Posts Tagged ‘poet’
Dorothy
For Dorothy Livesay
Her sterling softness
and the halting shuffle
of arthritis
convince you
she’s a gone old woman.
You will not expect
the little handcarved people
in Swiss dress who dance out
of her pupils on the hour
hammering the rusty air
with bells; they vanish in a blink
of light.
Then you’ll hear the quiet
counting itself down
on the fingers of two hands.
Klee Wyck
For Emily Carr
The stones that eulogise the lilies
where you thrived
are rough unspeakable seeds.
Bride of the painted field,
sister of sea and sky,
loved by the unloveable,
unloved by the one beloved,
you gave yourself to the Haida,
godtrees carving themselves
out of the burnished ground,
saltburnt faces old
and puckered as the young maize
stripped
from its ancient roots.
Now earth contains you
like a silenced tongue a word.
Yet asleep in a tent of sun and rain
the seasons’ girl is again
the trees’ divine interpreter!
Boldly still your spirit brushes
the changing line
flesh of ocean/
bone of land.
Your eloquent silence stuns
and honours us.
The big blue raven praises you,
Klee Wyck,
O Laughing One!
