03.12.18

Vancouver Writing: Pat Lowther

NOTES FROM FURRY CREEK

1

The water reflecting cedars
all the way up
deep sonorous green -
nothing prepares you
for the ruler-straight
log fallen across
and the perfect
water fall it makes
and the pool behind it
novocaine-cold
and the huckleberries
hanging
like fat red lanterns

2

The dam, built
by coolies, has outlived
its time; its wall
stained yellow
as ancient skin
dries in the sun

The spillway still
splashes bright spray
on the lion
shapes of rock
far down below

The dam foot
is a pit
for the royal animals
quiet and dangerous
in the stare
of sun and water

3

When the stones swallowed me
I could not surface
but squatted
in foaming water
all one curve
motionless,
glowing like agate.

I understood the secret
of a monkey-puzzle tree
by knowing its opposite:
the smooth and the smooth
and the smooth takes,
seduces your eyes
to smaller and smaller
ellipses;
reaching the centre
you become
stone, the perpetual
laved god.

-Pat Lowther: Time Capsule

The cruelest of ironies, Lowther was murdered by her husband Roy Lowther in 1975 in the their home @ 566 East 46th Street. Her body was deposited near Furry Creek at the base of a cliff and later discovered by two hikers. Roy Lowther was charged with her murder and died years later in prison, the motive allegedly based on Pat Lowther's affair with another poet. (see Eve Lazarus for further details).

While immensely tender in her lyricism, many of her poems touch on themes of violence, revenge and death. In her photo above there is a suggestion of Joan Didion: sharp, elegant, uncompromising.