Leanne McIntosh, Nanaimo

The bold-faced prose at the start of each poem was written in letters, journals or articles by Jack Sproule over thirty plus years, followed by my recent thoughts in the form of poetry.

November 3, 1984

People have a public right to know that they may loyally dissent from authoritative positions without any disloyalty or guilt. I must protect that right.

The bold-faced prose at the start of each poem was written in letters, journals or articles by Jack Sproule over thirty plus years, followed by my recent thoughts in the form of poetry.

November 3, 1984

People have a public right to know that they may loyally dissent from authoritative positions without any disloyalty or guilt. I must protect that right.

The Alberta premier says there is still hope
for the Keystone pipeline south while to the north
a woman protesting the movement of oil
through her territory
says she is not a radical and claims herself
a protector of the land.
In times like these there is always something to stand up for.
And, it’s in dissent that I find myself.
It’s setting sail without a guarantee of wind.
It’s stepping off the edge and falling free.
It’s being a gateway.
It’s being a bridge.
It’s standing alone
agendas and desk upside down
gutted
trusting life’s impulse
will not hedge, compromise, flatter.
It’s in dissent of fixed positions
that I read the book of created things
and remain loyal to the sea we first rose from
so even the small park
in the middle of the city
reveals a wholeness, a holiness
a supple murmur
all things relative so river, rock and air
blood, muscle and feather
are many languages touching
and with no distance between them
they usher compassion into history.
It’s then I remember how to receive the world.
Remember to embody the rabbit and the coyote
the night spirit and dawn’s blush.  It’s then
the nurse logs in the forest sing their lament
to the broken mirror called civilization.
It’s touching the earth but not owning it.
It’s touching a new creation.

June 23, 1984

I see God as a process – a critique by which I am ready again and again to discern the absolutizing trend in myself.

With a regularity of habit I search for you
among solid things as if you were a book on my table
or a coat in the closet with stones in its pockets
when it’s the mountain’s path that names my way of being
the roses underfoot creating a space for otherness.
It’s the new moon on water assuring me
there are no opposites and full or slender
they are penetrating each other.
On the radio the notes of a love song play with dissonance
and the phrasing steps outside itself so time is a bird freed
from its migration before it is drawn, again, into the mind’s string net.
Admit to fear but don't get stuck.
Today I wrote that youth is lost with the first sorrow
that fire in the soul is a place flesh cannot touch
that love is just outside looking for a way to break in.
But, like a white page
or a draped mirror
you, God, are as you are:
a name that cannot be spoken or written
because you are petal pages turning on a bud
darkly as a seed seeks the sun
slowly like a tree ripens fruit
sweetly as desire starts with a taste on the tongue
and no imagination could have foreseen that you are
a restless metaphor, a wild species of apple evolving
inside the open window of my chest.

June 2, 1985

This new consciousness that I believe is emerging cannot be conveyed except by experiencing the connections, the relationships, in short, the community.

The future presses against the present
and we are nested somewhere
between birdsong and the firefly's cold light
between roots exposed and rocks still tumbling.
And we are the river flowing through.
A hum poised to bloom.
The honey sweetened untouched until
the sound of bees is heard.
We are pollen's shadow on the wind
before the poppy's color flames.
We are the mouth and apple
each shaped by the other.
We are the knife that cuts from dark matter
the golden light of a cat's eyes.
We are kin and what happens in one person
will penetrate what happens in another. 
Who can know this and remain calm?

From Dark Matter: A Notebook  to be published Spring 2013.