Corridors

A week in the life
of a poem
has words racing by knowing’s edge.
Phrases creep
over the dawn of logic.
Suspended, then gone
with propriety categories
and other men’s smallness.

In corridors dull, insensate.

What do they know
of journeys through wind, sea and thorns
to totems unseen?
Whose bodies, my breath and life,
know the flood of peace and fury
that hawks, saints and wizards invoke.
To lure a leap of joy from her -

The Muse.

Commands pause,
merely descending to
hubris of mind,
imagery of unknown breath of sound.
Waiting wondrous so long for cracks
within facades order
to crumble.
Then may she grant life
to a poem.

Carleton University
Ottawa, 1980