POETRY: CATHERINE GRAHAM

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 reading at Extinction Rebellion Toronto's TIFF Party Climate Crisis Reading, September 7, 2019.

​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