This poem enjoyed an open mic outing (my first) yesterday afternoon at the Urban Gallery. I am grateful to Brenda Clews for organizing the event and to Stewart Russell for making the recording!
Life at the Roots
By Catherine Raine (2013)
One fall day,
I walk the ribbed bedrock of a dry creek.
Between old dreaming stream and Flack Lake,
a carpet of fresh moss and brown duff.
My steps disturb a creature
who runs away under the cover of leaves,
pushing up against its shelter as it flees.
The unknown animal
creates a living ribbon of movement,
drawing a flight path with its body.
The tree litter shifts and rustles in its fast wake,
evidence of life unseen but more real than this poem,
fusing threads of instinct without pause.
One summer day,
I bike home from work,
thoughts distracted from the simple path
that curves by the banks of Taylor Massey Creek.
I pass a tall gathering of yellow grasses
that erupts with startled birds.
They fly straight up from the reeds,
rising all at once in a mass of flapping.
Birds of hidden presence,
you are birds of poetry and vision.
All the beauty that lies unknown within us,
waiting for a sudden movement,
a whoosh of wheels and wings
to reveal life at the roots,
a wild frightening freshness that we cage with lies.
One spring morning,
Dark green shoots
grow from my breasts, pushing up, pushing out.
I tug a shoot from my left aureole
and a large curly leaf comes out.
I tug more shoots and yet more shoots,
shocked by the secret depth of my roots.
My right breast overspills with greenery, too.
Dirt mixes with the leaves,
and one last tug
makes an onion pop out and roll on the grass.
Onion, I know you.
You promise food, the push of streams,
breath of reeds, and the soft spring of moss.
I believe in your hidden roots.
Underground, you listen to famished souls
who trace desire lines on the waiting earth.
Several years later, I entered the poem in a contest and it was selected as one of four winners:
http://open-book.ca/News/What-s-Your-Story-2017-Obpo-Writing-Contest-Winners!-Part-One-Scarborough