A Trio for Tiff

A Trio for Tiff MANLY JOHNSON Conjure an orchard, beyond the orchard A field in the elbow of a woods. It is empty of all but the sound No breeze through the boughs Nor fox's cough in the brushOf crickets beneath the bluebells, In the fence row a thrush, A distant locomotive laboriously Toting its clouds of smoke, Where a world was lost, another found, This paltry, passionate world Droning to a melody the story sings. A house was like a head, with ways of knowing, histories all its own, openings in and out Hallways and storerooms, chimney nooks and stairs, these led up or down, each may be to a dark place. Something is going on here, whether we notice or not, climbing stairs from one landing to the next, Rising towards meaning, meanings to be revealed if not on this ascent, another. Lucy, having fallen, in her web-handed way, rose through tendering the unicorn, Fed on failure, fell towards a land of sun and shadow, frost and affection. We fall into revelation. Journal ofCanadian Studies Vol. 33, No. 4 (Hiver 1998-99 Winter) 47 48 Below in the parlor someone lights a fire, on the top floor a door is closed and locked. Over the wintery fields the whistle of a train that will carry her away to live in Toronto, Him to the troopship, Flanders, rape in the dark, murder in the spring of one made innocent by bird song. Who will climb the marble risers to a given room where the tales we read are scribed in plaster Even as they enter the room of the mind, still, curious, a plate on which the graver sets indelible lines? In the orchards near Arras we slept with bones, safe in the embrace of an old shell hole gone soft With years of straw, dreamt another orchard, walled in stone, alive in the healing land of the crazy people. As you pass, the slabs in the stone orchard viewed from an angle seem to ascend Toward some loft behind the clouds, 'tween decks of a sort, boding heaven or hell. Life is a flame, but ifwe flame we die written on the attic walls - and painted Visionary forms, flame colored, green and blue, lifted over the rooftree, to the open air, seem to pray Quietest, or punch holes through smoke in a Zen frolic. One, black-toothed in the tram, Worked himself into a lather for, or despite Lily: he had an attic too, she thought, and pockets full of matches. Urges of flesh, child-like constructions made of blocks, linear loves, set free from whatever heart of darkness, Revue d'etudes canadiennes Some page ninety-two, by a madness beyond divinition not out but in, to darkness deeper, settling in the spongey, Warm depths, recall the shards and brine of language, the mundane, miraculous dangers of world music set to words, In these songs remember we are human beings alive in company of violence, join hands with the girls of 'ell: Lucy, Lilah, Lily, humming round the bend, eternity bound, toot, toot! Make way for Tiff's caterpillar! Watching the honey bee at its impatient labors We do not speculate whether the bee is for the flower Or whether the still, the waiting one, with eye to heaven, Is for the bee - or which is which. The golden cargo cares not a grain, Only that it be lifted from sticky runnels Season after season and stored in jars for our delight. And so say we, 0 Canada, for those who forage, gather, and create From grounds your people have brought to bear in Canadas past, Present, and will bring to bear in Canadas to be: Speed bonnie boat, Like a bird on the wing.... Manly Johnson is the Poetry Editor ofNimrod International Journal ofProse and Poetry and is the author of Present or Accountedfor: Poems (1993). He teaches at the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma. Journal ofCanadian Studies 49 ...