Post by louisa on Oct 13, 2008 5:19:39 GMT 2
Dorothy Livesay
Other
1
Men prefer an island
With its beginning ended:
Undertone of waves
Trees overbended.
Men prefer a road
Circling, shell-like
Convex and fossiled
Forever winding inward.
Men prefer a woman
Limpid in a sunlight
Held as a shell
On a sheltering island . . .
Men prefer an island.
2.
But I am a mainland
O I range
From upper country to the inner core:
From sageland, brushland, marshland
To the sea's floor.
Show me an orchard where I have not slept,
A hollow where I have not wrapped
The sage about me, and above, the still
Stars clustering
Over the ponderosa pine, the cactus hill.
Tell me a time,
I have not loved,
A mountain left unclimbed:
A prarie field
Where I have not furrowed my tongue,
Nourished it out of the mind's dark places;
Planted with tears unwept
And harvested as friends, as faces.
O find me a dead-end road
I have not trodden
A logging road that leads the heart away
Into the secret evergreen of cedar roots
Beyond the sun's farthest rayβ
Then, in a clearing's sudden dazzle,
There is no road; no end; no puzzle.
But do not show me! For I know
The country I caress:
A place where none shall trespass
None possess:
A mainland mastered
From its inaccess.
βββ
Men prefer an island.
Sites of interest:
www.uwo.ca/english/canadianpoetry/cpjrn/vol03/sullivan.htm
www.uwo.ca/english/canadianpoetry/cpjrn/vol12/york.htm
www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/dorothylivesay.html
www.brocku.ca/canadianwomenpoets/Livesay.htm
www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/people/poet/poem-of-the-week/poets-e.htm