watching for life

David Zieroth

• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Year: 2022
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9780228015925
• Subtopic: Canadian Poetry
• Index: Literature

we climb down the manhole / where history waits, and we can read / its layers or at least imagine them

From a balcony overlooking an urban back lane, a poet watches those walking below – their identities unknown and yet grasped through real and imagined evidence of foibles and personal inclinations, details of habit that reflect the strangers' inner selves, humanity in all its weaknesses, illnesses, and propensities.

In watching for life David Zieroth ponders questions about how to live and how to continue. The poems reach out in imagining the lives of others, and the poet himself is watched in turn. Zieroth conjures the history of his environment and the people who pass through it, reminding us of "the place we occupy / unfinished within ourselves" and our hunger to locate ourselves in the strangers we encounter.

Intimate and observant, watching for life features poetic reflections on men, women, children, crows and gulls, pigeons, rain and snow, patched pavement, delivery trucks, night, and time.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• ON THE JOURNEY TOWARD MY DEAD PARENTS
• THE PATCHWORK PAVEMENT OF THE LANE
• I LOOK DOWN INTOMY BACK LANE
• ON THE DUAL NATUREOF THINGS, I WRITE
• THE YELLOW DOG HAS NO APPREHENSION
• THE SKINNY MAN WITH THE STIFF LEG
• SOME MEN ARE STRIDERS, AND HERE’S ONE
• WHEN YOU DIED IT TOOK MEMANY DAYS
• AND WHEN THE POEM FAILS
• THE CROW LANDS, INFUSED WITH PURPOSE
• HE ENTERS THE LANE LUNGING
• A COUPLE WALKS IN THE LANE
• I TAKE THESE OLD PHOTOS AND DUMP THEM
• INTO AIR SPACE ABOVETHE LANE
• SHE’S DOWN THEREEVERY DAY AT FOUR
• THE MAN IN THE LANETODAY, HAS HE
• I WISH TO ANNOUNCEFROM MY BALCONY
• I WEAVE AN EFFIGY OUT OF BLACK SOCKS
• I BESEECH ALL YOU BELOW, PLEASE
• IN WINTER THE LANEIS BLEAK, COLOURLESS
• AT NIGHT DARKNESSFILLS THE LANE
• I AWAKE IN THE MORNING TO FIND
• WHERE DO PIGEONS GO WHEN IT RAINS
• AT LAST I SEE THE MAN I’M WAITING FOR
• THOSE I HAVE SAID GOODBYE TO
• AS THIS MAN WALKS HE TILTS, FAVOURS
• I STEP OUT FOR AIRBUT IT IS NOT
• HOW EASILY I CHANGE
• AS THE RAIN FALLS, DISTANCE INCREASES
• AT END OF DAY A MOMENT
• I FEEL THE LAMENT IN ME GROWING
• READING ABOUT AN OLD MAN DYING
• YOU WOULD THINK WE’RE EXPERTS NOW
• SO MUCH TIMEIS SPENT WAITING
• I TAKE OFF MY GLASSES AND THE LANE BECOMES
• HOW MANY OF US REMAIN UNFINISHED
• IF ONLY I COULD TAKE PICTURES WITH MY EYES
• I WAS TIRED OF LIVING ALONE, SHE SAYS
• DOGGONE IT, IS THERE ANYONE DOWN THERE
• WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULTTO LIVE
• HOW I WOULD LIKE TO SEE A SHIP
• NO BORDERS RUN THE LENGTH OF THE LANE
• I’D LIKE TO CHECK OFF
• SOME DAYS I HEAR THOUGHTS
• I RECOGNIZE THOSE WHO HAVE WRITTEN
• I LOOK STRAIGHT OUT, NOT DOWN:
• BENT MAN BELOW, YOU MAY HAVE HEARD
• I WATCH THOSE WHO ARE STRONG
• ABOVE THE LANE THE CLOUDS BREAK APART
• A TALE OF TWO NEIGHBOURS BEGINS
• THE CROW FLIES IN, LANDS ON A POWER LINE
• HERE COMES A FACE MADE UGLY
• BEST ANSWER FOR HOW TO REVIEW YOUR MISTAKES
• A BODY FALLS OUT OF THE SKY, LEGS UP
• WHEN THE FACE OF SORROW APPEARS
• DEAR CITY FATHERS OR MOTHERS OR PLANNERS
• IF ONLY I COULD SEE THE DEAD WALKING HERE
• I WENT TO THE DOCTOR AND THE DOCTOR SAID
• THAT BLACK THING ON THE PAVEMENT
• ANYONE DOWN THERE WANNA COME UP
• IT COULD HAPPEN SOME NIGHT
• HE WHO HESITATES IS LOST IS NOT
• TODAY I HAVE DISCOVERED AGAIN HOW
• SUDDENLY THE HEART EASES, I DON’T KNOW WHY
• OF COURSE THE GODS HAVE FLED THE LANE
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS