YOU HAVE TO LOVE THEM ENOUGH TO LET THEM BE WILD

That’s what Steve said
                about the mustangs
                              up on Pryor Mountain –
 
 
no sugar cubes, no carrots
                no coaxing, stroking, gentling
                              no whispering
 
 
no ropes, no tires, no pick up trucks
                no dust storm swing low choppers
                               no Judas horse
 
 
no gathering, no holding pens
                no PZP, no freeze brand
                              no breaking in, no putting down
 
 
no auction block, no slaughterhouse
                no flank strap, no fast track
                              no stockyard, no consignment
 
 
no snaffles, bridles, saddles, spurs
                no blankets, shoes or blinders
                              no rodeo, no latigo, no cincha
 
 
no clipping, combing, currying
                no conchos, braids or bells
                              no ranches, no reata
 
 
no binder twine for breech births
                no ligatures, no doctoring
                              of tears & rends & bites
 
 
no vaccination,  no inoculation
                no sterilization
                               no intervention
 
just bales & bales
                of air
                             seep water, galleta grass
 
 
the animal vegetable mineral
                earth
                              exacting, punishing, available

Kathleen McCracken is the author of eight collections of poetry including Blue Light, Bay and College (Penumbra Press, 1991), which was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for Poetry. A bilingual English/Portuguese edition of her poetry entitled Double Self Portrait with Mirror: New and Selected Poems, and featuring a preface by Medbh McGuckian, was published by the Brazilian press Editora Ex Machina in 2016. She is the recipient of several distinguished poetry prizes in Canada and Ireland, and has held Ontario Arts Council, Poetry Ireland and Northern Ireland Arts Council awards. Kathleen is currently Lecturer in Creative Writing and Contemporary Literature at Ulster University, Northern Ireland.

DIRECTION

​The wishbone though.
Intact and delicate
like a canoe slicing
through the nothingness
that should have been
a heartbeat. Strength
so often gets overlooked
in the pink hour of
dried blood. And so we miss
the open mouth of determination,
the way a foot is lifted not
towards or away from
but against.

BUSHFIRE

There is one road in and out –
mountain to sea and back again.
We take it while we still can,
trail the steady line of traffic
climbing towards a choked sky.
 
Streams only travel in one direction
or dry up in heatwaves such as this.
The temperatures are still rising.
Last night, as the children slept,
we watched light streak across the sky
 
illuminating our shack on the hill –
the back steps built close
to jagged shrubs and grass.
This morning we packed everything
and left, shoved pink flip-flops
 
and beach-balls into the boot,
headed north. We saw flames
above the trees. By nightfall
that road was blistered, nothing
but a scorched leaf-littered underpass,  
 
a net for fiery embers and sparks.
Burning strips of eucalypt bark
leapt from one side of the black lake
to the other. We watch the news,
recognise place names, on digital maps,
 
not meant for tourists. We walked
those beaches where huge groups
gather, waiting for the ferocious fires
to burn themselves out, return again
to ash-dusted patches of land.

​Stephanie Conn is a poet and current PhD Researcher from Northern Ireland. Her first collection The Woman on the Other Side (Doire Press, 2016) was shortlisted for the Shine/Strong Award for Best First Collection. Her pamphlet Copeland’s Daughter (Smith/Doorstep, 2016) won the Poetry Business Poetry Competition. Her most recent collection Island was published by Doire Press in 2018. Stephanie is a multi-award winning poet, including the inaugural Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing. She is the recipient of a range of Arts Council awards and has read her work locally, nationally and internationally. Find out more at https://stephanieconn.org/. Follow @StephanieConn2

IF TINY CRYSTALS FORM CLOSE TO THE EARTH’S SURFACE THEY FORM DIAMOND DUST
 
My antler heart grows hooves.
I follow the lead from the pack.
Find shelter in a drunken forest--
 
what species isn’t at risk.
Insulating properties of snow
keep me warm--
 
trapped air between each flake.
With body heat and earth-transfer heat
my home becomes a snowbank.
 
It’s not the hare’s scream
that haunts,
it’s the antecedent silence.
 


​
 
THE TREES  
 
we fill ourselves up
with slow-banked health
 
push off the not needed
with the growth behind it
 
we tick silent rings
inside our own xylem clocks
 
each wound is sealed
with home-spun adhesive
 
we synthesize sunshine to a flameless fire
we shed to survive     to burn spring green
 
 



INTERSECTIONS  
 
All parts have a line
with never end.
 
Ongoing fury—burns
a shatter zone.
 
Cries by a gate can’t
slip out, they hover.
 
Hold blue in your hands.
Go on, cup sky. This isn’t illusion.
 
The sound of absence is your boat
coming in. The work is in the meadow.
 
It’s hard to put past in a safe place.
Some eyes see, if not birds.
 

 
 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
“If Tiny Crystals Form Close to The Earth’s Surface They Form Diamond Dust” first published in the UK literary journal Stag Hill Literary Journal
“The Trees” first published in the LCP anthology: Heartwood: a League of Canadian Poets Anthology
“Intersections” published in the online UK journal/website Burning House Press  

​Catherine Graham is an award-winning Toronto-based writer. Her sixth poetry collection, The Celery Forest, was named a CBC Best Book of the Year, appears on the CBC Books Ultimate Canadian Poetry List and was a finalist for the Fred Cogswell Award for Excellence in Poetry. Her Red Hair Rises with the Wings of Insect was a finalist for the Raymond Souster Poetry Award and the CAA Poetry Award. Her debut novel Quarry won an Independent Publisher Book Awards gold medal for fiction, “The Very Best!” Book Awards for Best Fiction and was a finalist for the Sarton Women’s Book Award for Contemporary Fiction and the Fred Kerner Book Award. She teaches creative writing at the University of Toronto where she won an Excellence in Teaching Award and is a previous winner of the Toronto International Festival of Authors’ Poetry NOW competition. Æther: an out-of-body lyric will appear in 2020 with Wolsak and Wynn. Visit her at www.catherinegraham.com  Follow her on Instagram and Twitter @catgrahampoet