I raise my axe by Robert Girvan

July 18, 2023
Poem title: I Raise My Axe Poet name: Robert Girvan Poem: I raise my axe against the night. The air is like gaseous crystal. I’m drunk on pine needles and smoke. The living lake is two feet down except the square I’ve kept open. Like dead fish, stars fall on black-gray ice. The axe strikes badly with a thud. Then, the rhythm found, the cuts are deepening now. I’m through with a crack. I cut and clear, warming now to the task while smoke rises from the hut of words, wood, stone. I stop in awe: stars swim in black water. And the bright moon plays like an otter. End of poem. Credits and bio: Copyright © Robert Girvan Robert Girvan has published poetry with the League of Canadian Poets and in two anthologies: Fear of Others: Artists Against Racism (1989) and Poems in Response to Peril (2022). He has also published the non-fiction book, Who Speaks for the River?, essays such as “Searching Cézanne’s Provence” in the journal of arts and literature The Goose, and has published book reviews in such places as the Literary Review of Canada and the Globe and Mail. He has written a lyrical novel, “The Last Painting of Paul Cézanne.” Girvan lives in Toronto.