Company British Columbia, 1858.

Company
British Columbia, 1858.

   this land
   is the company's own
   ed, paid for. I wander it.
   prospecting, guessing, divining ground, counting
   days till
   this transforms to home. In

   my holy ghostly breath, I whisper fissured work songs in
   to hollowness, songs like the bones of eagle's wings under
   cutting some corner of blue. wings
   like spades cutting, under
   wind and blue. in the in
   terior, prospecting, guessing, cutting, carrying
   pieces back to Victoria where
   wood clapped

   together makes side
   'walks, creaking, sounding
   like scars, my boots cracking
   in the half-made streets, tacking
   from saloon to general store, mud caking,
   British Columbia itself flushed, hardening,
   shaping, they call

   the HBC cash 'script' you can ex
   change it for bottled destiny, ships in
   side or sin
   sold by the shot. bottle of hot
   white
   gin. bottle that could be chopped, used
   for.slide guitar, turned
   to wailing, bur ain't. I
   just shuffle on in
   to the in
   terior again, an emptier of earth, shovelling,
   this my dusty bustle, a dirt rustler, three cards face

   down, I shuffle
   script for bread, breath, heart, preciousness.
   an earth bone ex
   posed. I, the sluiceshaker,
   the cash-maker, chasing
   money money pounds almighty, singin, workin, spinnin
   an alloy pan at the river's side

   good great God Lord give me strength
   to take another stone upfrom the well of stones.
   Good great God Lord give me strength
   to take my heart on home someday.
   panning, like a fool, for Pangaea, hymning
   church on Sunday, next to the white folks
   canon-shaped choruses, Anglican-cold.
   church on Sunday, nuggets of wisdom.
   church on Sunday niggers of gold

   while all I wish there was was some
   one good enough to preach me up
   one wailing stone to take me, take me, take me,
   make me be
   lieve, amen on into Psalm 137, every time I hear the word
   or lift a rock out of this here heaven,
   I cave and break
   down with desire for some
   familiar some
   thing in my ear, faces
   I can hear. y'hear? always
   all I wish there was was some
   one good enough to perch me
   here. cutting the solitaire preaching
   I would cry
   If I was the crying kind
   I would sigh
   If I was the sighin kind
   just what kind of kind I am
   no man
   ever can
   signify

   never
   really been in the in
   side, but my woman says we peopling.
   she say, 'calling one down.' way she walk
   say gonna be a girl, so we set to name her
   proud, gonna name her
   nine names, gonna make it
   sound like singing
   when she get called
   in from playing

   Babylonia Camarilla
   Indigo Ellie Amaranth Sam
   Ephiphany Apocrypha Peripepeteia
   Smith

   'BC' for short. We

   seeking nothing but unpicked-over dreams,
   a seat in the pew,
   a psalm or two in palm,
   a seat up close
   to whatever show is rolling along,
   and if the chorus got no soul
   we'll get by on the creak
   of the floor boards.
   syncopate it in our minds
   cause we the syncopating kind

   and shufflers of all kinds of dust.
   we are shufflers of all kinds of dust.
   my woman beats another house's rugs.
   we are movers, we are makers, we are par
   takers of the good great God Lord's everlasting synthesis
   of particles and articles,
   articulations of chapter,
   chant,
   verse,
   reverse,
   sluice,
   deuteronomy,
   duty,
   allegiance to
   whichever union shuffles us some
   thing resembling justice
   my daughter's mother beats the settled dust from out the rugs
   of others'
   houses.
   dashing.
   dashing.
   we are people of the dash, and I,
   my church;
   founded on the dashing stones.

   whichever pieces make their way &sough the sluice gate shining
   enough
   to shape into something resembling something enough
   to made for tokens or rickets to rake us someday
   good great
   God Lord
   all the way back where we came from.