Saving a Lost Path Back (by Phil Hall)
Saving a Lost Path Back (by Phil Hall)
Original Text
Phil Hall, An Oak Hunch (London, ON: Brick Books, 2005).
This
poem is reproduced on the Griffin Prize Web Site (from a volume on the 2006 Canadian Shortlist).
1each evacuated tread cancelling a labeled dig
2 each bounding hoof-track deep as a nostril
3a path contorting like a storm rudder
4 or a knob on a dash – ingrown by scrub-hawthorn
5deak – waree-ree-ree – tchee – tchee
6 bobolinks fluffing in quillwork shadow
7haw-hips detonating clay red in cold bills
8 guernicas of scythed footage boiling
9in the soup of the day – jacklit by vagrant strobes
10 deflective-ornery path back
11still – I’m going
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2011