Spells for Clear Vision

By Neile Graham

Shortlisted for the 1994 Pat Lowther Award

"I believe in the common magic/ of forests and household godd" writes Neile Graham in "Spells for Clear Vision," the title poem of this volume. And it is a common magic which she works in this poetry of delicate attentions. Graham writes about trying to see clearly, about trying to articulate ways of living in a modern, often blinding world. Meditative, individual and ever-open to the intricate and shifting world around her, Graham's is a pensive and a thoughtful eye. Her poetry thinks through and with sight; it turns on a perceptiveness which is at once sensual and quietly, accessibly, intelletual. How Graham sees her world will alter how we see ours.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brick Books
• Release date: Oct 15, 1994
• ISBN: 9781771312493

Neile Graham

Winnipeg-born Neile Graham was living in British Columbia, Washington State and western Montana while writing Spells for Clear Vision. Her first book, Seven Robins, appeared in 1983. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including Canadian Literature, Calyx, The Dalhousie Review, Descant, Quarry, and Wot.

Book preview

Spells for Clear Vision

June Suckling, May Day 1919, Lake Forest, Illinois

Neile Graham

Spells for Clear Vision

Brick Books

CANADIAN CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA

Graham, Neile

Spells for clear vision

Poems.

ISBN 978-1-771312-49-3

I. Title.

PS8563.R323S74 1994 c811'.54 C94-932639-9

PR9199.3.G73S74 1994

Copyright © Neile Graham, 1994.

The support of the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council is gratefully acknowledged. The support of the Government of Ontario through the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Recreation is also gratefully acknowledged.

Cover is after a painting by Alison Skelton.

Author photo by Gail L. Dubrow.

Brick Books

Box 20081

431 Boler Road

London, Ontario

N6K 4G6

Canada

www.brickbooks.ca

This book is for Jim:

spells for the temple

CONTENTS

I. The Grass She Stands In

Sea Glass From Execution Rock

My Grandmother's Photograph

Palace Hotel, San Francisco, April 15, 1906

My Mother Drumming

My Father Among the Mayans

White Lies

Five Crow Photographs

Crow Girl on Prairie in Elk's Tooth Dress

Aloysius Holds The Enemy (1895-1941)

Crow Girl

Crow Girls Decorating Graves at Custer Battlefield

Four-Pole Crow Burial Scaffold; A Hillside in Spring

Postcard of O'Keeffe

Berlin Dreams

September, New York

Lakeside Inventory

The Limits Undone

II. The Weight of Clear Water

Settled in Montana for Winter

Fool's Gold on the Snow

Swutlak Builds False Spring

Bird at Daybreak

Out of Speech Out of Silence

High Water

Hero at the Gates of Hell

III. The Tree Bursting Alive

Map of Vancouver Island

Three Choices and Old Grasses

Into the Ravine

Saltspring

Beachcombing Along the Pacific Rim

Plum Trees

Washing at Sunset

IV. Against the Certain Grey

Late Night Talking

Thetis Island

Salamander Pendant

Midfire

Shoah

Electra to Orestes: Against the Furies

Spells for Clear Vision

Acknowledgments

I. The Grass She Stands In

‘Sometimes I wish someone reliable would tuck

me into bed and tell me the story of my life.’

William S. Wilson, Birthplace

SEA GLASS FROM EXECUTION ROCK

This is the gift my mother gives –

a hint of vision, chunk of glass

tongued and ground by waves,

tossed onto the rock by

winter tides. This

my mother sees; having walked

across the mudflats to the remains

of Ohiat village to Execution Rock,

she finds this bit of green

with the taste of ocean, some white

man's bottle turned into beauty

by sand and time.

Another gift, the tale of her journey.

She writes Last night was special dark,

dark with all possible stars,

the milky way and quiet.

We were out in a herring skiff

admiring bio luminescence trailing

from paddles and dip nets.…

Stars above and below!

I told her I'd steal those