Poetry

selections from Ontarian

By Jacob Braun
Curlews (source: Koshy Koshy from Faridabad, Haryana, India, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

II. (Winter)

Low smog swaddles the mountain,
Can’t hold in
The brown city


                                       Not interested
                                       In any of your
                                       Questions

                                                                                               Insight
                               Passed over — the high shadow of migrating
                                                                                             Curlews

                                                        
                                                         One serious man
                                                         On the far side
                                                         Of the barrier boom

Jacob Braun

Jacob Braun grew up on ancestral Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe lands in the Niagara Region. His poetry and prose have recently appeared in The Dalhousie Review, The Antigonish Review, The Malahat Review, with above/ground press and elsewhere. His debut full-length collection, Ontarian, explores colonial, economic and environmental crises through the hard realism and equanimity of haiku, experimenting with the form through interconnected, seasonal sequences whose lines shrink in the winter and gradually grow in the spring and summer sections, imitating the hours of light in the year. Ontarian’s publication with Guernica Editions is forthcoming. 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Editors' picks