CITIZENSHIP

 
Leigh Matthews
 
 
Heritage

Swim
Swim in the oily water.
Part the reeds,
Try,
try to get back home.

Cloying fibrous morass.
Fight.
Fight.
Part the reeds,
Take flight.
Take it,
Land across the water.
The time, having flown with you,
remains unchanged.
There is nothing new here.
Nothing untouched.

Cat’s tail.
Bullrush.
Sound out the words at the
water’s edge.
Give way to grasses
Overrun.
Hold water,
Red Osler.
Hold onto the land
your roots.
Reclaim,
Reclaim,
The seeds of your ancestors
Hardy
Hard
Small
Smaller
Scatter them.
Look for signs of change to come.



Bearing

At the trestle bridge, turn right.
Walk past what remains of
the concrete foundation.
The old sawmill.
1912. Stump-surrounded. Ghost of trees.

When you come to the fork, do not
take the left
path.
(This is an old trail.)
Abandoned now. Unmarked.
Overgrown.
It leads you
To the
water’s edge.

As you pass a large burnt tree
(struck by lightning; a lesson), follow
the trail
downhill.
You will come to an old creek bed. The water
gone.
Diverted far upstream.
Feeding the outcrop
of hillside houses
and their infinity pools.

Be cautious when you reach the summit.
The rocks are loose.
The ravens cunning.
They will watch you take in the view, then take your lunch,
Your glasses, your keys.
They will remind you that this place is theirs,
And, while you look out across the city you call yours,
they will quietly remove all your markers home.

 

Hiraeth

I am reconciled to you
An absence
A nostalgia for a there that never was.

“You’re in denial,” you say.
I let the joke splash into the space between here and there,
Try not to make the heaviness light.

“You don’t have to leave to make this home,” you say,
And I know it is true, because this is not home.
But I do not say as much. Not to you. Not this time.

Instead, I tell you,
“Sometimes I have to look at what I have from afar
To make it seem like it is there at all.”

You nod and smile and hold my hand loosely, like always.
I wish myself far, far away from you, so I can come back one day
Confident that I can let you go.

Hiraeth.
A heterotopia.
A home built on time and distance.
Its architecture beautifully flawed.

 

 

Citizenship

Please hold.
Use black ink only.
Sign inside the lines.

Entry to Canada.
May 2nd 2010 – Ca, AI, PE Trudeau.

July 2st 2010 – 1836 Pacific Highway.
Flagpole, follow the painted footprints.
Stand in line with the cars. Stamp. Smile.

July 14th 2011 – 1836 Pacific Highway.
Don’t smile. White background.
Flagpole.
Sit in the car, drive around, flagpole.

September 7th 2012 – 1836 Pacific Highway
Don’t smile. Grey background.
3mm border.
Permanence. Smile.

Jan 25th 2015 – Use black ink only.
Sign inside the lines. Wait.

Wait.
Wait.
Please hold.

 

 

Home

“It’ll come to grief,” the man said,
“You mark my words.
I know about such things.”

His mouth closed, a hard carved pebble.
His eyes dipped, pools of pain half in the shadow of age.

“This ground.
This island.

“All here before you arrived.
Before you decided to leave.
You’re not all that you know.
You just wait.

“The second your feet get wet
You’ll peel right back home,” he said,

Not knowing I had already pared down home to a smile
Unbound.