Cloud Physics
CBC Books | Posted: July 23, 2018 7:53 PM | Last Updated: July 26, 2018
Karen Enns
In her third collection of poetry, Karen Enns ranges over endings of many kinds: cultural, ecological and personal. But the poems are also replete with affirmations of love, of music and language, and of our rootedness in place and history. Enns describes our predicament with startling and surreal precision, yet also with tenderness and compassion. Her work is unusually wise in the ways of innocence as well as grief. (From University of Regina Press)
From the book
This is the time of winds from the south,
the time of bells, bronze cities, smoke and ash,
the time of bells, bronze cities, smoke and ash,
the time of bridges like suspended ideologies, all frame and buttress,
sky-imposed. Of chromaticisms, polyrhythms,
polytonal riffs coming off the baffles,
peonies of sound.
sky-imposed. Of chromaticisms, polyrhythms,
polytonal riffs coming off the baffles,
peonies of sound.
This is the time of crushed glass and stone, lime dust
that stays and stays in our mouths, the language of not speaking,
of carrying the vegetable weight, the last treeline, the geologies of terror
and eternity, the motherlode of fear, of grace,
that stays and stays in our mouths, the language of not speaking,
of carrying the vegetable weight, the last treeline, the geologies of terror
and eternity, the motherlode of fear, of grace,
the flash of face to face to face in our minds,
cloud physics, hail, massive doubt.
cloud physics, hail, massive doubt.
This is the geometry of fragmentation.
Here, this star lapse, these rims of light in the hinterland,
Here, this star lapse, these rims of light in the hinterland,
opening and closing, prairie planks of loss
and then retrieval, loss again,
and then retrieval, loss again,
an echo of gravity in the pull.
From Cloud Physics in Cloud Physics by Karen Enns ©2017. Published by University of Regina Press.