1.
The distance houses. Ninety-four years,
deliberating Ideas, backstage with Leonard,
or crafting failure, enough
until it, too, could sing. Hermetic sounds.
Artifacts of blessings, common good.
The echo reflects across the imprint
of such ancient curve. A bowl, perhaps. This stone
upon the question.
To revise on paper and endlessly think.
2.
No writer an island. A stone’s throw
seeking tether, shorelines. On Salt Spring,
where she lay books aside.
A correspondence : the small hand
of an outpost. Fierce, and fiery. A copy of her essays,
signed. A wedding present. The closing pages
held, and scattered. Fell , against this
floating detour.
3.
The argument of moments , memorials.
Monuments. John Newlove, also. Cross-legged
in a room. The memo of an artifact. Naked.
To highlight care, and gentleness. Two ladybirds, spin.
This texture of blossoms. Sundeck. A space of intimacy,
to land on spitting dust. Ascribe the mainland. Long shadow, gulf.
The paintbrush or the shutter.
Capacity of the single page.
Where you have left your mark.
4.
My mentors are dying. Friends. Douglas Barbour, Joe Blades,
David Donnell. Incomparable speech.
Michael Dennis. Bless your cotton socks.
Cold , this curse of weather. Green island grass.
A footpath, there, approaching Royal Canadian Legion Branch 92.
Illumination, illumination. More than I have. More
than I might comprehend.
A cobweb, across the field of the sayable,
towards the white frame.
5.
Gerald Manley Hopkins: “I am happy, so happy.” Last words,
set against a silence. Certified, crafted. Coiled. As careful
as a phrase. Iambic pleasure. Brief candle, pen. Lone typescript.
Salt Spring Garbage Services : what saturated air
; this modest shed of mildewed paperbacks.
Her hand-scrawled autograph decorating discards.
Island restoration, salvage , refreshed
and undiminished. Books, perpetual ; released
into the undercurrent.
6.
Heidegger, Heidegger. The wood still split.
Her brother’s gift of scotch. The ferry, lace
and thread. An ebb. An alphabet
of broken skin. Meniscus. This daylight spread
like plush. We watch this morning passenger, port
into the unfamiliar. Alongside. We watch
it occupy both absence,
space. This peacock blue.
This crest and curl. We chase the furrows.