Mining for Sun

John Reibetanz is good on grief: You, mother, / dying, left what was hard first: / bones weeping into/ / your veins like flutes, teeth/ vanished on some hospital/ lunch tray This conjunction of a profound sense of loss with the clearest-eyed observation and acceptance of the entropy of the mundane is characteristic. His poetry has a cultural breadth seldom seen in Canadian writing. He sees the pageantry of the Bayeux tapestry with the eyes of a rural quilter, whose son died beneath a tractor, who would focus on the spear - strayed from the main design -/ / that takes a wide-mouthed Tabourer aback, / and recognize the pain/ of someone caught in the wreck/ of a vast, wayward machine.