I Wanted To Say Something
Published: 1975
Place of publication: Prince George, B.C
Language: eng
Description: I WANTED TO SAY SOMETHING

they came to conceive the land as enemy and fought
back with god and muscle and stupidity until the first winters
are thru, then spring and the promise enters again, the natural
cycle of trees beginning to bud and green beneath
the slough in the
                             hollow
                                        (2 years later, 1910, he got his land/changed
                                         beneath his
                                                              hand...

then, the mans task:     horses, plows, and hired strangers-
and the fields stretched
                                         natural before him
                                                                          (the thick soil   the enemy
lying flat
               and indians pushed farther east
by the government:

is all began in innocence:     the old news reels,
the chronicles.     shots of the plow, and
black earth cut deep
                                   thru the grass
                                                           beneath the roots-earth
split in
            furrows
                          a trench for the
seed.

it all begins in innocence:     grand father, mother and brothers, move
along the dawn,
                           the early sweat
                                                     and horses too
as beasts of burden, scraping
                                                   at the earth
with a purpose
                          inside the geometry of how a man conceives the land, all
without art or grace
and all meditation lacking

clarity
Notes: This is a poem written by Barry McKinnon.
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