david helwig: for edward hicks

At least a hundred times,
here's the marvel,
a hundred times
as you travelled the green country,
you had to put away your sign painting
or turn from preaching the inner light
to the one picture,
the stiff animals gentle,
children among them,
men good.


You must have had violent hands
to have needed so often,
a hundred times at least,
the magic, the talisman,
the peaceable kingdom
made by your hands.

Helwig, David. "For Edward Hicks" The New Oxford Book of Canadian Verse in English. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1982.

anne compton: even now

Even now when muscles slacken and bones thin out
-- and why do they, if not to let in light -- the body opens


to cordial air, the courtesy of trees, fork-tailed swallows
in flight, their joints and ligaments ours. Atavistic us.


In early angel state, eye and ear migrate. They're at our elbow.
Down on our knees. The world's infolded in every limb.


In September's stirabout, what was enough, is not enough: 
Frost at night and summertime by day, the air is appetite.


The stipple tongue's all over taste. The lucent skin is lavish.


Turns out that old adage about angels on a pin
refers to the body: How the five jig and sing in every cell.


Up out of the year's sleep, the body divines dispersal.
What's next is near, and already we are here in afterthought.


Compton, Anne. "Even Now" The Best Canadian Poetry in English. Toronto: Tightrope Books, 2009.

carla funk: psalm of thirst (part three)

As deep calls to deep

in the immeasurable electricity of God

so thirst calls to water

the dry-tongued stones licking

the morning air     desparate

a man stumbling across

the sun-scorched sand

the word oasis a cold pool

of hope in his mouth

so the porous heart soaks up

what rain and goodness he sends

so my deserts turn to gardens

in the presence of the Lord

Funk, Carla. "Psalm of Thirst" Introductions: Poets Present Poets. Markham: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2001.

carla funk: psalm of thirst (part two)

I'm thirsty the man says

in the early morning on the hill

the first rays of sun swelling the horizon

in his mouth the weight of a whole earth

a thick coat of dust lining his throat

to his lips the hyssop branch

soaked with gall     that final drink

swallowing all the light from this place

Funk, Carla. "Psalm of Thirst" Introductions: Poets Present Poets. Markham: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2001.

carla funk: psalm of thirst (part one)

The sun like a burning eye stares
until the river shrivels into lines
and all that remains of the rainy season
is a watering hole sludged with elephant dung
the air a banner of gnats and tsetse flies


as the deer longs for water
so much more the creatures of this place
who bear the blueprint of thirst
in their bone-dry bellies


in this open throat of dry land
the island blends into the plain
and grown pelicans nesting there
begin to leave in search of water
while the young flightless ones left behind
walk over the cracked clay for days
until their charcoal bodies give out
fleck the baked landscape
in small feathered heaps

Funk, Carla. "Psalm of Thirst" Introductions: Poets Present Poets. Markham: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2001.