POINTS ON THE GRID
George Bowering
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SPANISH B.C.
God is
letting the shore
lie where it may
edging out from here
under ships
journey to Japan
back into the land
with feelers
probing the shore
dots on the map
stopping places
of Spanish boats
fish drying Kwakiutl
eyes watching them come
big barks with wings
and Europe’s diseases
brought around the horn
*
Juan de Fuca
strait to the west coast
and out to the ice cap
Anacortes
wild island swept
brute shoulder of
mute boulder
and mudbanked trees
San Josef Bay
of seals and sea lions
locked in fog
galleon places these
armada places
Iberian places
at the nada mas
dropedge of the map
Juan Perez Sound
Laredo Sound
Caamano Sound
Spanish sound
remaining to it all
the Anglo Saxon Indian
stretch of British
Columbia (even
the name shared)
*
Remaining to the city
too where rain
will not erase
the dust of Juan
de Fuca
Alma Street Blanca
Street Balaclava Street
mispronounced by bus
drivers braking by them
Spanish Banks
of crumbling clay and
historic markers hidden
in the tangled coast-
line trees
(God is
letting the shore
lie where it may)
while Broadway
blasts into the middle
of the thing
sustaining plastic signs
over fish & chips
emporiums
Diôs permite
que la costa
se apute donde le gusta
the city Vancouver
last blow of commerce
against the rock
absorbs by name only
the effort of those
dead Spaniards
*
They fought across
drove a stake into the Pacific
and turned north
created California
thick Spanish main
on the way
naming Oregon
striving in the rip of
Juan de Fuca
dwindled numbers
seeking a river
in the million frozen
fjords of the Columbia coast
In the end the Nordic sea
killed them drove them
back sent them
to California summer
or the bottom of the sea
back to Iberia
for the ice
wore them out
arrested them and
waited for the British
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