Emily Carr
The West is servant to no one but growth only.
                                —E. Carr

Extracted from the jaw of treeline
and soon to be reabsorbed,
these totems pregnant with eyes.

What western tribes saw:
everything sees and so she put more watchers
in her scenes than can be counted up and down
carved beams, painted cabin faces.

Sensitive to sentience
amidst the all-seeing blindness of bush,
she became historian of adze-work.

Later, sculpting modelling clay canopies, 
she set her shutter speed to centuries
and in the long exposure
let fern flux smooth itself quiet.

The Sombreness Sunlit of primeval trunk gloom
condescended to her canvas because
she knew light as it is:
something to strike your face against 
as you stumble blinking
into a clearing, cutting yourself 
          on the edge of Big Raven cloud knife.

© Jesse Patrick Ferguson