Astonished / Petrified (by Don McKay)
Astonished / Petrified (by Don McKay)
Original Text
Don McKay, Strike/Slip (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2006).
This
poem
is reproduced on the Griffin Prize Web Site
(from the winning volume on the 2007 Canadian Shortlist).
1Astonished--
2astounded, astonied, astunned, stopped short
3and turned toward stone, the moment
4filling with its slow
5stratified time. Standing there, your face
6cratered by its gawk,
7you might be the symbol signifying eon.
8What are you, empty or pregnant? Somewhere
9sediments accumulate on seabeds, seabeds
10rear up into mountains, ammonites
11fossilize into gems. Are you thinking
12or being thought? Cities
13as sand dunes, epics
14as e-mail. Astonished
15you are famous and anonymous, the border
16washed out by so soft a thing as weather. Someone
17inside you steps from the forest and across the beach
18toward the nameless all-dissolving ocean.
19Petrified--
20your heart’s tongue seized
21mid-syllable, caught by the lava flow
22you fled. Fixed,
23you stiffen in the arms of wonder’s dark
24undomesticated sister. Can’t you name her
25and escape? You are the statue
26that has lost the entrance into art,
27wild and incompetent,
28you have no house. Who are you?
29You are the crystal that picks up
30its many deaths.
31You are the momentary mind of rock.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2011