'March Day: Windy' by Charles Bruce

Verse for the new month by Charles Bruce, the pride of Port Shoreham, Nova Scotia. 'March Day: Windy' is one of twenty-four poems collected in The Mulgrave Road (Toronto: Macmillan, 1951), winner of the 1951 Governor General's Award for Poetry.

MARCH DAY: WIND

         This day you wonder, finding nowhere quite

         What you expect to find. The strident air

         Surrounds you like a sea of sweeping light;

         The hills and fields return you stare for stare 

         Humpbacked and grim, the giant juniper

         Bows down to scowl; across the crawling grass

         Beyond, where the twin Balm o' Gileads were,

         Two strangers halt and stiffen as you pass. 

         Something is altered here. The difference

         Between you and the blowing world is thinned.

         You turn to face the house, and common sense,

         And see a woman shouldering the wind. 

         Turn to the barn, and see an old man leaning,

         Intent to hear those droning syllables—

         Those phrases harsh and high, and wild with meaning.

         Of shouted sound from granite-throated hills.

Related post:

'March, 1918' by H.C. Mason

Hard Copy

Mention here is a bit late, but not so much that one can't pick up a copy as a last minute stocking stuffer. The new issue of Canadian Notes and Queries features the debut of The Dusty Bookcase on paper. Subject? Nothing less than John Glassco's most intricate piece of hoaxery: The Temple of Pederasty. Banned in Canada, pulped in the United States, its history is one involving deception, forgery, plagiarism, smuggling and a cold government bureaucrat.

I'll say no more except to point out that the very same issue features a very fine piece by Zachariah Wells' on The Mulgrave Road, Harry Bruce's 1951 collection of verse.

Neglected, not suppressed.