The
Tundra
On
the icy tundra of my life, no trees
Break
the horizon, no boulders rise to shade
My
passing, only mountains and frozen seas
Mark
the ending of the world, though it is said
Reality
has other continents to cross
And
painful dreams can cut through the Antarctic block,
Where
creatures lurk beneath the floes. Only moss
And
broken branches that have floated from rock to rock
Obscure
the endless blinding scene. I hear
The
growling of the night under Aurora’s sway,
Undulations
from distant suns, like the sneer
Of
cynical deities who spy on children’s play.
They
have no use for innocence or smiles
When
darkness coagulates the hopeless miles.
The Road Home from Fort Garry, February
1966
We
were told, on the flat frozen prairie, to beware
Of
slipping into a ditch, so to keep a candle, and a match.
Along
with a few candy bars, as you might be there
For
many hours or days; the temperature would drop
Well
below zero, forty or fifty degrees,
And
you needed all your wits and some warmth, and hope,
Otherwise
your mind would close and your arteries freeze.
So
it happened one night as they had predicted, off
The
road, the windscreens iced over, and snow a blanket.
I
sat there stunned, afraid to sneeze or cough,
Wondering
how to strike the light with unmoving fingers,
And
eyes quickly darkening, while consciousness lingers
In
strange dreams, of a rescuing stranger who would crank it
Out
of the drift, my steel encasement, casket.
Twice-Dipped Tea
My
word, I see they are having winter again in New England,
with
snow drifts blocking the roads and roofs collapsing,
and
yet in this season of pandemic, the world is ending,
and
the climate has been ruined yet again by
men.
Huge
cyclonic winds are ravaging Fiji
and
firestorms break out in South Australia,
There’s
hardly an atoll not inundated and gone;
like
Lower Manhattan after a hurricane.
So,
as I said long ago, when still naïve,
the
weathers of the world are all wrong. So long,
Sweet
dreams of paradise at the end of my life, and tea
comes
with sodden bags twice dipped and tasteless,
and
my last word can only be out of the grave:
adieu,
fond memories , the mystery
has
been solved—you were always restless ghosts and slaves.
When the River Melts
At
the end of winter the Red River exploded
With
a night of crashing crushing thunder, currents
Hidden
for half a year shot up, and chunks
Of
dark blue ice leapt out of the water, like dead
Horses
after battles were lost, their riders sent
To
enemy camps. Soon followed large stumps
Of
trees strangled in the dying sweep of November’s
Storms,
and all the detritus of summer floods.
By
daylight we saw the piles stacked high shivering
Start
to collapse, everything groaning, moaning—
then
plunge under each other, like fleeing corpses,
when
the Emperor left his armies behind to die
after
the glorious race to Moscow failed. Now spring
arrives
and the warm afternoon promises
us
hopes that never will be fulfilled, and dreams dissolve.
When Birds Go Plum Loco in December
How
many black birds gather under our plum tree
Now
that Christmas is almost here, they are
Summoned
by some invisible twittering to see
What
the crop is like; they find the branches bare.
There
are a few red balls that fall, so they peck
And
dance around the garden. In other years
The
bounty was innumerable, they sickened
With
repletion, round and unable to fly, like bears
Preparing
for hibernation. Today the fare
Is
meagre, though they are eager, someone fears
That
the season will give out very soon
And
all the juices of fermentation have run dry,
So
the annual orgy will be annulled. The moon
Will
lose her lovers’ ecstasy and the sky awry
Must
dip below the horizon without her boon.
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