My Star Predominant: Essex County’s Raymond Knister

 

“He was one who had to suffer personally, yet who remained grimly determined to stay with his ambition.” 

From "Raymond Knister. A Memoir" by Dorothy Livesay, in The Collected Poems of Raymond Knister. (Toronto: The Ryerson Press, 1949, page xxxiv)

 

Ambition

When I was little,

And my father

And his men

Would mow back the hay

In the barn,

We liked to watch them,

To hand about

Playing, by times listening

To the talk of neighbours,

Of threshing-bees, of crops,

Of horses, every one by name,

And sheep and dogs,

And whether the storm would come

Before the last load.

 

But becoming tired of this,

One of us, Sid, it was, one day

Began to climb

Rung, by rung

The steep straight ladder

As high as the top

Of the load of hay.

The he cried out:

“Look where I am!

To-om! Look wheere I am!”

Then Tom put out his little chin,

And began to climb,

His tongue upturned between his teeth,

Breathless, he mounted

To two rungs above Sid,

Who had hung there,

Watching him.

“I’m higher than you now, Sid!”

Who had hung there,

Watching him.

“I’m higher than you now, Sid!”

He shrilled, puffing

With pride and fear of falling,

“I’m higher’n you.”

But now Sid began to climb again,

So Tom must too.

Tom reached the beam

First, and sat down

On it, and looking across

Saw farther’s head

As he worked,

Up under the roof,

Rending apart big bundles of hay,

And cried out,

“Papa! Look where I am!

I’m higher’n Sid”

Then father, hearing his name,

Ceased his talking—

For he was used

To our uproar—

And said, “Get right down

Out o’there, get right down!

You’ll fall and hurt yourselves!”

And I had just begun

To climb up the other ladder

At the far end of the driveway.

 

But what was I thinking of?...

Yes, Minnie, my wife,

And my daughters,

Since we’ve bought this estate,

How little they see, or wish

To see, of Tom’s wife

And Sid’s

And their families...Except to...

Climbing.

 

Windfalls for Cider p. 53-54