Bookshelf Battle

Some very bad business that transpired in Canada today, fellow book bloggers.  Let’s take a moment to remember our Neighbors to the North.

This is a literary blog and I wanted to pay tribute by posting a Canadian poem.  The problem?  I have zero knowledge of what is considered good Canadian poetry and or literature.

So I googled away and I came up with The Wind Our Enemy, a 1937 by Canadian poet Anne Marriott.  After a brief read, it seems to discuss survival in a harsh world.  But I’m being up front on this one – I know nothing of Canadian lit so I have no idea what Canadians would consider to be a good poem.

That’s why if you’re a Canadian, you should educate me on what your favorite Canadian poet and/or other literary work is in the comment section.

Take care, Canadians.

THE WIND OUR ENEMY

BY: Anne Marriott

FIRST PUBLISHED: 1937

I

Wind
flattening its gaunt furious self against
the naked siding, knifing in the wounds
of time, pausing to tear aside the last
old scab of paint.

Wind
surging down the cocoa-coloured seams
of summer-fallow, darting in about
white hoofs and brown, snatching the sweaty cap
shielding red eyes.

Wind
filling the dry mouth with bitter dust
whipping the shoulders worry-bowed too soon,
soiling the water pail, and in grim prophecy
greying the hair.

II

The wheat in spring was like a giant’s bolt of silk
Unrolled over the earth.
When the wind sprang
It rippled as if a great broad snake
Moved under the green sheet
Seeking its outward way to light.
In autumn it was an ocean of flecked gold
Sweet as a biscuit, breaking in crisp waves
That never shattered, never blurred in foam.
That was the last good year. ….

III

The wheat was embroidering
All the spring morning,
Frail threads needled by sunshine like thin gold.
A man’s heart could love his land,
Smoothly self-yielding,
Its broad spread promising all his granaries might hold.
A woman’s eyes could kiss the soil
From her kitchen window,
Turning its black depths to unchipped cups—a silk crepe dress—
(Two-ninety-eight, Sale Catalogue)
Pray sun’s touch be gentleness,
Not a hot hand scorching flesh it would caress.
But sky like a new tin pan
Hot from the oven
Seemed soldered to the earth by horizons of glare. ….

The third day he left the fields. ….

Heavy scraping footsteps
Spoke before his words, “Crops dried out—everywhere—”

IV

They said, “Sure, it’ll rain next year!”
When that was dry, “Well, next year anyway.”
Then, “Next—”
But still the metal hardness of the sky
Softened only in mockery.
When lightning slashed and twanged
And thunder made the hot head surge with pain
Never a drop fell;
Always hard yellow sun conquered the storm.
So the soon sickly-familiar saying grew,
(Watching the futile clouds sneak down the north)
“Just empties goin’ back!”
(Cold laughter bending parched lips in a smile
Bleak eyes denied.)

V

Horses were strong so strong men might love them,
Sides groomed to copper burning the sun,
Wind tangling wild manes, dust circling wild hoofs,
Turn the colts loose! Watch the two-year-olds run!
Then heart thrilled fast and the veins filled with glory
The feel of hard leather a fortune more sweet
Than a girl’s silky lips. He was one with the thunder,
The flying, the rhythm, of untamed, unshod feet!

But now—

It makes a man white-sick to see them now,
Dull—heads sagging—crowding to the trough—
No more spirit than a barren cow.
The well’s pumped dry to wash poor fodder down,
Straw and salt—and endless salt and straw—
(Thank God the winter’s mild so far)
Dry Russian thistle crackling in the jaw—
The old mare found the thistle pile, ate till she bulged,
Then, crazily, she wandered in the yard,
Saw a water-drum, and staggering to its rim,
Plodded around it—on and on in hard,
Madly relentless circle. Weaker—stumbling—
She fell quite suddenly, heaved once and lay.
(Nellie the kids’ pet’s gone, boys.
Hitch up the strongest team. Haul her away.
Maybe we should have mortgaged all we had
Though it wasn’t much, even in good years, and draw
Ploughs with a jolting tractor.
Still—you can’t make gas of thistles or oat-straw.)

VI

Relief.
“God, we tried so hard to stand alone!”

Relief.
“Well, we can’t let the kids go cold.”
They trudge away to school swinging half-empty lard-pails,
to shiver in the schoolhouse (unpainted seven years),
learning from a blue-lipped girl
almost as starved as they.

Relief cars.
“Apples, they say, and clothes!”
The folks in town get their pick first,
Then their friends—
“Eight miles for us to go so likely we
won’t get much—”
“Maybe we’ll get the batteries charged up and have
the radio to kind of brighten things—”

Insurgents march in Spain

Japs bomb Chinese

Airliner lost

“Maybe we’re not as badly off as some—”
“Maybe there’ll be a war and we’ll get paid to fight—”
“Maybe—”
“See if Eddie Cantor’s on to-night!”

VII

People grew bored
Well-fed in the east and west
By stale, drought-area tales,
Bored by relief whinings,
Preferred their own troubles.
So those who still had stayed
On the scorched prairie,
Found even sympathy
Seeming to fail them
Like their own rainfall.
“Well—let’s forget politics,
Forget the wind, our enemy!
Let’s forget farming, boys,
Let’s put on a dance to-night!
Mrs. Smith’ll bring a cake.
Mrs. Olsen’s coffee’s swell!”

The small uneven schoolhouse floor
Scraped under big work-boots
Cleaned for the evening’s fun,
Gasoline lamps whistled.
One Hungarian boy
Snapped at a shrill guitar,
A Swede from out north of town
Squeezed an accordion dry,
And a Scotchwoman from Ontario
Made the piano dance
In time to “The Mocking-Bird”
And “When I grow too Old to Dream,”
Only taking time off
To swing in a square dance,
Between ten and half-past three.

Yet in the morning
Air peppered thick with dust,
All the night’s happiness
Seemed far away, unreal
Like a lying mirage,
Or the icy-white glare
Of the alkali slough.

VIII

Presently the dark dust seemed to build a wall
That cut them off from east and west and north,
Kindness and honesty, things they used to know,
Seemed blown away and lost
In frantic soil.
At last they thought
Even God and Christ were hidden
By the false clouds.
—Dust-blinded to the staring parable,
Each wind-splintered timber like a pain-bent Cross.
Calloused, groping fingers, trembling
With overwork and fear,
Ceased trying to clutch at some faith in the dark,
Thin sick courage fainted, lacking hope.
But tightened, tangled nerves scream to the brain
If there is no hope, give them forgetfulness!
The cheap light of the beer-parlour grins out,
Promising shoddy security for an hour.
The Finn who makes bad liquor in his barn
Grows fat on groaning emptiness of souls.

IX

The sun goes down. Earth like a thick black coin
Leans its round rim against the yellowed sky.
The air cools. Kerosene lamps are filled and lit
In dusty windows. Tired bodies crave to lie
In bed forever. Chores are done at last.
A thin horse neighs drearily. The chickens drowse,
Replete with grasshoppers that have gnawed and scraped
Shrivelled garden-leaves. No sound from the gaunt cows.
Poverty, hand in hand with fear, two great
Shrill-jointed skeletons stride loudly out
Across the pitiful fields, none to oppose.
Courage is roped with hunger, chained with doubt.
Only against the yellow sky, a part
Of the jetty silhoutte of barn and house
Two figures stand, heads close, arms locked,
And suddenly some spirit seems to rouse
And gleam, like a thin sword, tarnished, bent,
But still shining in the spared beauty of moon,
As his strained voice says to her, “We’re not licked yet!
It must rain again—it will! Maybe—soon—”

X

Wind
in a lonely laughterless shrill game
with broken wash-boiler, bucket without
a handle, Russian thistle, throwing up
sections of soil.

God, will it never rain again? What about
those clouds out west? No, that’s just dust, as thick
and stifling now as winter underwear.
No rain, no crop, no feed, no faith, only
wind.