“poem” broadside #345 : “FALLS” by Claire Farley

What is a year in terms of falling water?

– Muriel Rukeyser

Nothing but lumber

falls dammed & city rezoned

material obstacle

to the flow of cars

For 10,000 years

this sacred pipe

is “river” now

open the viewer to zoom in

40,000 on the grid

I break it down in sections

who opposes & who supports

pavement or asbestos 

buried turbines

on contaminated soil

(preferred hire to stem

the flow Indigenous)

In the 1930s, Rukeyser

wrote hydro & silicosis

    All power is saved, having no end    

                                        

Water celebrates, yielding continually

         sheeted and fast in its overfall

now the green season is 

commerce, condos—

sometimes someone

chooses because

                            falling, the water sheet

    White brilliant function of land’s disease

another by-law

turns land industry

turns Crown municipal

duty to consult

cannot be delegated

to third parties

another resolution

whereas;

FALLS, by Claire Farley

produced in part as a handout during the fifth

Arc Poetry Walk, curated and hosted by rob mclennan, walking around Hintonburg, November 9, 2018

above/ground press broadside #345

Claire Farley is a doctoral candidate in the Department of English at the University of Ottawa and co-founder of Canthius, a feminist literary magazine. Her poetry has been published in several Canadian literary magazines and in 30 under 30: An Anthology of Canadian Millennial Poets. She is the 2016 recipient of the Diana Brebner Prize.