I
have watched all four movies:
Fellowship,
Two Towers, Return of the King,
The
Hobbit.
I have seen Mordor
shot
in crude shades of grey.
I
have seen orcs. I have lived in this century
for
almost two decades. I live in this country. I have seen
photographs
of the tar sands. This tired metaphor
leaning
on an old tale. I have seen
this
land in unnatural states, mutilations,
all
after the ring, that kind of greed,
that
kind of old story,
hearts
risked, habitation.
Are
we not now in the realm of catastrophic,
cataclysmic,
cliché? Who is not now
just
a little bit jaded, exhausted, worn out?
And yet the fellowship holds.
Arleen Paré is a Victoria writer with seven collections of poetry. She has been shortlisted for the BC Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, and has won the American Golden Crown Award for Lesbian Poetry, the Victoria Butler Book Prize, a CBC Bookie Award, and the Governor General’s Award for Poetry.