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Covid Art by Susan McCaslin

By League of Canadian Poets | February 16, 2022
Poem name: Covid Art Poet name: Susan McCaslin Poem begins: Through smoke of particulate air a woman no longer young steps into the bathroom shower shampoos her shoulder-length hair strands of which fall to the drain threatening to clog the pipes Bending to gather the wisps in her hands she slides them on the shower’s wall where they rest and curl line drawings magical patterns Matisse-like minimalist sketches formed as from a collusion of hair and foam: a skeletal dancer with dervish pelvis a mermaid’s torso floating on a bed of seaweed a figure kneeling head a perfect circle her gown a drapery becoming a forking river where a swan floats above a swimming child Happenstance and design collide in a tableau half-made half-given The woman wraps the hairs in a tissue consigns them to the wastebasket as would a Buddhist monk a sand mandala to the sea End of poem. Credits: Copyright © Susan McCaslin Susan McCaslin is a BC poet residing outside Fort Langley, BC who has published sixteen volumes of poetry, including her most recent, Heart Work (Ekstasis Editions, 2020). A chapbook, Cosmic Egg, came out through the Alfred Gustav Press in 2021. Since retiring from teaching English and Creative Writing at Douglas College in 2007, Susan has been receiving and crafting poems, giving poetry readings, offering poetry workshops, mentoring younger writers, editing an anthology on birds, and editing a volume of the posthumous poems of E.D. Blodgett. When not writing, reading, dreaming, or being with family, Susan can be found practicing yoga or walking with her dog Rosie along the Fraser River, better known to the Kwantlen First Nations as the Stó:lō. Susan initiated the Han Shan Poetry Project in 2012, which helped save an endangered forest in Glen Valley near her home.
Posted in 2022, Poetry Pause
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