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Post by louisa on Oct 13, 2008 5:12:27 GMT 2
Anne SzumigalskiThe Elect
Here in the saintly dark, all is so cleanly dank, all is ordered and cradled. Nothing is sinful. Even the suck of the worm’s mouth upon us is preordained, therefore right.
Suddenly, it’s dawn up there. It comes with the silver squeal of birds, a sound like thin trumpets. “Crack the box,” it says. “Arise, this is the day.”
Obedient as buds, our heads appear in the open grass, and a rain of golden yods falls down upon us. So this is light. We had forgotten it.
We, who lay long in holy depths of earth, have all at once become small and new, can’t even remember our names, and the passers-by won’t tell us. They stop. They smile. They stare and then move on.
At last a child in blue cotton leans down to us. “Daffs,” she says, and, taking each of us by the neck, yanks for the love of God. from On Glassy Wings: Poems New & Selected, Coteau Press, 1997 and on the Canadian Parliamentary Poet site www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/people/poet/poem-of-the-week/poems-e.htm?param=52
Other sites of interest:youtube www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch3LVGEQwi8www.sagehillwriting.ca/keynotes/clarke04.htm
www.saskpublishers.sk.ca/sampler/spotlight/annesz.shtmlThe above site includes audio of Anne Szumigalski reading her poems.
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