3
Landmarks. One of them of course is beneath
the horizon, west or south, however you put it.
*
The mountains behind the North Shore. The Lions.
We see two rocks, & call them Lions,
the heads & manes bare in summer;
in winter the snow on their sides
suggests the whole bodies, couchant,
& we think of them like dogs even like bears
hold them blameless.
*
To see the sun through the murk of ideologies
pollution over the city, flows from west to east
is a haze indistinguishable from memory.
In the valley of the shadow of death
& then it doesnt seem like a valley
its a street in Britain a high street
Fourth Avenue, on a height with a higher
hill to the west a finger of the Arbutus Ridge
& looking west to University Hill,
the sun at the equinoxes, spring & fall
sets due west (or close to it)
& dazzles the eye in late afternoon
cuts through the ideologies that say
Im meant for something else some fixity
(reflection on reflection in the windows
of Book Warehouse)
go down with this sun the voice says,
as it sinks below the haze
*
Mountain ash out the window another form of life.
Then it disappears from these lines. This life.
*
Spider & fly. The spider runs so fast it makes you scared
its intelligent, but its just getting away. Fast. The fly
doesnt quite circle, it buzzes in kind of rounded squares,
& it wont go out the window because the air outside
is warm keeps it in the room with the spider.
Here they are both on the sill.
*
Landmarks. The mountains, the inlet, the trees.
The sun. The soul with their names. Seeks
to be entangled with them oh, not the names,
the others says she does, anima. But in truth
no, in illusion, illusion upon illusion, transparent
like glass doors plays a private game
with words theyre her words like a dolls tea
set
she doesnt want to be any part of the dollies.
She thinks shes grown up.
She doesnt want to be any part of the world.
Outside the playroom, outside the house.
When she admits that, the trees & the mountains
turn menacing. When she insists on that distance,
they recede go along with the distance
they become gestalt therapists, they only half-listen,
they say,
Its
your story.
When she relents
& flows out into them, they accept her, lighten up.
The tree, at least, moves in the wind. The mountain
is purple at the edge, where the sun hits it.
She wants to go to a Rest Home for Phenomena.
*
The big chestnut tree down the street
(2nd Ave. &
Stephens),
the pavement strewn with glossy brown chestnuts
Its a commonplace
were out of touch out of sync? with
with what I could imagine Id be carried along with
(sketchily)
so I step over,
or around, each one, on my way to the 2 or 22,
to get to Cap College
*
The clock ticks I dont care about nature -
If I have only one happy moment & a kind of
sketch of the external shape of being radiating
outward from this one of all others, now absent,
but they are the context, they are where the care is,
for them & for me that I am most of it let go
the tree & the pavement & the rain noted, but
most of it not, then what is missing?
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