Pat Lowther

BEFORE THE WRECKER COMES

Before the wreckers come,

Uproot the lily

From the hard angle of earth

By the house.

Crouch by the latticed understairs

Rubbish and neglect

(The sudden lightning

Of sun

On your back

Between the opening

And shutting

Of the March-blown clothesline,

Rise and fall of the swift light

Like blows.)

Here a lifetime's

Slimy soapsuds

Curdle the earth,

In this corner

Under the stairs,

But have not killed

The woodbugs

Nor the moths' pupae

Which brush your fingers

As you dig

For the round, rich root,

The lily root

Which has somehow, senselessly,

Not been killed either

But has grown every year

An astonished babyhood,

An eye-struck Easter.

Pack it among the photographs,

The silver polish,

And the last laundry

Which will not again

Lift and shutter

For the shattering sun.

Mark its container: X

Two intersecting lines,

A lattice point

Of time

And the years' seasons.

Before the wreckers come,

Carry away

The lightning-bulb of sun.

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From: Time Capsule, Polestar 1996, p.201.

RANDOM INTERVIEW


1, the fear

the fear is of everything
staying the way it is
and only i changing


the fear is
of everything changing
and i staying the same


the world expanding
branch tunnel cell
more and more
precious and terrible


while i grow only more
fragile and confused


the fear is my own
hands beating
like moths


my eyelids stuttering
light breaking into
meaningless phrases


the fear is of you
patiently elsewhere growing
a blood shape
of all my wishes


2, i am tired

i am tired of pain
i am tired of my own pain
i am tired of
the pain of others


i am tired of lives
unwinding like a roll
of bloody bandage
i shall roll up
the sky, pinch the sun


i go out to the cliff pours
of stars, the tall
volumes of stars


i go down
to the grains of soil
to bacteria
to viruses
to the neat mechanics of molecules


to escape the pain
to escape the pain


3, what i want


what i want is to be blessed
what i want is a cloak of air


the light entering my lungs
my love entering my body
the blessing descending
like the sky
sliding down the spectrum


what i want is to be
aware of the spaces between stars, to breathe
continuously the sources of sky,
a veined sail moving,
my love never setting
foot to the dark
anvil of earth


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From: Time Capsule, Polestar :1996, p. 242


Pat Lowther, born in 1935 in British Columbia, was once described by fellow poet Anne Marriott as “a poet with an unusual power of perceiving and interpreting small things.” By the age of ten, Lowther was a published poet, her work having appeared in the Vancouver Sun. Her first collection, This Difficult Flowring, was published in 1968, and four more collections followed in the next nine years. In 1974, Lowther became the first chairwoman of the League of Canadian Poets. Lowther disappeared in 1975, and in 1977, her husband, Roy Lowther, was charged with her murder. Many of her fellow poets wrote tributes to Lowther on her death, including Elizabeth Brewster's “For Pat Lowther.” In 1980, the Pat Lowther Award was established by the League of Canadian Poets; this prize is awarded annually to a Canadian woman poet for a best new collection.