RPO -- George Elliott Clarke : Guysborough Road Church

George Elliott Clarke (1960-)

Guysborough Road Church

1we are the black loyalists:

2we think of the bleak fundamentalism

3of a ragged scarf of light

4twined and twisted and torn

5in a briar patch of pines.

6and then, of steel-wool water,

7scouring the dull rocks of bonny

8bonny nova scotia -–

9the chaste, hard granite

10coastline inviolate; the dark,

11dreary mountains where sad Glooscap broods

12over waters void...

13we are the world-poor.

14we are the fatherless.

15we are the coloured Christians

16of the african united baptist association.

Notes

1] black loyalists: now the Guysborough United Baptist Church, Guysborough, Nova Scotia.

11] Glooscap: Mi'kmaq mythic spirit and creator, now associated with the Glooscap Trail along the shore of the Minas Basin, from Amherst, Springhill, Parrsboro, Economy, and Truro to Shubenacadie.

Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
This poem cannot be published anywhere without the written consent of George Elliott Clarke or the Pottersfield Press permissions department.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: Saltwater Spirituals and Deeper Blues (Porters Lake, NS: Pottersfield Press, 1983): 14.
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: 2004
Recent editing: 1:2004/7/22

Other poems by George Elliott Clarke