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Catching a Snare Drum at the Fraser’s Mouth
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THE RIVER COMES DOWN TO SPEAK THROUGH THE CITY AT ITS MOUTH
At the mouth of the palm of the hand, the sea,
Ruffed grouse on the SkyTrain,
At the drumming of the hand, the sea,
perched on the seatbacks, drumming,
At the mouthing of the drum, the sea
pooling over the belly of the moon.
At the mouth of the moon, the drumming
pooling over the hand’s sea.
Do you hear?
Pine-scented dust filling the cars like thirst
in the heart’s drum,
Do you hear the mouth of the moon?
Travellers reading advertisements for pain
relievers, extra strength,
do you hear?
and pizza delivery anywhere within the city,
do you hear the one hand of the moon?
Bulls ambling through the canyons of Vancouver,
their muscled thighs rippling,
do you hear?
steam from your nostrils and your flanks
mingling with the vapours
from noodle bowls and paper cups of cappuccino
and the smoke
do you hear the tongue of the moon?
from hot dog vendors hugging their own shoulders,
dancing on alternate feet,
turning their sizzling smokies with tongs of
shining silver.
Do you hear?
Sad flute music blowing out of the last books.
Oh, glass towers taking wing,
Each a soul catcher in the shape of a straw.
do you hear the moaning of the moon?
Each pane lifting away,
flashing like sockeye in deep water under cliffs
black with rain.
Do you hear the river flowing down the throat of
the moon?
Do you feel it opening like a hand?
The pages of every book on every shelf flying off
at once,
in every library, every office, every house,
do you hear,
across the trembling, jewel-studded and
billboarded belly of the city,
do you hear the sturgeon lining up at the shore of
the Fraser in Marpole,
listening, blind, unable to afford a weekend pass
or even a one-day ticket to the symphony
of the city’s transformation, its great coming out,
with drowned moons for eyes, do you hear
their chins and whiskers in the loosestrife
and old ropes and rust behind the loading bays
and gravel
gone to shipping containers and blackberries,
with drowned stars for hearts, do you hear,
oldest of our brothers, the ghosts within
our marrow
bathed in the silence of the sun and the
pursed lips of the gale
as it sits around drinking rain driven horizontally
off the Gulf,
do you hear the iron-teased wind that carefully
copies out each page
of a Cantonese-English dictionary on the petals of
the chicory
that sprouts out of the floor of the world? In the
last days,
do you hear Tibetan prayer bowls struck with
wooden mallets at IKEA,
and do you drum?
Cotton towels folded and refolded on scented
bamboo shelves at Pier 1.
And do you drown?
The moon rising above thin fields of spelt and
wormwood,
within the rush of jets from Mumbai and Beijing
at the climax of their dance,
as you dream,
wearing saris, dressed in brocade, their high
cheekbones lifted,
as you dream, as you dream, as you dream,
pale, as they turn and cry out to the embrace
of the rain
singing its Bollywood chorus while dancing on
guy wires,
its ritual swords flashing like sheaves of wheat,
as you drown,
the birds every woman clapping at the opera
either releases from her lace-trimmed gloves
or catches
in her mouth.
As you drown.
And as you caress the drum’s dog face,
a chorus of ravens from sun-bleached trees
shouts down directions like millet in rain
like bones cast on the earth’s uplifted face,
to a film crew trucked from Burnaby in a flock of
white trailers,
right now hooking up black cables entwined in a
practised choreography,
divining the broken heart,
like the Koran,
and as you caress the drum,
interpreted and reinterpreted according to
vectors of sand
breathing mathematics into the night,
which will now be known as the morning,
while you stroke the drum,
that moves the earth into the script of the first
words long ago forgotten
by the trembling mind,
which will now be known as high noon,
as you bring the drum to song,
lifting a cup of mint tea between its fingers,
without a frame but remembered by the body,
which will now be known as the evening,
when you drum,
within the mint, the cup, the water and their
ritual creation,
and the stirring in of the sugar,
As the drum brings you to the sea
and the sea brings you back to me.
which will now be known as the setting of
the moon.
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