The great blue heron, common on the Island
Is a refugee from dirty water,
Not liking pollutants in the cold soup
She fishes for nourishment and flavour.
Look at the way she stands, as jokers say
With just one foot at a time in the water,
Counting herself a delicate creature
Subject to chills, although I've not seen her
Shift her stance from one leg to another
To disturb perfection in her figure
Surreally drawn, as if with a few strokes.
The chatter and movement of other bird
Sorts are not for her. Still as space she looks
Between her toes for fish, and when she moves
The lightning is more sudden than the stroke
She makes, I guess. Or if dissatisfied
A flock of a hundred or more crows
In echelons of three or four
Were flying obvious search-patterns
Over a square mile of wet, recently ploughed
Country in Perth County, Ontario;
In spring so cold you might still call it winter.
There was no missing the fact of
Their intent to find what was to be found
For their provision. Without lamenting
The shortage of life's commodities,
They looked for food with such sure diligence
That discovery was a certainty;
For which they would pay neither taxes or rent.
They step aside letting me clean their graves
There is a pagoda in the garden where they wait talking as I mourn
I hear a voice granting me this
That I can give up my life for anyone I wish brought back to life
But only one
Father of sacrifice needs no help to draw my pity
That is piteous
Mother of passion reigned over me
I resent that
Brother of empire I would re-instate
But why
Sister of sullenness I feel for
And ignore
Lovers of the moment I cannot deny
But they did not wait for me
Children of untold stories make the most promises
When I draped it around myself I found it wasn’t fur it was alive and
wouldn’t let go
So I danced with the bear and got to know the lightness and
seriousness of its hands
Delicately with cultured paws it tore at my flesh and stopped for
some other thought
What does a half-wed do
What can a half-wed do
Keep the wound lush
Smile in secret
Stay in bed
By day freckles pop mustard seeds
By night moon glosses grain on lake rims
Some deaths are well-dressed
Butterflies neatly folded
Some have banners
One ragged wing banging in the wind
One by one the petals bowed
Such polite timing
We gave each its due
Now uncapped
The smiling pod seedy teeth
The old bitter-gourd
Shaking to be a rainstick
On the contrary when
You are dying you change
To prose
The family finds out who gets what
You are finally understood
If everything is impermanent why do you want it
I don’t want anything for ever
You will disappoint everyone
Then you will be free
Disappeared into his shadow.
The man without a shadow.
The shadow had a person.
Don't let your shadow find another person.
Escorting our shadows we take them
where they want to go.
Folding his shadow on his arm he went.
Sun spends the day
drawing me
in shadow-wash
revising
erasing
This city was not a matter for men,
But its river was, as were those who therein dwelt
Much to the surprise of its waters.
If cobalt were the purest of colors,
The Tigris would be not the river of purity,
But the form of purity racing to the sea,
There where it dissolves among
Shipwrecks and algae,
And the great bull whales
That swim southward should the world of man
End there,
There where dawn, no longer part of the night,
Is born.
The emperor thus knows
That in his birth there was a river,
A dream of sweet waters
His flesh, pale as the marble
Fashioned into the destiny of his days,
Is on display in the show window
Of a nearby antiques store on
The Alameda de Hércules.
As for his soul, if he had one,
No one is sure what merchant
Might now possess it.
Two centuries after Christ,
Someone did make sure that a block
Of purest stone render him immortal,
Like the flight of birds
Or the ebb and flow of the tides.
I invited him to dine with me,
To share lamb,
And his story and the stories
The deities of dream
Take their afternoon stroll down this street
Leading to the sea.
This avenue is neither
Broad nor beautiful,
But the African-born wind rises
And leaves something here
Akin to the warm
And domestic happiness
Of those who don’t ask why.
The clouds sketch
The outline of the travelers
Who discover the waves and pray
For their dead children,
Or for the ones that never arrived,
Like this treeless street
Dragged up by the fury of storms,
Monstrous cadavers of cattle
Were still wide-eyed
As if begging heaven for a clemency
Which they were not again to see.
We set about prodding with our lances
—spikes of sugar cane—the drums of their bellies.
From the depths of the dead animals
Issued a great gust of happiness,
For we imagined that those corpses had come to realize,
At some moment during the deluge,
Amid the muddy and terrifying waters,
That there and only there was to be found freedom,
A roar of waste and silt-laden branches,
An avalanche of strange beasts
Which were never to tread