Company. (4th Annual Poetry Competition Winners).

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 worksongs in
to hollowness. songs like the bones of eagle's wings under
cutting some comer 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. but 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.
gold an earth bone ex
posed. I, the sluice-
shaker, the cash-maker, chasing
money money pounds almightly, singin, workin, spinnin
an alloy pan at the river's side

           good great God Lord, give me strength
     to take another stone up from 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 our 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 cryin 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
               Ephihany Apocrypha Peripeteia
                           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 syncopting 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 through the sluice gate shin-
ing enough
to shape into something resembling something enough
to trade for tokens or tickets to take us someday
good great
God Lord
all the way back where we came from.