Fort Langley, British Columbia

DEMETER WANDERS THE GLOBE

Grief-embedded,

like a journalist in a foreign land,
how could she have known

till she closed her eyes nine days
and plunged in double dark,

wandered in the wheezing gulfs of war
that the one who seized her child

was not god or man, but an estate
a state, a citizenship,

a culture seizuring,
dipped in bronze, warriored,

prinked out in mind metals
with all its wealth clamped down,

a vectoring that would tamp
the throat of irises

and lock them in cabinets;
and that a culture bound

to such proud perfectings
would petrify, make flawless falls

of ice, a rimmed cutting off,

screeds of greed;

and that the ripening ones
could live here only briefly

and that queendom would be a rule over dead ones only.

Susan McCaslin is a poet and educator, the author of eleven volumes of poetry, including Lifting the Stone (Seraphim Editions, 2007). She has edited two anthologies and is on the editorial board of Event. Susan lives in Fort Langley, British Columbia with her husband, and has a daughter in university. www.susanmccaslin.ca