(On Cabbages and Kings, Poems 2012-2019, Aeolus House) Dusting a book shelf, I came across a poem venerating life in simple phrases hopeful even in the face of illness. From time to time lines from them return to haunt me. We had a lot to say that wouldn’t keep till morning. Always we have questions
As she flows in and out, we wait. Attending. Attentive. A tension. What is to be paid? What owed? The river is shallow for the season but its current runs deep. Consciousness flickers, will-o’-the-wisp only altered by constant choice. Sharp shards hold us close to home since she is almost ninety -five, almost ready to
shorts and sandals on a hot October day 30.1 degrees Celsius this is a riff on changing times on changing ways on changing days salmon are jumping and people are oohing the weir too high, they spawn and die the water runs swift like the beat of a riff cormorants soar while cascades roar susurrant,
canatara beach a mile of beach along lake Huron ribboned in summer sunshine holds more than shiny sand among the silence of the dunes are the captured sighs of broken hearts the wild grasses sing silently the ecstasies they have witnessed on their leaves wet sands hold the souls of soles that stepped upon it
Worlds fused confused as I coil from one to the other and back Northerly winds sooth cool pseudo heat. Gone are the scorched canyons. The taste of sweet viscous dates fades away with sticky maple sap drips salted sea diluted by a shimmering lake. We too are mellower now, as we grow older in this
The tulips of bold spring colours were in full bloom now they linger in liminal. I haven’t chucked them into the bin at the faintest wrinkling of petals; decay has its wondrous mutations— the purple petals flap open an unfurled upside down umbrella, exposing the pistil and stigma—so immodestly phallic! and the curled red
The lake waits all night for me. Fettered boats rock and drift gently, answering unseen currents. Tadpoles, soft black bodies like commas, wriggle along the honeycombed shallows, awaiting their metamorphosis. As morning ages wind wrinkles the lake’s skin, but as I slip into blue its fingers are all satin. You have to understand: poetry
A year of catechism lessons to distill My eight-year-old soul for God, Had led to so much anticipation for the moon- Like wafers that would magically transubstantiate. The array: an illustrated children’s missal With gilded edges; a silver rosary; Lace gloves; satin pouch; gold chalice pin; A tiara of blossoms and a poofy silk
How well-crafted is the daffodil how like a poem growing from one tight-fisted sphere requiring nurture from deep surroundings shyly the leaves emerge, flourish in tender green, the slender stalk in triumph lifts the full-blown blossom, a bright signal to the world, the beauty of life.
Woken with a headache, loud complaint against the inflatable mattress on the tiny apartment floor, I stare outside where lightning flashes far away, and wind tousles treetops – knavish heralds of a thunderstorm. Under the streetlights below, brilliant greenery overlays vibrant paint schemes, wood scrollwork no longer seen in mass-produced suburbia, those drab by comparison.