canadian ~ twenty-first century literature since 1999


Small Bones of Time

by Anne Simpson

The sea is far below us, washing round,
a paler blue on shoals along the shore.
A bell. Again the buoy repeats the sound
of blame, and sand dissolves its shifting doors.
It meets what enters on the latest tide –
the century's debris, small bones of time –
here at the edge. Whatever we might hide
lies flat, exposed: sun bleaches our small crimes.
And still the meadow plunges to the blue
down slopes of grass and bramble, daisy reels.
So maybe nothing mars this postcard view
except what we invent, or what we feel
we've always known in this, the end of things:
the ocean closing round us in a ring.

Anne Simpson's first book of poetry, Light Falls Through You, was published by McClelland & Stewart in 2000. Her novel, Canterbury Beach, was published by Penguin in 2001.

 
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TDR is produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. 

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See the masthead for editorial information. 

All views expressed are those of the writer only. 

TDR is archived with the Library and Archives Canada

ISSN 1494-6114. 

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We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Nous remercions de son soutien le Conseil des Arts du Canada.