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Two Poems from Lullabies in the Real World
Meredith Quartermain’s Lullabies in the Real World (NeWest Press) sets off on a cross-country trip from West to East Coast with the momentum of a train—moving us forward while looking backwards to confront and challenge the colonial histories. Below, we share two poems from the collection.
stumble stoop stutter-clog
musty muse music
to unknown woods
I would a stargazer,
would a bison-memory be
fringe of spindles on clear-cut ridge
cross river recross
back slip back sneak
unthread Canadia
wiring small glass cones
cockeyed track-side concrete ties
make cents, boy and granddad
play chess, what’s hidden from this
pink bunched glimpse of fireweed
song of innocence, song of despair
for tankers, hoppers, containers
feeding ten million mouths
song of claim, song of emptiness
song of illusion, song of madness
wiring usless us along
through unspoken
not dis-hidden watching
Leaving Montreal over the river — wide wide river
over river into night
cornfields and cornfields
and cornfield origin
and deer and flat river delta
centuries eons silted flatted
deer leaping
over the leaves of corn
go east, poet,
east to frankincense, myrrh, Sphinx
east to Ostara’s brim-burst
her beams up-leap
turn backrunner, backshadow
unpioneer, uninvent, undiscover
back yet forward with earth
into the sun
to backbode backtell
unmap unseers
rub out their erasures
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