Dr Rienzi Crusz was born in Sri Lanka, and immigrated to Canada in 1965 and is a Canadian citizen; He has a B.A. from the University of Ceylon, a B.L.S. from the University of Toronto, and an M.A. from Waterloo. Dr Crusz is Senior Reference and Collections Development Librarian at the University of Waterloo. His next book (by the same title of the poem will be out in the Spring of 1992
The Rain Doesn’t Know Me Anymore
December 1991 / January 1992
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I, who for so long,
shaped the forgotten metaphor:
curved tusks, howdah
and mahout of elephant.
Who splashed the Bird of Paradise
against a cemetery of cars,
sought the root in cabook earth,
the dream that meandered, got lost
in an orgasm of blood.
I, who held the palm-tree’s silhouette
against the going sun, a woman,
a child long enough
to divide a continent,
have new revelations:
I have circled the sun.
The white marshmallow land is now mine,
conquered, cussed upon,
loved.
Look at this other dreaming face,
these new muscles, tempered bones,
black eyes blue
with a new landscape, legs
dancing the white slopes like a dervish.
Against paddy-bird havocking in tall grass,
bluejay raucous, cardinals
the colour of blood.
For the slow deep rhythms
of the home-coming catamaran,
747 screaming,
wounding the night like a spear.
The monsoon rain
doesn’t know me any more:
I am snow-bank child, bundled,
with snot under my nose,
white fluff magic in both hands.
Once, rice and curry, passiona juice,
now, hot dogs and fries,
Black Forest Ham on Rye.
So what’s the essential story?
Nothing but a journey done,
a horizon that would never stand still.
(with acknowledgement to Toronto South Asian Review, with kind permission from the poet)
Boy and Bird
April / May 1992
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
On Galle Face Green,
promenade that stares
with a thousand black eyes
at the Indian Sea,
I fly the red owl with ochre beak,
my kite
balanced and engineered
on this bamboo bones.
Blue ozone
shovels my hair,
fills up my lungs
like a red sail, lifts
my delicate dream
over a bank of cloud.
Still
and staring
on its blue sky tree,
my owl
sends messages
like Wakamba telegraph
on the pulsing twine,
tugs to soar
into moon country.
O owl bird,
I have no way
to feed your dream
beyond the sky-line:
a shaking old man
has cut my dream, your wings
to a meticulous ounce
of nylon thread,
pinned my feet
to soft grass,
crowded my eyes
with a forest of probing faces
and warns: soon the sun
will sag behind your back,
like wind flag
like the muscles
you’ll wear by evening.
Summer at Waterloo Park
June / July 1992
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
This day
was unlike any other day.
The sun went wild,
shook the grey morning
by the scruff of its neck
and cracked the lingering
winter crystals from my eyes
to a yellow pantomime
of summer people.
There was Lisa,
the pink girl with sun hair,
choking on a blue popsicle;
And Patsy’s brown baby
strapped the sun on her back
and bounced
into the round wading pool
with sparrow wings
and duckling feet;
a hush of narrowed eyes,
as Mrs Donowa’s daughter
shivered the diving board
with velvet heels
and stemmed like a sun-flower
of olive flesh
to the waiting sun;
Old Mr Rogers was still alive,
and seemed to climb down slowly
from palaces of distant eyes
to green bikini earth;
even Mrs Jones could not be kept out
on a day like this:
she ambled like a pink elephant,
sipping soda through a straw
and thrusting the years
with cracked skin
and redundant muscle.
On the far side,
the old greying park-bench
bloomed to the boiled sweating faces
of Mr McIver’s family,
their russet mounds
of hot-dogs, ketchup, and drumstick chicken
fast disappearing
under their red mouths.
The robins weren’t there.
with acknowledgement to Malahat Review.
Correcting printing errors in “Boy and Bird”:
line 8 should read: on thin bamboo bones.
line 38 should read: the wind flag
acknowledgement to : Quarry.
(with acknowledgement to Avarry, by permission of the author)
Elegy for the Sun-Man’s Children going
(for Daphne, Maria, John)
September 1992
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
How he plunged bravely
from sun to snow,
shaped a perfect idiom
from the sculpture of ice,
the elephant’s tooth,
the breath of his sun children
but never stepped out of the womb
Time ran his fingers
thro their spring-rained hair,
saw their small bodies burgeon
like new grass, fashion words
from the puberty of a season;
And June broke cottage carnival,
their sun
spun headily on a frisbee,
love on the shuttle-cock’s nose,
the barbecue ripening like summer fruit;
And he shared their days
of shedding leaves,
winter’s cruel gaucherie,
a stylish log-fire
in his rice, and curry, and heart.
But the road that forked
like a divided vein,
took in its restless travellers:
and Daphne was gone, Maria is going,
and John contemplates the cobalt sky
with adolescent eyes, the possible mileage
in his sneakers.
This immigrant poet,
whose road was never his, but went,
taking them to the junction
of their dreams, a pilgrim
without pilgrimage, his altar
still like the warm smooth stone
that stayed in the sun.
(with acknowledgement to Fiddlehead with kind permission from the poet)