Seymour’s books can be obtained by emailing Mosaic Press in Oakville, Ontario, or by ordering from Véhicule Press in Montreal, Quebec
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Seymour also serves as Poet-in-Electonic- Residence (P.I.E.R.) for travelterrific magazine
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In addition, The Song of Moses and I Live on a Raft by Jerzy Harasymowicz, trans. from the Polish. may be found at the National Library of Canada on the Concertina pages
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In “Pebbles” “Camp Ramah” is the summer camp situated north of Toronto, Ontario; one of a series of camps in North America under the auspices of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.
Seymour Mayne
Pebbles
for Ben Hollander
However hewn the stones of Jerusalem,
the fine pebbles of Camp Ramah*
reveal a more modest finish.
Scraped smooth from the slow retreat
of crushing glaciers,
they have learned
the silence of long seasons
endlessly repeating under the impassive
Canadian sky.
They have less
to say, perhaps nothing at all:
blood trickling into their veins of ore
draws from expiring mosquitoes—
or from bloodroot
yielding its sanguine
essence without pain,
without the piercing
shrapnel of speech.
Skeleton Lake, Muskoka
Ten
Of the first fright: one,
of shadows breaking away
from words: two,
of wings fluttering in the night:
three,
of books standing like angels on guard:
four—
But of the knife, five and six,
and the bully with the revolver,
seven, eight and nine,
and of the trigger-happy finger—
ten
ready to do their part
in staving off the plagues.
Practice Run
What is this sleep?
Practice?
I put up my feet
to float into reverie.
I smile, cheeks
burnished with joy,
like a nobleman joining
the Pharaoh on his hot
dry run
into sand.
Hail
Hail
peppered
the
air
like
seed
as
you
were
lowered
below
the
frost
line.
