Sunday, August 12, 2012

I/O: A Colborne Psalter (01 – 23), by Gil McElroy



for Heather


01O
who has not
stood, or
sat, night
& day

nor
paced beside a streamThere. There your eyes turn, considering the creek, the springs, the
rising land away from the lake subdued and sundered by highway, caught
between such & same,

the wind & judgement

dying out




02You
let me be,
gracious & long
in your heart

You
have given,
& I, I
shall lie down,
here


tremblinglike grass. They gathered & saw, walked about & counted, the corn
a sea waist-high in places, the orchards gnarled with young fruit, & chickens roaming free, strutting
& scratching in the narrow between barn & road almost underwheel as I pull up
to the mailbox


asking




3Consider
me, because
you will

you will &
I shall

my mouth,
brokenWhat destruction makes: the house that oversaw the lakeshore quarry
& the rail tracks doubled between, one day broken next
utterly gone but for a footprint of concrete




04O,
I said,
O, because
I haveO, the trials

& because I have, I
shall

I
shall melt, sorely
vanish

vex’d

my
eyes gone
away from me, the wedge of tempers grown
old.




05Be
gracious & know
this, the
seasons loosed from
troubles, the
regions Memory. Not fully memory, no, but not risk either. Totally you would with it, with
the red-tailed hawk in the tree beside the sidewalk that surprises you surprising it. With
a sweep of wing not goes on, valued differently
of
bread
eye-high:

My mouth
is tight & hard-
rimmed

When I cry
on my bed, be
silent




had to be
wantedThis place a place of rates & flawed settlements. Behind the house the wooden-lidded well found
beneath layer of  thin soil and grass large enough for a child to plunge through,&  the afternoon shudder of quarry blast…
& O, every ratio of

Since
the eye minds,
keep us
in the days
of dowsed contours, all true
& such

Our own
by us
is the night




07Why

the lines puzzled,
asking why
I was asking
why

You have
the barbed affection
at hand
& I
not

& when I, I
shall fear, whoFor your name, who are they?

will clean
me?




08Listen
to us,
who, guided,
wait, re-
collecting
our vital
heat

who, waking,
shall clear away the branches     
& so see
up, toward the full
MoonIts freezing of concentrations

who will
sound

who will
hear

who will
feed you/who will
fill you
up, open,
up




09I have
taken off
my hands

I have
let go

I have
listened


In a moment, open
yourThe great is to you. You begin behind your steps mouth




10Wash me,
to prove
I was
born

Sprinkle me,
& my bones
will steady
me

Do not
give me back
the moveable viewsFoolishness, mine, failing to lift the shed door clear. Thoughtless me, my weight, my head versus the heavy door’s  inertial steel beam. Mine the acceleration.  Mine the
pain & shifted thoughts. & O, all mine the
months of distortion

Save me
from my
tongue




11I
have visited,
& I have
seen

I
have remembered,
& I have
thought

They
that hunt me,
they shall be
stopped – by my bedHardly historical
shall be
stopped

weary
& without
water




12The lake

&

the hills


the running in
the middle


break

burn

beThe animal, first, the astonishment of a barn owl in your headlights, flushed
from highway curve in wintry pre-dawn, & then
your self-shiver heading west.

quiet




13I said
I will

I will

Living like
a ghostBehaving in dark corners

My time

my tears

& the number
of nothing




14Do
not, & theyThat summer’s six turkey vultures, the
roadside roadkill feeding of each
interrupted
will

because
I was young
& would not
wait




15Give
& in-
cline
things that
we will not
hide

In
the sight
of land, in
the daytime, split
rocks, makeCool, hard desire
streams




16They have, but
I neverYou’ll have a soul next year, one self-electrified & with nothing to do but ever,
even

The furrows
were just, the
withered grass like
rope in the fields

In these arms
no one
stays




17They have
looked on
because they
are strong
likeLike atoms, after all

the hands
over my mouth




18When I
was dappled
& everything before
my eyes
scorned

choosingAtop a chair (kitchen) for want of a ladder (step).The clothesline’s cedar terminus
& feeding black-capped chickadees untroubled by your presence. The suddenness
of wings towards you: a hawk in close pursuit of a thing with feathers. Hawk wings
almost touch your face, chase on towards the garage, tightly double back, then
take a hard left down the driveway & away.
& gone. The suddennesses accumulate, eventually
finding hawk on low branch in the maple tree where the driveway ends, gripping
the surprise of bark the fire




19What
things, O what
good
things

My trust
is every mo-
ment given
me

Make
the words by
my breathThe durations, the proper intervals, the rituals of hesitation, the
heaviness & thickenings. My wife’s lungs, her pneumonia, the nearness of death, the
narrowness of our concentrations, intensive, &  the fear, O, the
fear I breathed in
& out,
their
hot & cold
qualifications


broken

bringing




20Patience,
more &
more – the
numbers of
them since I was
young

Troubles
&A sense of tedious baggage adversities
from the deep places
of the earth
& more
do me
harm




21I am,
merely, &
I am,
shaken

I
can count: a few drops of water Hanging laundry, the sun
haloed & dogged (parahelia, though only one, the eastern such). Only the cold
makes such concentration. Heather
inside, breathing, melted
wax, clay shards
in the dirt…

I am
all of my bones I can count
in the grave




22Do you
in deed, so that
it does
not

Spare each
evening, that we may flee Motley skates, & so forth
to it

& portion out
the balance







23The
ruthless, they
have not
& all

for you, for
they, with
one mindThe dance from a distance, rising & falling black thru dry winter air.
 Crow outrage. Abandoned telephone pole set lone in field, now capped white, a
barn owl eyeing corn stubble below seeking small verbs beneath the snow, focused
& oblivious to the urgency above.
The concentrations.
    The secondary nouns.
Eventually,
hawks
like chaff blown

then
murmured




Early versions of some of these poems appeared in Last Scattering Surfaces (Talonbooks, 2007).



Gil McElroy is a poet, artist, independent curator, and freelance art critic. He is  the author of Gravity & Grace: Selected Writing on Contemporary Canadian Art, four books of poetry, and the non-fiction memoir Cold Comfort: Growing Up Cold War. McElroy lives in Colborne, Ontario with his wife Heather.

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