
I remember, above us all, the red moon
stewing over the lake, a pendulum
between memory and sorrow; tonight,
only mine.
my dear little sister
discovered a mister
and fell in a trance
(too bad he’s from france)
outer space, in winter
when it snows, the horses in the ranchlands from princeton to keremeos
come into view like mushrooms in a yard– strange
and sprung as though one should be surprised to see them out there
though it is not unusual. the way they catch the weather on their hides
turns their skin to galaxies.
I can see outer space
as the snowed-on back of a black horse; its low-slung head
chewing out the moon. in this light, who wouldn’t write
a poem? night steadily grazes towards day. somewhere,
I became a blade of grass. somehow, I got caught
in its teeth.
just wanted to share my excitement about having been featured on national poetry month’s blog! what an honour!
the timid kingfisher
kingfisher, kingfisher
resting on the rooftop
I hear you are a well-wisher
have you any fish?
none to give, none to give
but I have something more
a little bird you could forgive
for flying from your shore!
elegy
in my thoughts, i descend
into my own nothingness. note how common
this is. a kind of death born
of contemplation, of all our efforts
to attain a good result. it is no news, then,
that serious mistakes can be made
even with the greatest good will. certain delusions
are to be seen as a normal part of life. those who think
they know from the beginning, will, in fact,
never come to know anything.
surely everyone then
goes about as a shadow. they heap up
and do not know who will gather.
cento
when my dreams showed signs
of pliant twigs and the softest moss and grasses
probably that is the core of being alive.
but not these things were the factors. not the birds.
there is no way I’m going to write about
the way someone in your life will talk out love and grief.
merely to name them is the prose
elsewhere, this poem takes courage.
this is the end of running on the waves
called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.
(author of each line, in order: Adrienne Rich, John Ashbery, Margaret Avison, Charles Olson, Gwendolyn MacEwen, Michael Ondaatje, Derek Walcott, Margaret Atwood, Robert Lowell, Ezra Pound)
mountain coyote
anoint my mute canyon, cumin-coat yeti
ice-moon mutt, inmate to enmity.
unite my neat nation intent on a tame tie;
tune it into a mean taunt, a meaty canto,
a neumatic motto anyone can cue. coo
my monotone amity into an anemic minuet,
you, o coy one, a name no man can con.
four degrees of a pine
1. today i am
as fine as a pine.
2. the solitary pine
a friend of mine.
3. whose am i but
thine, oh pine?
4. between life and death
there is no line
only the pine
only the pine.
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