Green Canoe by Mark Halliday

Green Canoe

If I were sitting in a green canoe on a hot morning
having drifted gently into an odorous swamp, alone
with the speckled gross density of yellow-green slime
all around me and the sun on my head
I might then say
"It's not about books"
aloud to the plants and the muck and a swimming frog
"It's not about books"
with the sun on my head and shoulders and the world
odorous and its oeuvre oozing and green
and my saying so then might be very beautiful -

but no one would hear it -
no one would keep it -
my voice washing instantly into lost molecules in the
warm air over the swamp -
I could speak again "It's finally not
about books" but still no one hearing it
and less beautiful now,

my hand tightening cautiously on the paddle

***

by Mark Halliday

Mark Halliday Reads Three of His Favorite Poems
Poetry Online
Wired for Books

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