SELECTIONS FROM FROM THE POPLARS
a large group of men line the street
from the back door of the Land offices
they await an opportunity
to gain a piece of BC
tree island onto definitive tracks
blinks a haze of contact
shred through the built
developing
a bundle of wars
war rights of the Crown
power distributed
right to do things on and to
rights later to infringe already
the municipality
a witness to glory gone hot
all in all a grand day, a triumphant day
for the City bypassed by the mainline
invested heavily in its own railway
connections south tap the spikes driven
to a band of steel that completes the union
_____
endowed by forces of nature, forces such as forest fire
darkened save the plumed out stack
bowed-out steam
system
evaporation microanatomy
adhesion, stumps
of cell walls end-to-end fibre forms
under the niddle of machine
streaming silver-blue roofs
trains below trains above
upper tacking texture lines
cracked floor of a dry river tracks
trace along side
nation majorities
idyllic sense of security
minorities pauseless
respect
picking berries on the side of the road; an assertion of sovereignty
_____
dead tree standing sunned and whipped dry
firewood lichen curls kindle
tree taken downtown
dragged carcass
across forest floor to blackened pit
dredge spoils
battle, an extreme form of dialogue
pain embraced by a loud river
ideality acts public out of order
wrested, returns
the mill turns around of its own free will
_____
how the eye loves to rest on the water
determine to supplant the water
purchase a view of the water
taken from the ding
of the docks
looking east, looking west
looking northeast
an interior
view of the Golden Mile
early as a city
from the river, of new homes
to Poplar Island from the River Road
the view looking down the launch ramp
_____
Cecily Nicholson is the administrator of Gallery Gachet and has worked with women of the Downtown Eastside neighbourhood of Vancouver since 2000. Her work, both creative and social, engages conditions of displacement, class, and gender violence. Nicholson is the author of Triage (Talonbooks, 2011) and From the Poplars (Talonbooks, 2014).
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