Creation Myth
Dec 30 2014


Coyote

the clever trickster,
lecher, prankster, wit.

It's foxes, here.

In my high-beams, on back roads, darting swiftly.
Where he stops
like a fugitive caught in the search-light,
unblinking eyes
reflecting coolly.
A penetrating stare
unnervingly self-possessed.

He seems too small
in this awful cold,
sharp-jawed

thin-boned.
I only see him alone;
a solitary hunter
who must be heart-quick

nimble

alert.

But he makes me unsure
of my standing
as master of the world.
As if indulging my presence
in his unquestioned domain
because I amuse him
or am useful
or might be food

some lean and hungry day.

Only the ravens
perched high overhead
get the better of fox,
taunting with their chortled caws
swooping down
like gleeful buzz-bombs.
A duel, to the death
of the mischief-makers
of mother earth.

For every creator, a destroyer.
Raven, who I'm sure will rule the forest
long after we're gone.
When both man and fox
have been banned from the garden
for life.

I was reading a short piece in the recent New Yorker that had numerous references to native creation myths. Coyote, by Rebecca Solnit, was one of several essays in the Dec 22/29 2014 edition on the general theme of “Inner Worlds”. Hers, in particular, contrasted an orthodox and rigid Christian view of the world with this more flexible and forgiving one. As she writes so beautifully in the opening paragraph:

“You can take the woman out of the Church but not the Church out of the woman. Or so I used to think, as my mother, a lapsed Catholic, carried out dramas of temptation, sin, and redemption by means of ice cream and broccoli. She had left behind the rites and the celebrations but not the anxiety that all mistakes were unforgivable. So many of us believe in perfection, which ruins everything else, because the perfect is not only the enemy of the good; it’s also the enemy of the realistic, the possible, and the fun.”

And concludes in the closing one:

“They’re not my property, these old stories, but they’re an invitation to reconsider what is. If the perfect is the enemy of the good, maybe imperfection is its friend.”

Coyote is always a star character in these native legends. As Solnit goes on to say:

“My mother’s punitive God was the enemy of Coyote. Prankish, lecherous, accident-prone Coyote and his cousins, the unpredictable creators of the world in Native American stories, brought me a vision of this realm as never perfect, made through collaboration and squabbling.”

Coyote as trickster is irresistible. We don't have them here (at least none I've seen); but what more natural substitute for coyote's niche than his canine cousin the fox -- both biological and mythological. I've also seen them in unusual numbers, lately; so when coyote came up, an image of these foxes, fleetingly glimpsed at night, immediately came to mind. (Perhaps there's been a population explosion of rodents this year. Or perhaps the wolves are distracted, and ceding territory.) Every time I see a fox, I have strong feelings of admiration and wonder. Their similarity to our beloved dogs, of course, makes them highly charismatic. And they seem such unlikely survivors -- let alone apex hunters -- in this harsh environment. So I wonder why I haven't long ago written something to do with these appealing creatures. And what better entry point than creation myth and trickster: my little riff on foxes structured as a tall tale.

I long ago wrote a poem about ravens, describing them as my totemic animal. One can't help but admire their intelligence and resourcefulness, their sense of play. Not to mention envy their power of flight. Somehow, raven insinuated himself in to this one. Perhaps it didn't seem fair to celebrate the fox and ignore his clever counterpart.

And then, of course, there's man. I think the role we play in this poem is one we often play in my work: as presumptuous and undeserving interloper on the natural world. So in my short parable of birth and death, I end up letting raven inherit the world. While we squander our birthright -- just as in Solnit's take on Genesis' unforgiving perfectionism, in which we're forever excluded from the garden for a single unredeemable sin. And while the fox, endearing but tragically flawed -- like the flawed creatures of native myth, which Solnit so admires -- inevitably fails. In the end, Man and fox are conflated: small unlikely creatures, too smart for their own good.

Going Where?

Dec 28 2014

I am never asked
where are you from?,
because I am white, and blue-eyed
and dress unfashionably.
What being Canadian looked like
once.

But even had they done

they would never have asked
the when, or who, or why.

The metaphysical when,
the age

you begin taking shape
then find you’re stuck.
Perhaps arrested

in late adolescence,

still callow, and impressionable

and sure of yourself.

Or the people
from whom you came,
the obligations, generations
and relationships
in which you exist.
Or if unlucky, adrift,
an orphaned descendant
marooned in the present

whose family tree

was severed at birth.

Or why

you are from.
Which implies you must have left,
having fled, escaped
or made your way
in the world.
A self-made man
who did his best
with what he had.

Perhaps an immigrant
who came knowing nothing
of language, or culture, or place.
Or that he would be eyed warily
accepted reluctantly
or ever so subtly

excluded;
a small gesture, a turn of the head,

something said
under the breath.
Or be asked, innocently enough

where are you from?,

by the truly curious
who are willing to learn, and connect.

But they never ask me,
and the presumption
that I am known
leaves me invisible.

So I sometimes ask myself,
looking back, and wondering.

And where I'm going, as well.

Which even I

can't tell.

Only that time can't be helped,

carrying me along

in its single direction

to my inexorable end.

The river in which I swim;

a fish, in water

who knows nothing else.

Dark-skinned and exotic looking people get asked this. Mostly, it's an innocent question, motivated by true curiosity. And when the answer is something like “Mississauga”, the automatic follow-up is, of course “No, I mean where are you really from?” Although I suspect this is changing. As Canada becomes even more multi-cultural, and the stereotyped image of how a Canadian looks becomes more nuanced, people will be less inclined to ask.

Of course, I'm never asked this. I disappear into the background of white middle aged men. But we're hardly all the same. Why not ask where we're from? And why not explore all the less formulaic questions of identity and origin and interior lives, no matter how we look? Why stop at just “where”?

“Where” naturally calls up the other w’s of journalism -- who, what, when, and why -- and in the poem I play with this (although not the “what”, which I couldn't quite master!) And just as “where” calls up the w’s, “from” calls up its opposite, “to go”. So the poem takes a turn at the end, and becomes an exploration of purpose and agency, and turns from looking back to looking ahead. Earlier in the poem, I used the metaphors of being marooned and being adrift. So even though the ending seems to take a sharp turn, I think it can also be seen to follow: in the sense of being subject to inexorable time, of being adrift in an invisible current.

Adult Onset

Dec 15 2014

Adult onset
just when you thought
you'd escaped adolescence unscathed.
That it was all clear sailing
from here,

well launched into gracious old age,

in your prime, pensioned-off
grandfatherly.

But advanced chronology
doesn't mean you've grown up,
the generation of men
you wish you'd been.
The rites of passage missed

the taken-for-granted drift,
a life lived
out of sync.

Squirming

in the thin constricting skin

you still don't fit.

You were an old soul
in a young body
that's finally caught up.
Adult onset disease
to ease you
into irrelevance.

The super power
you always wished for
was flight.
But you ended up
with invisibility.
And soon, forgetfulness,
so you can altogether
disappear.


I noted the title of Ann-Marie MacDonald's new novel, Adult Onset. I haven't read it, but I understand it has to with becoming a parent; undoubtedly the single most important rite of passage into adulthood. I ended up appropriating not only the general theme, but the clever title: so my grateful apologies to Ms. MacDonald.

But I'm suffering with a bad back today, and all I can think of is Adult Onset Disease (type II diabetes; which is, of course, a misnomer, since it doesn't necessarily occur only in adults). I was going to get specific in the poem, and go on about "golden honey, you pee" and "halting streams", but I thought it was starting to sound like a medical textbook, and that the double entendre of the opening line was clear enough without spelling it out. (Not to mention that I suffer from neither diabetes nor prostatism, and have no intention of making myself seem even older and more infirm than I am!)

I've gotten to the age at which I find the number shocking. When I see it applied to someone, I immediately picture someone old. It's only a second later I'm shocked to realize I'm also that old ...or even older! And not only don't I imagine myself that age, I often don't even feel grown up. I think one's self-image gets arrested at a particular age; for most of us, probably somewhere from the late teens to the early twenties. In my case, it's not just the self-image that's developmentally inappropriate, and the poem pretty much explains: missed, drift, and out of sync.

I like the play on disease, a word compounded from dis- and ease. So here, it's just as much discomfort as illness: how you thought with advancing age you'd acquire the wisdom of self-awareness and self-acceptance, and eventually learn to be comfortable in your own skin; but somehow ended up just as squirmy and ill at ease.

I prefer to write in the 1st person in my poetry. But I think here "you" is a more effective voice. By the mere act of presumption, it automatically conscripts the reader into the piece.

Women of a certain age often complain about becoming invisible. This happens to men as well; but because men are not so culturally invested in a youthful appearance, and not so often judged on looks, we feel relatively less oppressed by this indignity. Still, advancing age makes all of us more and more invisible. What an irony that invisibility can also be perceived as a super power! (Not to mention that I suspect a lot of older women wouldn't begrudge a few of those leering looks that made them so uncomfortable, or that they took so much for granted, when they were young immortals.) And then, the ultimate indignity: when we forget ourselves in insidious dementia, and completely disappear. Which is very much so, since it can be argued that all we are is memory; and when our past no longer exists, neither do we.

So the poem isn't much more than a cranky litany of angst and complaint. But one I hope resonates, nevertheless.

As Another Year Turns Over ...
Dec 20 2014


In the darkest week of the year
every day was overcast,
a landscape
in a dull grey wash
on thick absorbent paper.

In the muzzy snow
and morning fog
and warm wet air
the world seemed claustrophobic,
the light
cotton-wool soft.
Who would have thought
that the loud Christmas displays
with their high intensity bulbs
would not seem crass, or kitsch, or unseemly,
but more a lifeline
in this insubstantial grey?

Soon, the days will lengthen
the calendar change.
And soon, this strangely indolent weather
reach its natural end.
When a high pressure system
comes roaring in
and clears the air,
leaving blue sky
like the inside
of a hard enamel bowl.
And enough cold
to make trees crack,
lake ice boom
like cannon shots.

But I have grown jaded, with age,
and as another year turns over
find myself
expecting more of the same.
Because history is not an inexorably upward arc
into a future of shining promise,
but recurring cycles
and muddling through.

Which is also a kind of comfort,
knowing that spring will come
and summer follow.
That the first hot day in June
will remind me of all the others
that came, and went,
the endless summers
I foolishly thought.
And against my better judgement
have me believing, again
in never-ending starts.



This time of year brings a sense of fresh starts, as the longest night gives way to lengthening day, and as the new year begins. But I'm suspicious of new beginnings, and my natural cynicism warns me against seeing history as an unbroken line of progress, arcing ever upward. After all, turning over the calendar once again is as much a reminder of the endlessly repeating cycle of time as it is of moving inexorably ahead. (Although if this is the year peace breaks out in the Middle East, I take all that back! But if it's business as usual -- as it's been for my entire lifetime -- my point stands.)

The weather has been unseasonably warm. But the living is easy (certainly compared to the deep freeze of last year!), and I find this soft light restful, the shrinking-in of the world comforting. It will eventually change, of course; but that change will be just as transient.

I chose the title because it gets at a subtle but key distinction: instead of tearing off the old calendar page, I think it's much more instructive to think of the calendar as turning over. So it's more of a wheel than points on a line; more a turning than an arrow that moves in a single direction.

So this poem is an lyrical exploration of these essential tensions: between stability and change; between predictability and volatility; between the excitement of progress, and the comfort of the familiar.

Coming Ashore
Dec 22 2014


When you're 90% water
you eventually come ashore,

safe harbour

in a tumultuous sea

that should have felt like home.

Even though bones float,
blood-thick marrow
mother-of-pearl joints.

And the gut, awash with bugs,
air-loving
and anaerobes.
Marine creatures
in your benthic depths
unacquainted with light.

While the heart pumps,
a beat-per-second
every day of your life.
What the heart-sick always does
soggy with sentiment.
And the lungs suck,
silkily wet
multi-chambered as sponge.

But it's the brain, greedy for blood,
with its glossy sheen
and rich white veins of fat
that always comes up for air,
pops to the surface like a ball of down
no matter how hard
you hold it under.
The hydrophobic soul
your very nature abhors,
all that remains
when the body fails.

You began
breathing in amnion.
As rudimentary
as primordial fish,
impervious
as perfect skin.

Now mottled and thin
you've gone bloated, and pale

and putrified
and will soon be parchment dry,
buried at sea
or shovelled beneath
the warm wet earth.


I saw the cover of Catherine Gildiner's new memoir, Coming Ashore (which was preceded by Too Close to the Falls and After the Falls). The title not only conveys a sense of finality, but seems to say it with a sense of "relief": as if snatched from the clutch of the murderous sea (or, in her case, churning cataract), as if coming to rest on solid land, as if returning home. But why do we find solace on dry land when we're mostly water, and when we begin life as a fetus in a primordial sea? Isn't the ocean home?

So I began this poem as a stream-of-consciouness riff on the ambiguity of our nature: that we are 90% water, yet unalterably terrestrial creatures; that we seem solid, but are actually mostly liquid; that our essence is water, but our consciousness is contained in the fatty brain, arguably the body's most hydrophobic organ. And that eventually, we return to the elements of which we're made.

I had fun finding underwater references, like marine creatures and geographic features. And fun with contrasting sensations of dry and wet. This poem is a lot less linear than my usual effort; which is a refreshing change. But doesn't make much of a difference to me, anyway, since my pleasure is mostly in the sentence, and the power of the sentence doesn't change.

I'm not sure why the ending turned to death (except for the fact that all my poems would turn to death, if I wasn't careful!) Part of it was this idea of the inevitable return to our constituent elements, as in ashes to ashes and dust to dust. And part of it was that lately there has been a lot to do with death. Especially ideas of terminal suffering and euthanasia and assisted suicide: which probably explains the image of someone bloated with heart failure, and of a brain contemplating its dying body.

Fat With Snow

Dec 26 2014

When the blizzard's expended its final gasp
and the sky, at last, is clear.
When the shadows are sharp as shards of ice
and the air is pin-drop still.
When the softest white
blankets the earth
and the spruce are fat with snow.

The perfect angle
of downward branches
to bear their extravagant load.
The tipping point
between gravity, and stick,
brittle crystals
a bit of warmth, a breath of wind

would shear.

But for this postcard moment
when the forces of nature are fixed.
When the trees still wear
their luxurious cover
and the forest floor's untouched,
even the thin blood
of a southern dilettante
would surely run hot;
if not in love with winter
then at least come to see its hold,

gazing up into the trees

groaning under their load.

The beauty
of its sparse palette
of blue and white and green.

Cold dry air

like a transparent lens

to the stratosphere's outer brink.

Tantalized
by the horizon on fire
as the early sun sinks.

All light, no heat.

With the scornful hauteur

of an ice queen,

December sky deceives.

The Globe and Mail has a long-standing tradition of illustrating their Christmas Eve front page with a Canadian painting; originally from the Thomson family's private collection (their former publisher) and now at the Art Gallery of Ontario. This year it was Arthur Lismer's A Clear Winter: the boreal forest under snow. Which, of course, I have the pleasure of seeing daily -- the real thing, that is.

There is this perfect moment of exquisite balance when the trees are drooping under a fresh load of snow. The snow is thick and smoothly sculpted. And you can see how the trees have been engineered by eons of evolution to bear weight without breaking (the white pine a lot better than the more supple -- but also more frail -- spruce, which always seem to be coming down). Between the windless air and clear light and pristine snow, there is a sense of impermanence: like a held breath you can only hold so long. While the utter stillness conveys the opposite sense, one of timelessness and peace. Lismer's picture recalled all this. I especially like his palette of blue: the darker blue of the shadow-side snow against the big turquoise sky. He captures the subtle beauty of the winter light.

This poem is another attempt to capture this; except in words. (And in this blurb, apparently one more attempt!)

I suspect the "southern dilettante" came from a phone conversation last night with my sister-in-law, down in Toronto. I inquired about a white Christmas, and I think she was almost amused by this. Which shouldn't have surprised me, since there is a bare covering of snow in the city, even up here. She went on to say that she'd be happy if it never snowed all winter (a sentiment with which I strenuously disagree!) And even we northerners know how "thin blood" feels: the first time it gets good and cold before we've had a chance to acclimate (or, like now, after a long spell of unseasonable warmth).

I would have liked to call it All Light, No Heat. Except that I didn't want to steal my own thunder! Anyway, Fat With Snow is closer to the origin of the poem: the image of that luxurious quilt of snow enclosing the trees. And I quite like the plain speaking of "fat", as well as the slight incongruity of describing snow that way. So I think it's a title that will both attract the reader's attention, and make a good way into the poem.

When the word "love" found its way in to the middle stanza (and in the next, the word "tantalized"), it didn't want to squander the possibility. So I re-wrote the ending as a spurned lover, looking up. I hope this will be read as an allusion to the regal indifference of nature toward insignificant man. ...And I'm very pleased the way the "i/e" rhyme managed to carry through the final two stanzas without seeming formal or contrived.

White Christmas
Dec 24 2014


Cute woollen hats,
pom-pommed, and ear-flapped.

Balaclavas, knit by hand,
frozen stiff
where little noses ran.

Double-thick mittens
and tucked-in socks,
tightly knotted scarves
and itchy long johns.
Felt-lined boots
under goose-down coats
on roly-poly kids
swaddled in clothes.

A rainbow
of brightly coloured snowsuits

on a freshly whitened field,

as dignified

as little penguins

comically wobbling along.

Until a puff-ball child

toppled into the snow
and had to be hoisted out
by the first adult who happened by.

We could tell by the colour
to whom they belonged,

even when one pink princess
looks much like the next.

Back when winters were cold
and it was always white Christmas.
Or so I recalled
as I crossed the wet pavement
in a freezing mist.

The damp goes right to the bone
in winters like this.
When skinny snowmen slump.
When rain has uncovered
patchy clumps

of dead brown grass,

and whatever white stuff's left

is salted with sand.

When all the brightly bundled kids,

have gone missing
and the snowbanks have shrunk,
too small

to trip them up.

I had no plan when I started writing this piece. I was just riffing on winter clothing, and having fun with word play. But when I got past the first few stanzas, and then recalled the image of that drive earlier today, I realized that "all the snow-suited kids have gone missing", and from there the poem wrote itself.

The rather abrupt change in tone just before the closing stanza -- from roly-poly rainbows to rueful reminiscence and downright ugliness -- seems a bit more like cheating than artful misdirection. But I like the way this shift catches the reader off guard. I think that's what makes the poem work (if it works at all, that is).

I think we'll manage to meet the technical definition of a white Christmas this year, if barely. (Certainly here, out in the country where I live.) I guess it's not surprising, in such a weather conscious country as this, that Environment Canada would have its own rigorous criteria: at least 2 cm of snow (any kind of snow, be it sodden, dirty, or crusted) covering the ground at the airport at 7am on Christmas day! But it's been a warm month; and on Dec 24, as I walked to the car on wet pavement in a rainy mist without a coat or gloves, then drove past the few pathetic snowmen that had gamely survived, it sure did not feel like a white Christmas. And I thought how different it is to be growing up today, instead of back in the 60s and 70s. (And, even more gloomily, about climate change and our pusillanimous and ignorant politicians.)

Should I be embarrassed to admit that my favourite part is probably the frozen snot in the 2nd stanza? (With "hoisted" -- in the 5th -- a close second!)

We Buried My Father
Dec 11 2014


We buried my father
in raw earth, slick with clay.

On a rise of land
under leaden skies,

in bitter wind

on a wintry day.
An open view, that should have been generous
but just felt exposed.
A hard place
in which to rest,
let alone
spend eternity.

In a bleak December
when all the trees were bare,
thin branches, stiffly angled
as if shorn of flesh.
When only in spring
will we be able to tell
which are living, and which are dead.

A funeral should be summer soft.
So we can mourn properly
undistracted by thoughts of warmth,
collars clasped close
shivering with cold.

But which at least forced us to share
his lonely interment
in the cold dark earth.
The heavy coffin, in a slow descent,

as if gravity

did not act on the dead;
clotted soil, smacking the wood
sealed lid, spattered with dirt.
His mortal remains;
a little lighter than life
if you believe in a soul's
infinitesimal weight.

The presiding official
was a total stranger,
the ritual formal, alien
at least to me.
A Jewish burial
for a proud Jew
who was not observant
and did not believe in God.

But such is identity, inscrutably complex.
Because we're all essentially tribal,
and wear the past
with loyalty, reverence
gratitude.
Just like family,
to which we belong, no matter what.

I, too, am a Jewish atheist.
A tribe that's surprisingly large;
an unavoidable hazard
when the people of the Book
have learned to read
too much, too deep,
dared to think
far too freely.

It was a closed casket
so we could each imagine
the man who lived,
undiminished
by infirmity, illness
age.
An elegant box
in beautifully burnished wood
consigned to the grave.
Its only ornament was a raised Jewish star
for this son of David,
humble descendant
of Abraham, and Moses
Einstein, Spinoza,
the millions the Shoah
erased from the world.
Which I think he might have questioned,
because identity is complex
and he was so much more
than one six-pointed star,
his Jewishness
one small facet
of a restive man.

Either way, the casket has vanished
under hard-packed earth,
so we go on remembering
however we wish.
I think of fierceness, laughter
delight
in life's small pleasures,
a good meal, a sweet dessert.
Of generosity
and steady strength.
Of the entrepreneur
who never let adversity
discourage, deflect.
Of quiet pride
in his children’s success,

his children’s children

down the tree of descent.

And in bitter wind, under heavy skies
of the love of his life,
at his side to the end.

 

I felt insufficiently reverent at my father's funeral (the burial itself, not the deeply moving memorial service that preceded it), because I was under-dressed and cold: too preoccupied with getting someplace warm. And because the ritual -- which was very Jewish -- did not only have little meaning for me, it did not represent him well. His Jewishness was extremely important to him, but it wasn't about dogma, belief, or ritual; it was a more complicated and nuanced expression of identity and belonging, a proud acknowledgement of Jewish history and culture (not to mention food!) So the Star of David that was the only ornament on his simple casket wasn't nearly the sum of the man. In the end, I find myself vacillating between seeing his funeral service as a kind of betrayal of his beliefs, and wondering whether he'd actually be pleased to have his identity so unambiguously proclaimed.

The shorthand of poetry gets at some of this complexity. Because I think the famous Jewish philosopher Spinoza would have described himself as an atheist. And because all Jews take a quiet collective pride in the great thinkers of our tribe; the Einsteins, writers, and statesmen, no matter how pious or how disbelieving. And because the Holocaust and the fight against Hitler, as well a the creation of the Jewish state, had an immense influence on him and his conviction. He supported Israel; but he was also a proud and loyal Canadian, and would never for an instant have considered leaving this country.

I was also struck by the bleakness of the grave site: the cold wind, the exposure, and the heavy sky seemed like no place to consign this good man to eternity. He should be someplace warm and lush and full of sun.

The casket was beautiful: elegant in its simplicity, gorgeously finished. Although in my usual frugal way, I couldn't help thinking how wasteful it was to bury this lovely object, how brief its useful life.

So my only choice will be to die in high summer. And to have a fully secular burial. And to be consigned to a cardboard box, a wicker basket, or a simple cotton sheet. Because I abhor extravagance. And because I want to return to the soil as quickly as possible. My dead body isn't me: it cannot be profaned, because it's simply an empty container, a poor reminder of who I was.

Drowning in Corn

Dec 9 2014

The worst way to go
must be drowning in corn.

You misstep, on the rim
and fall into the bin
of golden kernels, swirling in.
A rush of corn

ears plugged, face flush,

ribs crushed

as you hunger for air.

Where swimming
just pulls you down deeper,
digging in
to its rich abundance,
even further under
the weight of grain.

In the 5 minutes you have left

would the banality
of such a death
fill you with remorse, regret
annoyance?
Or anger
to have given your life
to starch
cattle feed
high-fructose sweetener?

And if they managed to pluck you out
before it all went black
would you suffocate the rest of your life,
nightmares of being crushed,

an incubus

of dread?

If we don't die young

every close call scars us.

Broken bodies
abraded and flayed,
skin marked
with the hard keloid
of irreversible age.

And if we do

who knew
corn could be lethal?
A single insignificant slip
do us in?

I read this unusual piece in The Atlantic On-Line: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/12/drowning-in-corn/383455/

I thought Drowning in Corn would be a commentary on the ubiquity of corn in our diet, the commodification and industrialization of food. Or perhaps something about over-eating, the temptations of abundance. But was surprised to read on and realize that it was actually literal. That you could drown in corn the way you could be sucked into quicksand, as in the adventure comics or cheesy black-and-white TV of our youth: once you touched the stuff, you were a goner.

I thought I could make something metaphorical our of this. Or something oddball, drily amusing, unexpected. But the article was serious and tragic and real -- the incident itself, as well as the subsequent PTSD -- and I couldn't get away from that by making fun. So I'm not sure what this poem is, or how it will be read, or even should be read.

But as I mentioned in the commentary following my last poem (Missed Plane), I like toying with this idea of contingency: the missed step, the minor decision, the innocent intersection that leads to grave, or even lethal, consequence. (Or, for the optimists among us, love and riches!) That life is not so much fate, as accident; and that our conceit of agency and control is just that. So for me, the most telling word in the entire poem is "banality".

Of course, it's hardly the worst way to go: I can think of a lot more horrible deaths. But I needed a good opening line to hook the reader. So we'll call it poetic license, and leave it at that.

The second last stanza might seem unrelated; so it will make a little more sense if I point out that it comes from this, in the Atlantic piece:

"Beneath the corn, the skin dimples from the kernels like a golf ball. The body’s blood will begin to settle in the tissues in the lowest gravitational part of the body—the legs and feet if upright—creating a purplish hue—livor mortis."

There's also a shift from 2nd person to 1st in that stanza. I think this works because it allows the writer's voice to reach out to the reader. The poem becomes a bit more reflective and detached, and both of them are now in this together.

I think the test of a good poem is not only that you want to revisit it, but that on each re-reading it opens up. I doubt this poem will do either. But it was fun to write; and sometimes, that's all you get.

Missed Plane
Dec 8 2014


 All the people waiting for planes.

Angelic babies, swaddled in sleep,
only to scream
all the way to Milwaukee.

Men in suits, self-importantly tapping
on laptops and phones
on hard plastic seats
nailed to the floor.

The seasoned travellers
sprawling with backpacks,
the couples in love

all hands and tongue.

And me, hiding behind my book,
already in flight
to places unknown.

A poet
would have chosen a better name
than terminal.
The end of a trip, your final destination

in the same word

as a fatal disease.
Especially when planes come and go everyday
as glamorous as a bus station,
the routine of flight

as numbing as clockwork,

bleary-eyed folk
shuffling on, and off.

But no one lives
like there’s no tomorrow
in the departure lounge.
We wait,
wasting the minutes
putting-in time.

None of us think
we'll be the one
in the gut-wrenching plunge

to earth;
wings iced, engine on fire,

geese colliding

pressure lost.

We are fervent believers in flight.
In a heavy machine
in invisible air.
In a smooth return
to the dependable surface,
gliding in

to a concrete strip
and seamlessly touching down.
That gravity
is immaterial.
That fate has privileged
our precious lives.

But when I missed my plane
I couldn't help wondering
if it would be the one to fall,
breaking-up in a frozen forest,
ditched

in the cold black lake.
If bad luck
would somehow save me.
Or if it would be the later flight
that would drop off the radar,
which was never meant to be mine
was not my intended fate.
Righteous punishment

for being late.

Turns out
all the planes were safe.
My brush with mortality
still awaits,
contingent
on every breezy choice, all the minor mistakes
of daily life.

The book was a mystery
the crime was solved.
Stories like these
are irresistible;
of evil punished, justice triumphant,

order restored

to disrupted lives.

And sometimes
even real life
turns out fine.

There is announcement they make at airports, something about "your final destination". Of course, they're referring to connecting flights; but the ambiguity of final is striking. And I still can't help thinking about the unsuitability of such a term when, to some degree, we all fear flying. The same goes for "airport terminal". Perhaps words that imply definitive endings are best avoided anywhere near a lighter-than-air machine!

And when up in the air, strapped in, I inevitably think of how improbable this is; how what should seem miraculous so easily becomes mundane. I imagine the Wright brothers materializing here, less than a lifetime into the future, and how jaw-dropping the experience would be. It's sad that we can become so blasé about the truly extraordinary, how wonder has been replaced by the numbing routine of scheduled flight.

I did miss my plane. And as I tried to reframe my misfortune in order to see the half full glass, I couldn't help think such morbid thoughts; and then reproach myself for imagining a plane going down and all lives lost, simply to improve my morale! Of course, I then immediately thought the opposite: that 3 minutes of poor planning might have led me to step from a routine flight into a terror-filled end. This theme of the contingency of life is frequent in my writing: the small choices we constantly make (or are made for us), which are as unknowing and unpredictable as stepping off the sidewalk a little more to the left.

I didn't bury my nose in a book as I waited in the departure lounge; I read and emailed on my tablet. And I don't read mysteries. But there is always someone with a paperback; so even though I ended up using the first person here, I decided to make it a crime novel. Because it's always light reading in airports. And because P.D. James recently died, giving rise to lots of talk about the universal attraction of that genre: in which the fabric of a community is torn, lives disrupted; only to have order restored in a pleasing conclusion that -- so unlike real life – neatly resolves all the loose ends. Which is what happened here: all that worry and stress ...and then life went on, indifferent (all, that is, for the 75 bucks it cost me to change flights!)

Not only have I never been to Milwaukee, I was flying in the opposite direction. But somehow Milwaukee came to me, and seemed perfect here: a mid-size mid-western city that seems the epitome of average. And who ever thinks about an airport in Milwaukee, let alone taking a plane there? I think an unnecessarily specific reference that comes out of nowhere is refreshingly perplexing; and a bit of fun for the reader as well as for me.

Dad
Dec 3 2014

In loving memory of Patrick Albert Hart Green (1922 – 2014)

On the night of my father’s death
I walked the dog
in a full moon
in December's early dark.
The sky was black, and bottomless,
and I looked up
through the cold clear air
at infinity.
The world under ice
asleep.

He spent his final breath
in a hospital bed
under harsh fluorescent lights,
machines beeping
a salt-water drip.
He'd been leaving us bit-by-bit
until this, his final exit;
but had a good death, at peace,
if there ever is
such a thing.

He was raised by a stern father,
and, like him, was not demonstrative
in his love.
He would be judged by what he did,
a good man
a rock of constancy.
I, too, do not show emotion,
which some would think of as cold.
But I contain myself
because my feelings are fierce
and control is comforting.
Still, I regret not holding more
the loss of touch
the squandered years.

He leaves his bride
who was at his side
over 50 years.
They talk about love in old age
as attachment, drift.
But after half a century
they were still besotted, smitten,
a story of love
that will persist
even after death.

In another day
the moon will wane,
the nights
grow even longer.
But at the end of December
the light resumes,
in the month of his birth
the world made new.
So the heavens turn, the moon waxes,
and the earth, on its axis
circles back
as all things come to pass.

I told him once
he was now the patriarch.
He seem bemused, and a little proud
to have come to this,
the youngest son, a self-made man.
But he was,
and it was him
we counted on.

My older brother
will now take his place
as head of the clan.
The generations unfold
and we grow imperceptibly older,
take on roles
that leave us feeling unworthy.
But this is the way of the world;
in sickness, and health
in births, and deaths,
in the fullness of time
and the final breath.

The moon has almost set
stars begin appearing.
They do not waver, in the arctic air
their light is laser clear.
Which is how I feel
in the bracing cold
of a winter night
when I put to rest my fears.

A good man
who lived a good life
and died well.
Which is really the best
one could hope for.

The Things I've Written
Nov 30 2014


The tree that falls in the forest
reminds me of the words I've written
that were never read.

Still, it's lying there,
tangled in the underbrush
subsumed by soil.
Or snagged
in the branches of another tree
perilously leaning.
And when the wind is up, creaks
in the high wavering voice
of a disembodied soul.
Like walking past a haunted wood.
Or a small animal's
plaintive cry.

Which sometimes makes me afraid

of the deep dark forest,

branches raking my eyes,

roots, like trip-wires.
Of the rampant words, and wild thoughts
I gather, like mushrooms;
knowing exactly which are safe,
never chancing
temptation.

Words
so subtly flavoured
they must be taken raw.
Transcendental words
with which I search,

trying to explain
my place in the world.

And words
that smell of danger,
as unsparingly true

as full of lies.

That fill my head
like a padded cell, absorbing sound,
an echo-chamber
distorting it.

Words

not meant to be shared;

taken best by fire

than tepid rot.

And words, overheard
above the wind-storm,

faint signals in the noise.
That urge me to listen;
not just take a break
as I think what next to say
in my endless monologue.

Even the fallen tree
keeps on living.
Mushrooms flourish
in its cool shade,
fresh shoots
seek out fertile soil.
Where someday, someone will stop,

a rotting log, in a sun-warmed spot, on the forest floor

on which to sit.

Where the canopy has thinned
and enough light gets in
to reach all the way down.


We are essentially social creatures, bound by language. Words are meant to communicate, and so must be heard: what's the point of writing, if it's never read?

And yet we do write. Perhaps as is an act of faith, a belief in posterity. (This orphaned blog, for example; this faint cry in the wilderness!)

And we also incessantly carry on our own internal monologue, one that can't be shared (and most of the time -- as full as it is with doubt, recrimination, and transgression -- we'd rather not share!) Which represents another use of language altogether; one that is uniquely human, but has nothing to do with social interaction: that is, our search for meaning and self-understanding.

A tree that falls in the forest goes unheard. Yet it does make a sound. And since energy is conserved, that sound never dies: it may be heard, eventually. So we, too, are constantly sending out signals, whether it's in conversation, or a manuscript shoved into a drawer: at best, hoping, or at worst deluding ourselves, they'll some day be received.

And so I send out this poem to all the unpublished authors and scorned bloggers and clandestine poets of the world; to all the manuscripts in dark desk drawers, the first drafts in idling hard-drives.

(The more immediate inspiration for this piece was this article from the Atlantic Online. Here's the link: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/11/finding-your-voice-as-a-writer-overrated/382946/)

Playing God
Nov 26 2014


In late fall
there are mice in the house.
Through infinitesimal cracks
in window sashes
under doors.
Who inhabit the night, uncannily quiet
in a Malthusian nightmare
of fertile mice.

Broken bodies, in baited traps
snapped shut.
Whose hard black eyes
gaze up at me
sightless.
As if at an unappeasable god,
who metes out life and death
as capricious as chance.
As if I had knowledge
of some divine plan
in which they played their part.

In my weaker moments
I think how close we are,
genetic cousins, only bigger.
My mercy
is in hoping it was quick,
an instantaneous death
no one saw coming.

I turn out
their cold stiff bodies
in leaf litter, early snow.
No burial, or holy water.
No slow return to earth
in a closed coffin, formal clothes. 

And by morning, they are gone.
Nothing wasted, in nature
where nothing escapes its end.
Whose theology
is thin consolation,
unlike the promise
of gospel truth.

Unless you take comfort
in being of use.

There's a lot going on here. My guilt at taking a life, simply for the privilege of enjoying my sovereign space. The ease with which we categorize the worthy and unworthy, and reserve our empathy for the former. How the power of life and death can be exercised so unfeelingly. The commonality of all life, no matter how much we tend to be preoccupied by difference. The age-old conflict between science and religion: explaining the world through rational thought, instead of dogma and superstition (pretty clear which side I'm on!); and in particular the cycle of life, with its cold comfort, in place of the false consolation of heaven.

Nevertheless, I've become very adept at regarding these tiny objects covered in grey fur as inanimate. I consider suffering only fleetingly, and when I stray into thoughts of bereavement or motherless kids, I'm quick with scornful accusations of sentimental anthropomorphism. And ultimately, in a biosphere ruled by "eat and be eaten" (I've substituted "and" for "or" because in the grand scheme of things, we all -- ultimately, and in one way or another -- are) there is no exemption due to moral qualms and higher callings. Even Buddhists swat at flies. And as hard as it is to imagine, we will also meet our end.

First Haircut
Nov 24 2014


The old-fashioned barber chair
was cherry-red naugahyde
and brightly polished chrome.
An over-stuffed throne, men-only,
in a plain-walled sanctorum
ornamented wholly
by fancy bottles.

By bracing astringents, and manly cologne
medicinal shampoo, fragrant emollients.
Straight razors, and leather strops,
a swirl of foam
steaming hot.
Black combs, in blue disinfectant
on the shelf above the sink,
along with sleekly sculpted implements
in surgical steel.
And the cleansing scent

of menthol after-shave,
slapped-on
in a ritual end.

Comfortable men, in unmatched chairs,

chatting, smoking
cracking jokes.
There was a pedestal ashtray, overflowing with butts
and a scuffed table, eternally covered
with last week's papers
well-thumbed sports.

Men's journals, and the wholesome sort

of pin-up mags,
winking coyly, like the girl-next-door.

Where a little boy

with curly blonde hair
perched on a red naugahyde wedge

that was tucked into the chair,

ratcheting-up

on its gun-metal lever,

spinning on well-oiled gears.

But my memory of my first haircut

is less this
than a still image, tinged with fear --
a strange-smelling man
in a tight jacket,
flashing scissors
in meat-mitten hands.

And room-length mirrors, front and back
with the repeating image of me
receding at the speed of light.
As if an infinity
had somehow opened-up
behind this wall of glass.
As if I were falling, falling,
and this small room
unaccountably bottomless.

Children are exquisitely receptive
to the inexplicable,
magic accompanies the day-to-day.
But still, I had never considered
that solid objects might be permeable,
surfaces
not to be trusted.

That there were mysteries to be plumbed.

That you could get under the skin's

tender cover.

That you could dive-in

break the glint of light.

Like the still water

above Atlantis.

Like a leap of faith

into silvered glass.

It was while writing my last poem -- The Invention of Glass -- that I recalled my first time experiencing this common but unsettling phenomenon: the recursive image created by opposing mirrors. It's part of my vague memory of my first haircut -- along with the natural fear of a strange man wielding sharp objects! (And yes --believe it or not -- I once did have curly blonde hair!)

So this poem gave me the chance to do two things: to not only write about that glimpse into infinity, that illusion of falling; but also to luxuriate in sensuous detail about a rite of passage in a past world. Because the old-fashioned men's barbershop is an anachronism these days; replaced by sleek barber chairs and unisex salons and fancy decor. Even the men's magazines are different: more explicit porn than the sweet corn-fed girl-next-door. (Or so I've been told!)

Although poetry is supposed to be about compression and distillation, I like the way this poem slows down, indulging in elaborate description and the telling detail. Not not does it revel in the material world, taking delight in stuff; it also tries to push just far enough to become a parody of masculinity -- or at least its pose.

And I like the metaphor of physical surface and metaphysical depth. I was thinking in particular of the unknowability of "the other": there is the surface people present; and then the inner life we can only guess at.

I've said many times that I write a poem, and then move on: as soon as I start the next one, the last is gone. So my uncertain memory isn't surprising; but I strongly suspect I've already written this poem. Or something very much like it. I'll have to delve into the archives to check. But I'm fine with revisiting a subject. Another chance to get it right! And also a good gauge of my progress. Am I getting better at this business of poetry? Or is it time to give it up and move on to something new?

(A final pedantic note: you won't find "sanctorum" in the dictionary (or at least I didn't in mine, when I checked). But you will if you look under sanctum sanctorum, which is defined as the "holiest of holies". My understanding of this term comes from Judaism, in which it refers to the inner sanctum of the great Temple in Jerusalem where the Torah was kept. I took advantage of poetic license, and shortened it.)

The Invention of Glass
Nov 21 2014


The bay window, behind the kitchen sink
frames a rugged landscape
I never tire of seeing,
grass, and rock, and trees
dusted with snow.

On the cusp of fall

dense arctic air
has settled over the world,
holding my small tableau

perfectly still,
as artfully composed
as a snow globe
at rest.

After dark, I watch myself
in its phantasmagorical mirror,
doing dishes
in my cozy kitchen
standing by the sink.

Before the image
disappears in steam.

The invention of glass
is one of those small wonders

that would seem miraculous
were it absent from our lives.
Takes sand
and makes it clear.
Looks out
as well as back.
Is strong enough
to wall off winter

from my brightly lit kitchen,
where dinner
simmers on the stove.

Except for the tumbler

that slipped from my grasp,
shattered in a million bits. 

The Empties
Nov 17 2014


The empties clink
in the unheated porch

when the back door swings open.
The place that would have made

a perfect sunroom
if we hadn’t let it go.

Where green and brown bottle-glass
torn cardboard two-fours

litter the floor.

And sticky liquid

from drunken spills

marks scuffed plywood boards;

darkly hunched forms

like outlines at a crime scene.

Closed, all winter,

single-glazed windows, broken screens.

When stale smoke

clings to every object.

When the place is filled
with sweetness, yeast, and hops;

the drops of brew

that cling to the bottom

no matter how thirsty you are,

the residue

of gassy heads, gone-off.

That stinks

of biker bar

in the bleak light of dawn.

Empties
destined for the beer store,

return deposit

cash for more.

Along with aluminum cans

in discontinued brands;

crushed flat

or split in halves

sharp enough to cut.

And pull-tabs, bottle caps

scattered on the floor,
leg-hold traps

for unsuspecting toes.

A minefield

of broken glass,

stepping out back for a smoke.

This is soooo absolutely NOT me! I almost never drink beer. I don't have a porch full of empties; not even a single empty, in fact (empty wine bottles notwithstanding!) I don't smoke. And I have no idea what a biker bar smells like!

The inspiration for this poem was so tenuous, out of context, and insubstantial that I'm reluctant to even mention it. But, of course, I will. I was reading The New Yorker on my iPad, and inadvertently swiped to the next item: the title page of a short story called The Empties (by someone named Jess Row, in the Nov 3 2014 edition of the magazine). I didn't read the story; but the title somehow struck me (enough to steal it!) I think because we all instantly know what he means -- the universal short-hand of language. And I think because of the word's metaphorical potential. And I think because of how evocative such a simple word can be: I immediately heard and smelled the old bottles. I immediately visualized the cluttered enclosed porch of an old wood-frame house: like the archetypal "student" house from university days.

Which was plenty to play with. Which is what it was -- play: a delightful mix of word play and a mischievously ominous undertone.

(American readers may appreciate a translation of "two-four". This is Canadian for the standard case containing 24 bottles of beer. Also, I think "pull tabs" are a glaring anachronism: aren't they now buttons that depress, and remain attached? But that's OK, because I think this reinforces the idea of neglect: that the bottles have been piling up for years, and even decades.)

Hunger
Nov 16 2014


The vegetable patch, flash-frozen
under a thin blanket of snow

is like a still life

of time lost.

Rows of broccoli still stand,
like stout green trees
beneath a soft white cover.

While ripe tomatoes are blasted,
branches grounded
vines collapsed.

And hardy kale, touched by frost
surprising in its sweetness;
frilly leaves, intact
as if they still basked
in August heat.

The carrots remain,

enclosed in warm dark earth

as if too bashful to emerge.
Orange flesh, aiming down,
like missiles, in underground bunkers

that will never launch.
They look perfectly preserved
but are soft and punky,
caught by winter
and left to rot.

The garden that was planted in spring
and missed its harvest
will remain all season
in winter's iron grip.

A frozen tableau

behind its sagging gate, chicken-wire enclosure,

waiting to be worked

into freshly thawed soil;

another hopeful crop.

Because in short sharp summer
we seed more than we can eat,
desperately hungry
to plant.
To put our hands
into newly warmed earth.

To tend the land
and watch things grow.


About 10 days ago the temperature dropped, and there was a good 3 inches of snow. So whatever was left in my neighbour's vegetable patch flash froze, and now sits under a thin blanket of snow like a simulacrum of summer, incongruous in the winter landscape. There is something touching about this tableau of abandoned hope, this materialized version of arrested time. (Those last 2 sentences came to me while writing this blurb, and I liked them so much I was tempted to shoe-horn the good bits into the poem. But realized that what works in prose is often too cumbersome for poetry. Or at least for my taste in poetry.)

I went next door to scavenge what I could of the leftover kale. I've found that kale touched by frost is remarkably sweet. I've been surprised at how hardy it is in the cold. Although this stuff is more than touched(!), so we'll see.

It was seeing the garden like this -- before it completely disappears under the inevitable accumulation of snow -- that gave me this poem. I have no idea what actually happened to the tomatoes, broccoli, or carrots; whether harvested, or not. So those descriptions are purely acts of imagination. I mostly followed sound: the short "a" of "flash" took me by the hand and led me through. And then my mind's eye descended and I saw carrots hiding out, enclosed in soil, where the frost had not yet penetrated. I couldn't resist the contrast of warm dark earth with its insulating blanket of snow.

The waste of unharvested produce struck me. But the reason is obvious, and it became the heart of the poem: that universal and overwhelming drive in a land of hard winters, late springs, and all-too-short summers to plant; to put our hands into warm earth, and see things grow.