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Click herePRAIRIE POEM 1970/71
By JC STREET © 2004 all rights reserved
Young man I fevered for the prairie though
but twice passed, it
spoke to me of the willow-haired girl
met out of Winnipeg
east on the hard
steel CP, her
face carved fine
stone a fragile
blue-veined mask, pale
pure intellect
she was
the prairie sheave, ash
hair tumbling wheat wind the
voice, music;
smashed water, crackling on rock
in sadness
she was a windslough, through
stunt trees
near a Winnipeg wind-barn, the
dying day of winter
tripped on snow-sunk
fenceposts
-----
Against that sheer
dwarf-sweep she was
the bent figure
creeping
when at night my face
burning my westward longing
a pulse
would burst cheekskin like plum
made me weak
This great dish the incest-
ridden prairscape--the click
the crash and spark of wheel
rail the smoky
Red River fires, sifted grain dust filling
hair and skin with that lust; that lust
makes men smash the earth; grind
skin and flesh
into the soil, fill
with river water, bloated on morning's
sere-wind
What Mowat described as
the indescribable
pressure in a man's head when he wrote
of the Barrens, the
fumbling for words, the
loss of understanding, but
Marsha the pale
salt girl was the vessel, clenching
those winds, waters and wild so that
to touch was
to bloat, her
cold unknowingness
mirrored the secret--
that
aboriginal moonscape that drove
men in Churchill to run, to
run to
run in circles blubbering, screaming, they
could not understand . . .
that
made men's guts broil into their mouths when they stood
froze speechless by the mile-
wide
rivers of beasts, caribou
running before
a yellow-fly wind
made women
stand
stone-like when they wondered
at frail nub-cabin and nipple-shed, warts only on spare
winter-sculpt frieze
That desert lay untapped, cold
fuel for a coke fire, deep
in her dreams, waiting
for a Prince, I
could not ride the wind;
it devoured me like a speck
-30-
written after a train trip from Vancouver to Montreal in 1970—she married the managing editor of an Ontario newspaper—he died
Notes: CP = CPR = Canadian Pacific Railway
This poem stands out because of your stiking use of description. I love the word choices you employ. Certainly reminds me of the prairie. Wonderful poem!
Joyce and Yeats
I read this aloud twice.
the power it holds and generates is magnificent.
Stunning work
truly
Thank you