Hello, listen, I’m on a field phone, do not speak until I say “over.”
Repeat, don’t talk until I say “over.” Over. Do you understand,
or was your silence intentional? Over.
Northwest of The Seven
Sisters, in a sort of bunker on stilts. Over. Last week I called in a cobra
of smoke. I was packing my gear in a panic, when
the next tower west confirmed it was only
low cloud. Over. I
get a crackling out of Alaska that sounds religious. Vladivostok. CBC.
I’ve decided I like Paganini. Over. No, leave it, or throw
it out, I won’t need it here. If ever.
Over. When storms wander
across the lower jaw of the coastal range, unloading their cargo here,
it’s like being in the engine room of something metallic
and massive. Over. My first grizzly passed
within a stone’s throw,
followed an hour later by the sucking thumps of a Parks chopper.
Nothing since. Over. Days, I rearrange stones shoaled up
at the base of the uprights and struts.
Nights, I stab at imagining
anything lovely, but end up laughing. Over. The forest goes quiet as if
waiting for me to finish. Listens hard to whatever isn’t
itself. Makes me anxious. I think
of how we ever came to . . .
[inaudible] given the arm’s length I kept joy at. Over. Affection stung
like a rasp drawn over [inaudible]. I thinned the world of it.
Don’t live as I did. Allow for terms
of relief. The black
maples aligned along streets, waddling skunks, their dark dusters
through the foxglove, your shoulder bag, shoes, the faces
of strangers; all may strike you as fibres
of a tremendous sadness.
That’s you in among the weave of it, new. Over. Is that important?
I’ve been contracted to watch this horizon and will
be here until something happens. Over.
Tell them it will. Over.