Thursday, 13 December 2018

13.12.18

Vancouver Writing: Peter Trower

Chainsaws in The Cathedral
   - for Al Purdy

Morning  the crumpled land  the hills
heaving up the sky  the rain
beating down like blood  the darkness
lifting from the trees  the waste place
where the trees were  leaving
a gray residue of mist

Camp at the mountain's foot  men
grunting from bunks  hawking  grumbling back
into splinterwalled stockstink
of bunkhouse reality  struggling
into dirtstiff overalls  straggling
breakfastwards to the guthammer's jangle

Soon the crummies will strain up the switchbacks
with men for the mountain  the song
will be sung again in the high hard places
donkeys will roar on the ridges 
chainsaws will roar on the ridges
chainsaws whine in the cathedral
of virgin trees, the harsh mad music of loggers.

- peter trower: chainsaws in the cathedrals- collected woods poems

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