The New Compass: A Critical Review
Poems
Timothy Steele
The boy stood weeping in
dismay,
Duffle-coated against the
cold,
Watching his sailboat bob
away
On a pool
vast and granite-bowled.
No aid was asked, but seeing
him,
I rolled my trousers to my
knees
And waded from the basin’s
rim
To where the boat had sought
the breeze
And, like a giant, lifted her
Up by the
mast and centerboard.
Still sniffling, with “Merci,
monsieur,”
The boy walked off, his loss
restored.
This happened thirty years
ago.
The trees were pollarded and
bare,
The benches empty, and light
snow
Fell to the flowerless
parterre.
For several weeks, I’d
launched campaigns
To every tourist sight I
could.
Most I’ve forgotten. What remains
Is how the boy drew up his hood,
Cradling his boat in winter
light,
While I sat down and bowed to
muse
Upon the gravel and draw
tight
And tie the laces of my
shoes.
They paddle through expanding
And
overlapping wakes.
One glides in, cleared for
landing,
And, with his breast for
brakes,
Skids to a cushy halt,
Then makes a
smooth turn shoreward.
Another, in the mood
To try a somersault
Or dabble for some food,
Pitches abruptly forward,
Tail
straight up from the water.
Others appear to be
Content merely to potter
About in
buoyancy.
Still others extract oil
From their
rump glands to preen.
(Bills digging here and
there,
Their lithe necks coil,
uncoil,
As they check out, repair
And keep their feathers
clean.)
Just a mile off, two freeways
Cross like scissors’ shears;
Likewise, flyways and seaways
Have
narrowed with the years.
Still, in this watershed’s
Low marshes, the ducks range
With cormorants and coots,
With grebes and buffleheads,
At home in old pursuits
And salutary
change.
There, willow-overhung,
A mother leads the newer
Flotilla of her young,
Who, swivel-bonded to her
Mood (and direction) swings,
Veer neatly left and right.
On water-spanking feet,
A scaup
sprints and flaps wings
And wills itself
to meet
The
requisites for flight.
Who wouldn’t, though the day
Decline, be slow to leave
This place where egrets may
Remain on the qui vive,
Wading deliberately
Through
chilly water plants?
Marsh wrens swoop after
midges,
And the sharp eye can see
How fallen reeds are bridges
For hurrying-homeward ants
That cross
a rivulet
Emptying in
the pond.
Soon, darkness; but as yet
Birds call and, called,
respond.
And mallards drift serenely
On the fresh inland tide—
Speculum feathers flashing,
Males lifting their heads
greenly,
Some, as they’re swimming,
splashing
Their bills
from side to side.
A luxury sedan sways round
the curve,
Scattering
roller-blading hockey players.
The driver’s wearing
sunglasses, though night
Is gathering; his Great Dane,
riding shotgun,
Leans from the window and
barks furiously
At a
bewildered terrier on the sidewalk.
Libidinous inanity! Woof!
Woof!
I’ve got a
Lexus and you’ve got a leash!
Driver and dog, quite
clearly, haven’t learned
That anybody can achieve an
ego:
The real trick is resolving
to transcend it.
Innocent ids, the boys
regroup; one cuts
A circle sharply, swings his
stick, and rifles
The plastic ball that serves
as puck between
The pair of soda cans that
serve as goal posts.
The superego’s
representatives,
Six ravens mob the
disappearing car
Before they peel off, cawing,
to the trees
While the small terrier—hair
in his eyes,
His toenails clicking
pavement—trots away,
Leading his
owner homeward from their ramble.
Steele, Timothy. “Poems.”
The New Compass: A Critical Review 2 (December 2003) <http://www.thenewcompass.ca/dec2003/steele.html>