Douglas Barbour

‘A View of Buildings and Water’

will always be a palimpsest

     of transparencies

one city after another

     from above     noted

            in the moment  before

rivers     lakes     the ocean

     harboured     docks

            full or slowly emptying

     the mass of commerce

            striding forth

or armies     citizens

     will try to protect

&  always someone looks down

     upon such tiny movements

            the jammed rush before disaster

on horseback     or tank

     in the hills surround

or the green screen

     even higher     as

            the bombs fall

            the planes diverge

this singular view

     repeated through time

            across all boundaries

     impels respect     no

            matter the cause

or reason not     what cities

     have wrong

            headed     done

but remember    civitas

     that the possibilities

            about to disappear are ours

‘The Holy Ghost is but

                                    a pigeon’

                                                             

                                                                                           E D Blodgett

to feel your way back

into faith     a past

where good folk walked

to church    & then away

would be a good thing

perhaps     to say

& feel     that touch

of transcendence

to know so fully

god is always here

present & accounted for

accountant of   beyond

belief   a sturdy deposit

to be drawn on

throughout a long slow life

hearing those great wings

beating     the rhythm

of that life     or smaller

fluffing   in disdain

scurrying across a square

rivers & mountains

will we think

not end

in one lifetime

at least    they

do not change

or appear  still

the same

that melody

a little cynical

as science

 must become

faced with also

unchanging ignorance

no wish for change

no wish to

change changes

everything

© Sarah Lang






Douglas Barbour's many books of criticism and poetry include Fragmenting Body etc. (NeWest Press/Salt, 2000), Breath Takes (Wolsak & Wynn, 2002), and most recently Continuations and Continuations 2, with Sheila Murphy (University of Alberta Press, 2006/2012), and Recording Dates (Rubicon Press, 2012). He was inaugurated into the City of Edmonton Cultural Hall of Fame in 2003. He writes a review blog on SF&F and contemporary poetry: http://eclectiruckus.wordpress.com/.