VARIATIONS ON LINES FROM A CANADIAN POET

I needed a genre for the times I go phantom. I needed a genre to rampage Liberty, haunt the foul freedom of silence. I needed a genre to pry loose Liberty from an impacted marriage with the soil. I needed a genre to gloss my ancestress’ complicity. . . .

—Lisa Robertson, XEclogue (1993)

I need a gloss for the silence implicit in my legacy

for phantom Liberty standing bridal at my harbor

I need a gauze to slow the hemorrhaging of my history

I need an ancestor complicit in my undercover prying

I need soil that whirls and spirals upward somewhere else

I need dustbowl, sand dune, dustdevils for roots

I need the border-crossing eye of a tornado

I need an ancestor fleeing into Canada

to rampage freedom there or keep on fleeing

to keep on fleeing or invent a genre

to distemper ideology

2002