Abdou Angie - Night work: the Sawchuk poems

NIGHT WORK

THE SAWCHUK POEMS

THE SAWCHUK POEMS

Randall Maggs

The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.

Robert Frost, The Oven Bird

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Maggs, Randall
Night work : the Sawchuk poems / Randall Maggs.

ISBN 978-1-894078-62-7

1. Sawchuk, TerryPoetry. 2. HockeyPoetry. 3. Hockey goalkeepersBiographyPoetry. I. Title.

PS8576.A348N53 2008 C811.54 C2007-905652-0

Copyright Randall Maggs, 2008
Second Printing April 2008

We acknowledge the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP), and the Ontario Arts Council for their support of our publishing program.

Cover image: The Toronto Star.

Author photograph by Anne LeMessurier.

The book is set in ITC Galliard and Helvetica.

Design and layout by Alan Siu.

Printed and bound by Sunville Printco Inc.

Brick Books
431 Boler Road, Box 20081
London, Ontario N6K 4G6

www.brickbooks.ca

This book is for my brother, Darryl, who saw it all for himself. And for our mother, who wouldnt look up from her lap whenever he was on the ice.

There are multiple fine scars present over the forehead and the face. The most prominent lies in the midfrontal region and is an oblique scar, 1 in length, which extends from the midline below and to the right, ending at the upper margin of the right eyebrow. Suture cross scars are present, of a fine character, along the course of this healed scar. There is an old, oblique, linear scar, 3/4, extending across the midthird of the left eyebrow. There is present, at the anterior aspect of the hairline on the left side, approximately 2 above the left eyebrow, an old, faint, linear scar, 3/4 by , that lies 1 to the left of the midline. There is a flattening of the prominence at the junction of the bony portion of the nasal bone and the cartilaginous septum. There is an old, vertical, linear scar present over the right side of the upper lip, 3/8 medial to the angle of the mouth. It measures 3/8 vertical. Extending across the upper lip from the left nostril is an old irregular scar, 7/8 by 1/8, that ends at the mucocutaneous border to the right of the midline. An old, fine, linear scar, 3/8 by 1/8, extends from the mucocutaneous border of the lower lip on the right side, at a point 3/4 to the right of the midline. There are three, fine, old, 1inear scars present in the midline, transversely beneath the lower lip, the largest of which measures .

(from the autopsy of TERRANCE GORDON SAWCHUK, Case No. 4468, PERFORMED BY DR. GROSS, ASSOCIATE MEDICAL EXAMINER: In the presence of Drs, Helpern, Beaghler, and Hyland. and Dr. Richard Tiedemann, Surgical Resident of New York Hospital: May 31,1970.)

The way sorrow enters the bone is with stabs and hoverings.

Denise Levertov,
The Blue Rim of Memory

In the old films, the ice looks more like
winter, the boards were boards and clear. I see the lone official
out for a skate, flipping a puck in the air. He seems
in no rush for the teams to appear, his long stride
preoccupied and familiar. He swings by again
and I see its him, Red Storey, younger here
than that long afternoon in his home
with his souvenirs and second wife.

I think of him there in his chair, his legs
wrapped in a blanket. He lifts his hands and looks at them
absently, turning them slowly back to front, the massive hands
that sent off Harvey and Howe, placated the Rocket and Lindsay
and Eddie Shore. He says she taught him how to use a spoon
again and hold a pen and clear the clutter of his memory.
Now shes taking his old brick house apart, peeling
the years from his walls, pulling down shadowy
paper, looking for the house beneath.

What were you thinking of, Red, gliding by
so long ago? How ragged the ice in the Forum seemed
after Detroit? How to keep the crowd from lynching bloody Lindsay?
Or that subtler trouble with Sawchuk, whod lead the Red Wings
onto the ice? Hed told his first wife about that moment,
the two teams slowly circling, tension building, and Terry
veering over to ask that crazy question.

Where to begin with the guy? Even after 50 years,
it nags him like a wrinkle on his ankle. What he came to me
wanting to know, Jesus, I thought he was joking.

The winter day gives in. He tugs the blanket close
around his knees, but even as I rise in the darkening room
to go, the voice begins again. The talk on trains. Lindsay waiting
in the tunnel and waving a stick in his face. A voice in Boston
that could rub the skin right off you. Hey, Storey, ya bum!
We got a town down here named after you!

Finally his wife appears to mention the hour,
reaching in to switch on the light. You hear an edge
to her voice too, a toughness youd want in any scrap
with time. Out in the hallway, the acid fumes
of wallpaper stripper, her warning
to watch the icy steps.

In old films the ice looks grey,
you half expect a trampling of cows at the edge,
an arc of grain the cutter missed as it turned.

The camera seems left on accidentally,
awaiting the teams coming onto the ice. A chair scrapes.
Are we on yet? someone asks, the voice unhurried, unrattled
by any heresy of unused air. The crowd arriving in hats
and ties. The gleam of newly flooded ice. The graceful stride
of the only man on the ice. As large as Storey is, theres ice enough
and time to think before he turns to drop the puck
and start the game.

Snow in the street lights after,
heading home. The beckoning lights of familiar bars.
God how he loves this city. Idling at a red on Sherbrooke Street,
his mind swings back to that puzzling talk with Terry,
then his turning abruptly away towards his goal.
One set of lights, and hed be home on Beaconsfield
with his wife and the kettle on in the kitchen.
And why would you fret about Sawchuk
anyway? Jumping Jesus, what the guy could do.
Hed felt the agony in the Forum tonight, the agitated
crowd, and Irvin back and forth like a dog behind the Montreal
bench, throwing up his hands, bending in anger to one of his players
as Terry turned them back wave after wave in the terrible storm
of the crowd48 shots against 12, the Rocket in twice,
but the Wings take the game 3 to 1.

And Storey, as he did so often when he drove,
talking away in his head with his wife.
Would he mention it once he was home, he wondered,
with a mug of tea to warm his hands? Maybe yes, maybe no.
There wasnt much rhyme nor reason to what you did or didnt
say to wives. And when you had your well-handled game,
much order or sense to anything else.

You said, I will go to another land, I will go to another sea.

C. P. Cavafy, The City