Dying In

Peter Dale Scott
From:   Berkeley Poetry Review, 11-12 (Fall 1981-Winter 1982), 88; Murmur of the Stars: Selected Shorter Poems. Montreal: Vehicule Press, 1994, 61; published in U.S. as Crossing Borders: Selected Shorter Poems. New York: New Directions, 1994, 55. Also in Michael Harris (ed.) The Signal Anthology: Contemporary Canadian Poetry. Montreal: Vehicule Press, 1993, 291.

dying on the grass
in front of the chancellor's building
for Charlie Schwartz's anti-weapons protest

brings back confused
memories of the wartime sixties
hitting the dirt before we realized

these were just wooden bullets
and then walking back through tear gas
to teach a class

lying here
and watching the neutral passers-by
scale the vertical asphalt

I feel neither
the old embarrassment at being
at right angles to most people

with brief-cases
nor, and this is the spooky part
that steam of comprehending anger

only the warm
smell of the grass beside my nose
saying, come back here every now and then

Poem 1 | Poem 2 | Poem 3 | Poem 4 | Poem 5 | Poem 6

Peter Dale Scott's works copyright © to the author.