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CBC LITERARY AWARDS

Second Prize
Poetry

AMAZONIA   (p. 3 of 3)

1   |   2   |   3   |   AUG '04

AT ILHA DA FAZENDA

The fazenda farmhouse is tacked to the riverbank opposite.
Last night the quarter moon rose, lifting it into the sky.

Plotting tribal wars or hegemony, after midnight
the howler monkeys shout orders back and forth across the river.

All morning the river rocks suck up heat
through the jade green straws of the reeds.

Grateful for the summer clouds, the afternoon
inside the afternoon, nodding in its blue sheets.

I kindle all day, building up my little heat.
By day’s end I’m a torch; I quench my flames in riverwater.

Moon splashed, the iguana dreams in its tree,
lightning puckers the rucked sky to the east.

Bats hustle insects in the afterglow;
the oatmeal sand looses its heat, as I loose mine.

Saturday night, stars shined up, Kid Abelha on the
stereo…fish bones on the shore.

THREE POEMS FOR THE RIO XINGÚ

I

All day at the river’s lip
looking out at the procession of grey rocks
with bowed heads, gliding millennium by millennium
out into the depths

and the heavy women, muscled Zuñiga sculptures
climbing up out of the water,
on their heads, washing in glinting metal tubs,

basalt-black hair like swallows’ wings
curved down their bronze backs.

At times what the eye can see
the heart misses completely–so the green breast
of a hill across the cobalt slash of the Xingú

shorn of its primary forest
is filled with the plaintive cries of grasses
and the palms shine on
in the glaze and dazzle of noon,

the moon-white cattle wade
up to their thickened waists
in the resinous light.

II

Late afternoon the iguana, its copper-coloured wings
folded, ventures head first
down the tapereba tree.

I’ve seen its strange tracks all along the beach, heedless.

I look over at the people by the river

and am sure its days are numbered
as are mine. I lean back
into the palm’s deep pool of darkness
and begin to count…

III

Magellanic Cloud vamping in sequins tonight
Mars in its tall crimson hat, both doubled
in the black looking-glass of the river.

Under the guava tree
in the shimmering air, creatures pass by and vanish:
a pair of guinea fowl
in best grey dress, a large turkey,

a restless, handsome brown horse, and then
the night-pelt of the shy tapir
I’d been dreaming of. I arise and stroll
partway with them,

beneath the yellow breath of the ipé trees

as the stars flow west, the river east

and then dawn in its white scarves arrives
I board a boat and am carried away,
my heavy heart and I, into another year.

YELLOW DOG

Nightlong in my dream
a small dog, a yellow scrap, really,
ran beside me, never tiring

And then I awoke in Santarém
spent the morning along the river
never tiring

I put out my hand for him to lick
as anyone would
little golden tongue unfurled

Never tiring, ran beside me, really,
yellow scrap of a dog
in my dream nightlong    [ ]

Jan Conn has written five books of poetry, including Beauties on Mad River (Véhicle Press, 2000). A research scientist in the U.S., she is currently working on a manuscript of poems called
The Flower Carriers.

Brenda Christiansen recently graduated in fine arts from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Her art creates an impression of reality, where the goal is to "transform, not transfer."

Members of the Jury

Winner of the 1969 Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry, George Bowering is Canada’s first poet laureate.
Poet, novelist and essayist Dionne Brand’s most recent volume, Thirsty, won the 2003 Pat Lowther Award for poetry.
Among her numerous books, P.K. Page’s Planet Earth: Poems Selected and New was recently shortlisted for the 2003 Griffin Poetry Prize.

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