“Arguments for safe passage” by Michael Mirolla
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Arguments for safe passage” by Michael Mirolla, first published in Poetry Pause in June 2020.
Arguments for safe passage
By Michael Mirolla
“Slender reeds whistling like autumn
stiff, arthritic in their old age
brittle backs snapping in the wind
feet puddled in murky water, fluff
exploding in hopes of reproduction.”
Is that any way to start a poem
in the quest for contemporary vibes?
Since when have puff balls contributed
to the betterment of humankind?
Or a willow shedding tears brought
gain to the electric marketplace?
Without the basinet afloat on its surface
you ask: why is the river even there?
Can a snake-necked swan crush stone
into powder for brick and mortar?
Can a mountainside in bloom
bring the slave/sex trade to a halt?
Can the seaweed’s dancing fronds
save an abandoned child from drowning?
On the other hand, has
a pond ripple under moonlight
ever molested anyone? Stood by
as a military dictator bombed
recalcitrant stadia? Unleashed
weapons to spread disease? Hacked software
for corrupting nuclear centrifuges?
“An aching tree leans into the wind
craggy body cradling tender limbs
lost hearts scratched into bleeding bark.”
Next, you’re going to tell me how wandering
lonely as a – don’t say it – will wash away
the sludge of sexual assault, grubbiness
turned inside out to reveal unctuous
poison clinging to systemic matrix.
The space so manufactured it feels as if
some other species has stolen into us
during the night. Has hollowed us out
like a phalanx of body-snatching wasps:
simulacra marching towards an event
horizon to debrief our humanity.
“A broken reed rushes down a mountain stream
writing itself in the swirling waters:
I am creation so watch me bleed
I am this poem so watch me glow
I am the present so watch me vanish.”
Copyright © Michael Mirolla
Previously published in At the End of the World (Black Moss Press 2021). First appeared in Poetry Pause on June 9, 2020.
The author of a clutch of novels, plays, film scripts and short story and poetry collections, MICHAEL MIROLLA’s publications include a novella, The Last News Vendor, winner of the 2020 Hamilton Literary Award for fiction, as well as three Bressani Prizes: the novel Berlin (2010); the poetry collection The House on 14th Avenue (2014); and the short story collection Lessons in Relationship Dyads (2016). His latest poetry collection, At the End of the World, was short-listed for the 2022 Hamilton Literary Award. In the fall of 2019, Michael served a three-month writer’s residency at the Historic Joy Kogawa House, during which time he finished the first draft of a novel, The Second Law of Thermodynamics. A symposium on Michael’s writing was held in Toronto on May 25, 2023. In September of 2023, Michael took part in a writers’ residency in Olot, Catalonia where he completed the latest draft of his novella, How About This …? In July 2024, Michael will participate in another writers’ residency near Barcelona. Born in Italy and growing up in Montreal, Michael now makes his home outside the town of Gananoque in the Thousand Islands area of Ontario.
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