© Genni Gunn, 2007
Reprinted by permission. All Rights Reserved
wEstSCAPES
To live on the edge of a continent is to
understand
the finite property of things delicious anxiety
fear of falling optional suicide measures B jump
into cold bluewater
submerge float out to sea
Inland Toronto, continuity is unsettling the rush
the thick of people things a constant distraction
no
oceans to dream beyond no balancing
on perilous cliffs no hypothesis of death Faces
stare out of windows envisioning perhaps
a mountaintop
the slow smooth glide through air the soundless parting
of waves Here where a continent rises
and falls the possibilities
for disaster are endless:
an earthquake east and west fault lines or a tsunami
monster quenching its thirst in English Bay
swallowing
the West End whole or a torrent of rain
steeping the mountainside in mud a steady flow to the sea
To balance on the outer edge
is to accept paradox
equilibrium a faint horizon between impulse and rationale
We erect amulets: THIS IS A NUCLEAR-FREE ZONE
in
the shadow of US destroyers which slice intermittent
the depths of the harbour point to the words hold up
banners bob on small
lifeboats in the path of steel
no more effective than one small man in China
waving his shopping bags to stop an army
To
live on the edge of a continent is to have both
a clarity of vision and an unshaken belief in myth:
how in semi-darkness totems
stalk us carved eagles fly
frogs swim the water of the eye and bear claws
scratch tremors in the spine or how the downtown
city
face is a thin mantle crust beneath which
arteries pulse with spice and opium cards knife
blades plunging into the centre of
the earth
or how we ski in morning light and swim in afternoon
the impulse for the edge is a magnetic field
insul/isolation
and we create a story: this is the last
chance for utopia, a new frontier
