POEMS OF THE LAUREATE CANDIDATES – Carolyn Smart, P. S. Sri, Tom Vincent (MORE TO COME)

CAROLYN SMART – (From, ‘The Way To Come Home.’)

November: Frontenac County

Trees are dark fountains of grief
moaning, summer, summer
in damp and breathless voices
at the place where they pull free
from soil, piles of leaves weep
in their repetitious way,
a haven for nothing

Even the porcupine swings
its quills away in scorn
and continues its solitary parade
towards the frost and shelter

a doe with excitable ears
wide open for the hunter’s tread
stands in a sodden field
steam rising from its nostrils
as we pass, marvelling

All the flowers of summer in memory
we want to fill our cups
with potpourri and sleep
It is November and we yearn
for flight

P.S.Sri (From: Blue Heron Anthology)

Winter

Is.

Scarce a month ago
these trees that line the roadside
like sentinels awaiting inspection

ravished the eyes, a riot of colour-
bright orange and pale yellow,
a mottled brown, a hectic red.

NOW,

the first shiver of ice whistling in the wind
and snow-streamers albino-snaking across the ground,

defenseless and shorn they stand,
bare, gaunt, austere,

stretching forth a myriad skeleton arms to implore

A ghostly withering drapery.

Tom Vincent (From: Blue Heron Anthology)

Summer Passes
St. Andrews, New Brunswick

Watch
along the sea
and down among the granite

watch
along the margins
of the bay

watch
among the rushes

watch
where the waves say

hush
hush