Before leaving Al Purdy’s Selected Poems 1962-1996 I wanted to touch on a perhaps more traditional, more poetical poem called:

ON THE FLOOD PLAIN

Midnight:
it’s freezing on the lake
and wind whips ice eastward
but most of the water remains open
—and stars visit earth
tumbled about like floating candles
on the black tumulus
then wind extinguishes the silver fire
but more flash down
and even those reflections reflect
on the side of waves
even the star’s reflections reflect stars

Ice:
far older than the earth
primordial as the Big Bang
—cold unmeasured by Celsius and Fahrenheit
quarreling about it on a Jurassic shingle
—before Pangaea and Gondwanaland
arrive here in the 20th century
born like a baby
under the flashlight beam
Bend down and examine the monster
and freeze for your pains
—tiny oblong crystals
seem to come from nowhere
little transparent piano keys
that go tinkle tinkle tinkle
while the wind screams
—and you feel like some shivering hey
presto god grumbling at his fucked-up weather
hurry indoors hurry indoors to heaven

People have told us we built too near the lake
“The flood plain is dangerous�? they said
and no doubt they know more about it than we do
—but here wind pressed down on new-formed ice
trembles it like some just-invented musical instrument
and that shrieking obligato to winter
sounds like the tension in a stretched worm
when the robin has it hauled halfway out of the lawn
I stand outside
between house and outhouse
feeling my body stiffen in fossilized rigor mortis
and listening
thinking
this is the reason we built on the flood plain
damn right
the seriousness of things beyond your understanding

Whatever I have not discovered and enjoyed
is still waiting for me
and there will be time
but now are these floating stars on the freezing lake
and music fills the darkness
holds me there listening
—it’s a matter of separating these instants from others
that have no significance
so that they keep reflecting each other
a way to live and contain eternity
in which the moment is altered and expanded
my consciousness hung like a great silver metronome
suspended between stars
on the dark lake
and time pours itself into my cupped hands shimmering

Personally, this Romantic view of the world is much closer to my view of the world than the earlier “At the Quinte Hotel” I cited because, unless you count the time I had to be dragged away from the drunken sergeant asserting how much he really want to go to Vietnam with us while bragging about his heroic exploits in the Korean War, I’ve never been in a bar fight and have, actually, assiduously avoided them since heading off to college and finding better ways of asserting my manhood.

I’ve enjoyed moments precisely like this while out cross country skiing, moments when my cheekbones ache and eyes water while fighting my way across a wind-blown clearing, simultaneously admiring the ferocity of the storm and wondering why the hell I keep exposing myself to such pain.

There is something in nature I constantly use to gauge myself, even though in the end I always find myself lacking, and find new strength in that lacking.

If you’re interested in reading an even more traditional reading of this traditional poem, you can find an interesting academic analysis of it here