Guysborough Road Church
Guysborough Road Church
Original Text
Saltwater Spirituals and Deeper Blues (Porters Lake, NS: Pottersfield Press, 1983): 14.
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,
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. Back to Line
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. Back to Line
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2004
Special Copyright
<b>This poem cannot be published anywhere without the written consent of George Elliott Clarke or the Pottersfield Press permissions department.</b>