Planet Earth (by P.K. Page)
Planet Earth (by P.K. Page)
Original Text
P.K. Page, Planet Earth: Poems Selected and New, Ed. Eric Ormsby (Erin, ON: Porcupine's Quill, 2002).
This
poem
is reproduced on the Griffin Prize Web Site
(from a volume on the 2003 Canadian Shortlist).
1It has to be loved the way a laundress loves her linens,
2the way she moves her hands caressing the fine muslins
3knowing their warp and woof,
4like a lover coaxing, or a mother praising.
5It has to be loved as if it were embroidered
6with flowers and birds and two joined hearts upon it.
7It has to be stretched and stroked.
8It has to be celebrated.
9O this great beloved world and all the creatures in it.
10It has to be spread out, the skin of this planet.
11The trees must be washed, and the grasses and mosses.
12They have to be polished as if made of green brass.
13The rivers and little streams with their hidden cresses
14and pale-coloured pebbles
15and their fool’s gold
16must be washed and starched or shined into brightness,
17the sheets of lake water
18smoothed with the hand
19and the foam of the oceans pressed into neatness.
20It has to be ironed, the sea in its whiteness;
21and pleated and goffered, the flower-blue sea
22the protean, wine-dark, grey, green, sea
23with its metres of satin and bolts of brocade.
24And sky--such an O! overhead--night and day
25must be burnished and rubbed
26by hands that are loving
27so the blue blazons forth
28and the stars keep on shining
29within and above
30and the hands keep on moving.
31It has to be made bright, the skin of this planet
32till it shines in the sun like gold leaf.
33Archangels then will attend to its metals
34and polish the rods of its rain.
35Seraphim will stop singing hosannas
36to shower it with blessings and blisses and praises
37and, newly in love,
38we must draw it and paint it
39our pencils and brushes and loving caresses
40smoothing the holy surfaces.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2011