In the newly fallen snow, crows
scatter at the approach of cars,
uncovering the carcass
of a deer, the twin curves
of its ribcage exposed like cupped
hands around a match, except there is no flame
in the white arch, pale white
with a few stringy streaks of red.
Is this Actaeon’s fate? To finally outrun
his pack of hounds – trained by him
to […]
Between the painted yellow lines, the cars
and trucks and jeeps wait. Lined-up, orderly.
But there is a strange equilibrium
in the continuous movement: arrivals
displacing departures. Like the slow
migration of workers across the country,
but in that case the equilibrium is stranger,
not like equilibrium at all. They say
that you will get your bearings, but that
part still doesn’t make sense.
The […]
What first caught my eye: the colour
was off – grey, which once was green.
Next came the thud of the wrecking ball
slamming into its side. Elsewhere, hunks
of concrete hung from steel rods, bent
in a craze of angles, like misshapen
ornaments. A foreman circles in a white
pick-up, surveying the demolition,
like a predator, waiting for the bloodless
collapse. Corbusier hailed
them […]
We may not have noticed in the day’s blur,
ten hours of hiking, looking up mostly, vistas
of blue. We may not have noticed
if it weren’t for this simple picture,
taken by a friend, who happened to stop,
and because some happenstance thing
like light struck him, snapped it.
Perhaps only ten square feet of earth,
where roots of spruce and pine […]
The field was probably a flank of wheat
or flax until the replication of pump jacks
began. In eerie formations,
they infinitely regress into the folds
of prairie, black and red mosquitoes,
practicing their mechanized manoeuvres.
In the momentary hesitation of the cog
before the jack’s proboscis dips down,
and again down, into the earth,
you imagine the blurred wringing […]
