blue skies poetry

Everywhere here – vestiges and markers, on the earth
what goes on under – Epcor
cupping its tumuli above the White Mud
in the park with its even trees, posts
and on each, signs emblazoning pipelines –
beneath your feet – oil. In this place, be
careful where you dig – the polished clasps of houses
weaken and into fissures spill children on bicycles, spoil
tidy white dogs, all the hardwood, all the fixtures, and the wind
is always riffling the black river where it lips into grasses,
shimmers in the northern Prairie sun a long dark door in the land.

~ Catherine Owen

Catherine Owen’s titles include: Somatic – The Life and Work of Egon Schiele (Exile Editions 1998), nominated for the Gerald Lampert Award, The Wrecks of Eden (Wolsak and Wynn, 2002), shortlisted for the BC Book Prize, Shall: ghazals (Wolsak and Wynn, 2006) and Cusp/detritus (Anvil Press, 2006), nominated for the ReLit Award. Seeing Lessons (2007) was recently shortlisted for the CBC Literary Awards. Her poems have been translated into Italian (Caneide with Joe Rosenblatt, 2005) and Korean. She plays bass/sings in the blackmetal band, INHUMAN. She’s been writing about living in Edmonton since June 2006.

Filed under: Catherine Owen, Writing the Land by akublik Date 4 September, 2007