Bright Pathway

Posts Tagged ‘Canada’

Our bodies impress the static sand
with grace, and dance
among the swordblade reeds
that sunward thrust
salute

until we lie suspended
windless as the dunes

under the swordpoint
stars

 

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We stand at morning’s window,
Praise the golden needles in our eyes
Embroidering the sun
Like an Imperial Dragon
On our silken lids.

Turned from the wooden frame
We admire our tapestry.
I pull a stray thread
from your forehead—

—you unravel.

The dragon’s tail falls cold
on the stone window-ledge.

 

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In the darkness
the cyclopean red glow
of your cigarette
is your real third eye.

You smoke
only to catch my hidden face
in the sudden matchflame.

Laughing,
you show me
the blue genitals
of the fire
pulsing
on the golden stick.

When you walk away
from me,
the light weaves you
a flaming sweater;
and sleeves, bluer
than shadows
spin from my emptying eyes.

 

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While we lie still
in the emptying bowl of light,
our bodies lengthwise to the poles
(like glimmering spoons)

Kite-winged the gull
rides wind
smudged black
as her own wing-tips,
the burnt sky spreading west and east
from her darkness-whitened breast—

—Cloud surfaces shift
unearthing footprints of wind
in the treadmill of ash-colored cotton
unbolting overhead.
When those
first kernels of cold ignite
our sunbruised skin
you kneel to gather
up oil, watch, keys
into your green plastic beachbag, roll
your greenedged mat, then ride
your heels
(like the white
gull hanging still
over the mountain as the sky expands).

Then the blackening sky
lifts and breaks northwest
letting down cold grey cones of rain
like pale rays of light into the ozone air,
and I strip from the line
our sheets
that all morning filled and filled,
shaping this coming storm

then await, like you, the now
doubly desired downpour
(the fluttering streaming of the white gull’s wings).

 

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(Previously unpublished)

For Steve and Mona Alapi
 

Love, it is time. Come, lie upon me
like the shadow on the sundial
and over my mouth let your strong mouth
measure the falling minutes. Let us rinse

our mouths with wine of kisses
forced to perfection not by the sun
but by the first frost of autumn.

Then let us sleep and awaken
and write and read in one another’s bodies
long love letters in the script of touch,
and build us a house of love

and together hew a bright pathway to and from
that either may take when after the other goes,
we must walk alone where the last wind blows
shadowless under the equinox.

 

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Parody on an Irving Layton poem
of the same title, while enrolled
in his class at University
 

I heard our two watches talking.
They talked a long time.
They talked in circles
All night to decide
Which was best at hours, yours or mine.

Yours was very proud, being new
And meanly mocked mine
For falling behind:
—No fault of its own,
Because I bought it second-hand.

My watch called your watch a bad name,
Your watch did the same.
“Now, wait a minute—”
Said mine, losing face,
“Darn digital, your number’s up!”

My watch hit your watch a backhand.
Yours gave mine the works.
Really boxed its gears.
That’s why I woke you,
To ask you what time it is, dear.

 

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Grandma on the back verandah,
the Final Edition in her lap
throws her tea to hit
the neighbours’ cat in our flowers.

Pragmatic, the pussy watches
the arcing body of hot water
somersault through air off-target—

The first drops rattle claws
on the rock ledge
as the missed cat scrams

And a backwind catches the brown tail
of liquid still descending
into the gold chrysanthemums
and splashes it in petals all over
the red verandah gate.

Irate, grandma enters the kitchen
for another cup
then settles in the lawnchair by the steps

watchfully,
the news rolled up like a cannon.

Between slats of the high, weathered picket,
eartufts twitch in the sun.

 

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For Angela Beyde when she was little
 

Bald women are snorkelling
in the north sea
where an ice-floe breaking
up awakens
white blind fishes in a sub-
terranean river
on a strange world
where three slim crescents
of moonlight float
among the flecked enamel
stars.

 

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Yesterday, a fall sale of birds
flew south
over the checkout counter,
their cries ringing
the sun’s cold zero.

This morning the aisles are emptied
and one red sweater
swings
high on a branch
while invisible workers
whitewash old walls.

 

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Tree of Life
 

A child questions whether trees
have their winter roots
in the ground or in the sky
and whether there are leaves
underfoot unseen
filling the veins we mine.

The child is answered
that only human roots
have their trees in the sky;
and if leaves
became an acceptable mode of exchange
our land would still be bankrupt
of wonder.

 

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