“Old Age to Me,” by Mona Gould

Gould, Mona. “Old Age to Me.” “Lives Lived: Mona McTavish Gould.” Obituary. By Maria Gould.

I am not sure where this obituary was originally published, but it is reprinted in Maria (Gould) Meindl’s Outside the Box: The Life and Legacy of Mona Gould, the Grandmother I Thought I Knew (Montreal, QC & Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s UP, 2011).

Old Age to Me

Old age is not descent
It is Everest.
It is the essence of trees
Without leaves
Stripped down—
The beautiful skeleton of design.

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“Winter Trees,” by Ada Strachan

Strachan, Ada. “Winter Trees.” Hepaticas in Spring. Author, 1935. 5.

This is such an attractive little chapbook, I had to scan in a few of the poems. I wish I could capture the texture of the soft suede-like paper cover; it is a delight to hold.

Winter Trees

“Sunset Scene,” by Pamela Vining Yule

Vining, Pamela S. “Sunset Scene.” Selections from Canadian Poets: With Occasional Critical and Biographical Notes, and an Introductory Essay on Canadian Poetry. Ed. Edward Hartley Dewart. [Montreal], 1864. 134.

“The Watcher,” by Helen Mar Johnson

Johnson, Helen M. “The Watcher.” Selections from Canadian Poets: With Occasional Critical and Biographical Notes, and an Introductory Essay on Canadian Poetry. Ed. Edward Hartley Dewart. [Montreal], 1864. 153-54.

“Sea Sand,” by Elizabeth Donaldson

Donaldson, Elizabeth. “Sea Sand.” Canadian Poetry Magazine 2.3 (1937): 40.

Now that we know her identity, I am wondering about Elizabeth Donaldson’s education. She certainly had a fascination for the physical sciences: geology, astronomy, meteorology…

Sea Sand

Crushed by the footsteps of a million years,
These yellow sands yield slowly to the dust,
They that had once beneath the shining spheres
Shaped granite mountains on the earth’s bare crust.
Molten were they, in chaos wildly torn,
Throughout the travail of a world new-born.

And now the great waves wash their pebbled thrones,
Leaving no record of the ageless past,
They lie quiescent in their sheltered zones
Beneath the turbulence of waters vast.
They know the forces of the winds unfurled,
And tides that sweep the shore-lines of the world.

“Glimpse,” by Floris Clark McLaren

McLaren, Floris Clark. “Glimpse.” Canadian Poetry Magazine 1.1 (1936): 23.

This poem has a suggestion of the magical imagery of Kenneth Leslie’s By Stubborn Stars…

Glimpse

Against the blue of spruce, and the gray
Of bare-boughed poplar, suddenly
As though a snowdrift burst in scattering fragments,
Ptarmigan rise with heavy whir of wings,
Show for a moment clear among the branches,
Then disappear,
White lost on white again.

“November,” by Florence Deacon Black

Black, Florence Deacon. “November.” Canadian Magazine 56 (1920): 52.

November

The year is dead,
Growth and achievement are done,
Like a fair young woman
Lying coffined,
Her gold-haired youth and energy awaste,
So lies this splendid desolation.

The empty trees stand clear
Against the drifting clouds,
Their gold, rustling underfoot,
Stirs in the questioning airs.
Soon, soon this sunshine too
Will die away,
And winter come.

“Dissection,” by Anne Wilkinson

Wilkinson, Anne. “Dissection.” Canadian Poetry Magazine 11.2 (1947): 39-40.

Dissection

We crawl through craniums; stare
Beneath the bone at spasms; redden
At the grey twitched ultimatums;
We touch the guilty puddle where the nerve roots
Launch their tippy boats to shoot the heart;
Observe which curled inch
Controls the meadow of the hand, which pipe
Dictates the course of sewers in our city.
We clock the ragged pulse
That hammers out our imagery, unravel
Every sleeping snake
And travel to the threshold of its sting.
And while we squint to focus microscopes,
Dissect each bleeding head,
Sun bursts in splendor from a bloody skull,
And angel shedding glory, come to free
The puppet dangled from a mildewed coil.

“In a Library,” by Floris Clark McLaren

McLaren, Floris Clark. “In a Library.” Canadian Poetry Magazine 10.2 (1946): 23.

In a Library

Groping among the stones of this dry land-
scape where the fossil printed bones
re-state enigma, where the delicate shell
rests on the mountain, where the tawny hills
tomb the lost people, and the plaque of clay
outlasts the living artery and cell

explore the legend, while the street outside
fills with the rising voices; while the time
builds its own scaffold, mounting self-impelled
becomes its own destroyer; and the slow
pressure of history hardens in the stones
another age recorded in its bones.

“To My Canary,” by Mary Ann Bucham

Bucham, Mary Ann. “To My Canary.” Memories and Other Poems. Toronto: Briggs, 1905. 68-69.

I am just now trying to find biographical information on this author. I have found a Mary Ann Bucham of the right era, who lists herself on census forms as born both in England and in Guelph, Ontario, in 1840 or 1841. 23 April seems to be a firm birthdate. I know the author lived in Toronto.  It is troubling, though, because I know there was at least one other Mary Bucham living in Ontario at the same time… I wish there were a way to know I have found the right one. At any rate, our Mary Ann Bucham wrote a poem that speaks to the weather in Vancouver today—if only in passing—so I thought I would include it.

To My Canary