JOHN ORMOND

Instruction to Settlers

On these lean shelves of land

Nothing but thorn thrives.

At noon cross-winds foregather

To suck and subdivide

The dust and the white sand

Between one shelf and another.

With thornstumps then mark out

The plots for your bent lives.

Dig deep. cut down to zero,

Cut through land's wasted face

To where spring's bitter with brine

Pulse sidelong and in vain

Under the restless dust,

Under the windworn plain;

And through the coasest thorn

Strike with sharp dream, sharp bone,

To reach brief union

With this mistaken Canaan.

Search here where seed was lost,

Work stone and white to green.

Ease your tormented ghost.