Dead Stop by Carole Glasser Langille

May 3, 2022

Poem Title: Dead Stop Poet name: Carole Glasser Langille Poem: “I loved my own way, not yours, but it was a truant’s freedom that I loved.” –Saint Augustine, Confessions Book 3, Section 3 A stingray swam past once. I’d gone to swim at dusk. Stingrays plunge deep into ocean, flying like birds, flowing like waves. From below they increase speed and leap from water. But first, in the dark, they rest. Stillness, silence: forces that bring what is separate together. Darkness, do you need me? Deeper the silence more riveting the disclosure, silence moving like a wave and like sand. Some days I’m desperate to talk. Then silence finds me. The Ocean. Silence. What else tells us so clearly we’re more than were are. When we’re alive, stopping stops. We build up speed to leap from water. When we’re no longer here— catch a glimpse foreshadowed in the deepest quiet — stopping begins again. End of poem. Credits and bio: Copyright © Carole Glasser Langille Carole Glasser Langille is the author of 5 books of poetry, 2 collections of short stories, the non-fiction book Doing Time, about giving writing workshops in prison, and 2 children’s books. She has been nominated for The Governor General’s Award in poetry, the Atlantic Poetry Prize and the Alistair MacLeod Award for short fiction. Her publications include Your Turn, (poetry) Mansfield Press, December 2021, Doing Time, (nonfiction) Pottersfield Press, December 2019, I Am What I Am Because You Are What You Are, (linked short stories) Gaspereau Press ,Oct. 2015, Church of the Exquisite Panic: The Ophelia Poems, Pedlar Press, Toronto , Fall 2012, When I Always Wanted Something (Short Stories) Mercury Press, Toronto, Ontario, Fall 2008, Late In A Slow Time (Poetry) Mansfield Press, Toronto, Ont., Spring 2003, In Cannon Cave (Poetry) Brick Books, London, Ontario 1997, All That Glitters in Water (Poetry) New Poetry Series, Baltimore, Maryland 1990, Interview With A Stick Collector (Children’s Book) Roseway Publishing, Lockeport, 2004, Where the Wind Sleeps (Children’s Book) Roseway Publishing, Lockeport, Nova Scotia 1996.