A Good Roof

Sept 25 2015

A new roof

every 30 years or so.

A crew of weathered men

scramble over the eaves

like seasoned commandos,

lashing-in to faded ropes

hacking away

at old asphalt shingles

brittle with sun.

They hammer and cut,

wield nail-guns

like delinquent boys

playing with power-tools.

Stripped material

is raining down like dead-weight,

tossed over the edge

with gleeful abandon

in the fog and noise of war.

While in the uncut grass

nails lurk like cluster bombs.

This is never women’s work.

I’ve only ever seen men;

hauling heavy asphalt slabs,

racing up ladders

barely skimming the rungs.

The mating display

of a virile young animal,

showing-off

his agility, lack of fear.

A good roof,

and who knows how long

a house will last;

kiln-dried wood and sturdy joists

still standing strong,

sheet-roc

protected from mould, and wetness.

Even though floors creak, taps drip

the furnace wheezes and coughs.

But where roofs change

foundations are permanent.

Because you build from the ground up;

a poured concrete slab, cemented cinder-block

solid as bedrock.

And there will be no crew, 30 years on

to make it new again.

A solid footing, a good start

in a building

as well as us.

Between its old foundation

and a good roof

a house stays dry and snug.

Real estate agents talk about told houses having “good bones”. Which, at its most reductive, amounts to a good roof and a good foundation.

Since I’m having my roof done – at great expense, needless to say! – I figured the experience was at least good for a poem.

I suppose the metaphorical use of “foundation” isn’t exactly original. And I certainly hammer it home without much subtlety in the poem! But since the analogy (is as well as us metaphor, or does the use of “as” make it analogy/simile?) comes out of nowhere, I thought erring on the side of obvious might be helpful. Although maybe this is too pessimistic a view of humanity. It seems to presume that we are fixed:  that human beings cannot change or re-invent themselves, which is clearly untrue.  Nevertheless, a bad start in life – bad genes, bad parenting, bad circumstance – is tough to overcome. We are formed early, if not permanently.

I’m pleased with the martial metaphor in the opening. And also pleased with roofing as a mating ritual of young men – even without the catcalls! (I’ve probably been watching too much National Geographic TV, with all those mating displays and ritual – or not so ritual – combat!) After all, have you ever seen a woman in a roofing crew? …You’ll note I chose lack of fear over fearlessness. That’s because  lack has a nice resonance with slab, ladder, and animal; but mostly because fearlessness ends on a mushy sound:  the line has a much stronger finish when  fear is left hovering in the air on the final period.

The First Portage

Sept 27 2015

I learned to flip a canoe

when I was 12.

A lesson in the applied physics

of inertia, trajectory, moment.

And a lesson in faith

in myself,

tossing the canoe with no reservations

nothing half-way.

The art of jiu-jitsu

applied to canoes,

using its own weight, an economy of motion;

toss, turn, tuck

and up it goes.

12 years old,

an age

when you begin to master things,

when accomplishment

forms your sense of self.

And in the decades since

has served me well.

When the canoe

having carried me faithfully

down rapids, over lakes

through back-water swamps and glacial melt

is shouldered, and carried in turn.

Like a turtle, I travel self-contained;

a heavy pack

my own strong back

sufficient for all my needs.

The first portage

is like a thousand mile journey,

impassable

to all the good-ol'-boys, drunkenly gunning their boats,

party-girls, recklessly revving jet-skis;

their sound and fury

swallowed-up by trees.

Just a single portage, and civilization recedes

time eases its burden.

Which is worth labouring under the weight

of an 18-foot canoe,

cutting through black boot-sucking mud

stumbling over broken ground.

The perfect vessel for wilderness

is light enough to carry

on the back of a 12 year old boy.

Who, at journey’s end

swarmed by bugs, and soaked in sweat

learned the helter-skelter plunge

into cold fresh water

fully-clothed;

casting off the weight

with a practiced shrug.

The transcendent pleasure

of simple things.

The beauty of its lines

the toughness of its curves.

And waiting on shore

like an old reliable friend,

the cedar strip canoe

in turn, carries him.

 I always liked that, setting out on a canoe trip with that slightly smug feeling of self-sufficiency: as it says in the poem, like a turtle, self-contained. And the canoe is the only imaginable vessel that with which to do this: something you can carry on your back that will in turn carry you. The perfect vessel for wilderness indeed!

Perhaps it was this early accomplishment that helped me fall in love with canoes. This was at summer camp, and I think I felt like the possessor of arcane knowledge. Or perhaps it was the feeling of being privy to a secret pleasure that others had ignored, seduced as they were by the more obvious pleasures of sailing or water-skiing. And it definitely appealed to my solitary nature: soloing a canoe, going off alone. And I loved the sense of subtle command: elegantly balanced an inch from the water; feeling joined to the boat through my knees and hips; in precise control with a flick of the wrist, a slight adjustment of angle and lean.

Most of all, the canoe gives you access to wilderness. All it takes is a single portage: the most minimal effort, and you immediately weed out all the yobs and good-ol'-boys and assholes. Learn to carry the canoe, get the first portage behind you, and you're home-free.

A rough enough portage, and you wouldn't bother stopping at the water's edge, shrugging off the canoe, and setting it gently down. You'd run straight into the water with the canoe still on your back, tipping it off to one side once you're neck (or waist) deep. Because all you've been thinking about for the last half mile is massacring those damned bugs, sluicing-off the sweat.

Of course, you'd never take a back-country trip in a cedar canoe. We did, back then. But these days, it's aluminum or ABS or Kevlar. Still, the quintessential canoe is cedar-strip: steam-bent cedar ribs; wide cedar planks, nested close; and waterproofed canvas stretched over the wooden frame. Then painted red, as all canoes surely must.

The Last Day of Summer

Sept 21 2015

This is the last day of summer

its unofficial end.

So I write as dusk descends;

too early, I futilely protest.

The day I notice

how quickly darkness falls.

The crisp clear air
wood-smoke's sweetly acrid scent.

The day a scattering of leaves

becomes salient;

too few to rake,

but enough to contemplate

just how soon
autumn chores begin.

The last day

frigid, shivering, goose-bump blue
for open-water swims.

After many days

that have been gratefully free

of buzzing biting things.

But nature never rests,

and now, there are mice in the house

traps baited, and set.

The equinox

is its official end,

determined by the alignment

of astronomical objects,

the year divided

into equal parts.

Which is how an accountant would keep track;

summer in the black,

written-off

in his arbitrary ledger.

When actually, the last of summer comes

the day the lake's too cold to bear.

When the book is closed

on open-water swims.

When only the kamikaze dog

is thrilled to launch herself

after sticks and balls.

Or coolly dismissive loons

in their meticulous black-and-white;

effortlessly out-swimming her,

vanishing

in masterful dives.

Her summer will finally end

at freeze-up,

the last open water

tempting her in;

impervious to cold

heedless of consequence.

I envy

this enlightened acceptance of hers.

How she never questions, resents.

Seasons simply come and go

and she blithely dives in,

fully immersed

in the moment.

Forgetting summer

in the heady thrill of snow.

 It's Sept 21, which I think is the official end of summer, beginning of fall. Not that it matters. Because it's also the last day I'll be swimming in the lake this year: summer's unofficial end. Actually, the water was surprisingly warm. And I had a wet suit on. But tonight they're calling for low single digits; which I think will do it for me. (It's a small lake that heats up quickly. Unfortunately, it cools off just as fast.) So my swim had the ceremonial feel of the last of the season. Although there is no mistaking the beginning of fall: the air and light have changed, and the steady descent into darkness and cold feels inexorable.

This is how the poem started. I have no idea how it then turned into another dog poem. I'm happy it did, though. Because of all the attributes of dogs I envy and admire, this is a big one: that they don't over-think, that they inhabit the present. Skookum doesn't lament summer, anticipate fall, worry about winter. She takes everything in stride, fully immersed in the moment. (Which is why I very consciously use thrilled, and then -- in a kind of call-back -- repeat it as thrill: she is equally thrilled diving into the lake as she is diving into a pile of snow!)

I should mention that she never goes after loons in real life. Which is a bit disappointing in a Lab, whom I would have thought well-attuned to waterfowl. Or maybe she is simply gracious in defeat, recognizing the loon's unattainability, her own limitations. Or perhaps she is full of grace: a lover; not a hunter, predator, and killer. Yes, that's my preferred explanation: that she respects other living things; that she is content to share her lake. (Or, most likely of all, the movement and speed of sticks and balls make them irresistible for an animal bred for pursuit, built for the chase!) This is one of my favourite parts of the poem, so it was easy to grant myself a little poetic license here. I quite like cooly dismissive loons/ in their meticulous black-and-white ...vanishing/ in masterful dives. They really do vanish; seamlessly slipping-in, then disappearing for so long and making such distance underwater you might never see them come up. And their black and white plumage has this meticulous precision about it, always perfectly coiffed. And they are so confident on the water, evincing this dismissive hauteur: which contrasts almost comically with the goofy exuberance of a dog.

Marking Time

Sept 17 2015

You will be surprised, when you get this old

to find you feel the same;

still 20-something,

wondering how age

crept up on you.

Surprised you inhabit

this obstinate body

as if betrayed,

its steady decline

too slow to notice.

Surprised

by your disappointment

there was no revelation;

the serenity

you were led to expect,

the enlightened acceptance of self.

This is the wisdom

the young project on the old,

bamboozled

by the distinguished appearance

of grey hair, and wrinkled skin,

the arthritic gait

that merely seems unrushed.

But surprised, mostly

by how quickly life happened.

Like a bystander, afraid to get involved

you stood on the sidelines and watched,

whipsawed by time

as it went racing past.

I felt this, gazing out the kitchen window,

where I could see time's passage

take substance, and form;

the abstraction of time

made material.

The thin sapling

I’d planted when I bought the place

has become a towering spruce;

dense branches, casting shade,

invisible roots

giving life to the soil.

All these years, out of thin air;

assembling carbon, accumulating light,

the power of the sun

in its chemical bonds.

I see it there, and realize

just how much time

has come, and gone.

I suppose I can claim it as mine –

I planted it, it grows in my yard.

But this affinity

goes only so far.

Because I did nothing but watch,

out my window

over dirty dishes

day after day,

a pleasant green presence

of which I was vaguely aware.

And because after I’m gone

it will still be there.

An even grander tree;

indifferent to my passage,

the property

of someone else.

But still

we have grown old together;

a man who is getting on

and one magnificent spruce

still in the prime of life.

As a child inscribes her height

with a line on the wall,

the tree I planted when we both were young

is also marking time;

making it real

before my eyes.

OK, it isn't really that towering a tree. And spruce trees, by and large, aren't all that magnificent: they're prone to wind-fall, and rot.

But the day I wrote this poem, as I stood at the sink cleaning up, I found myself focusing further out: paying attention to this tree, instead of merely registering it. Which is when it struck me like a thunderclap: time manifest, substantive and real. I've been feeling more than the usual aches and pains, so remembering how this tree began brought home -- inescapably -- the passage of time. I've noticed this for awhile, but in a more general way: how all the trees I planted -- when I couldn't plant enough, and they seemed too small to do much good, or even survive -- have now grown up to enclose my house in shade; overwhelming the walkways, leaning perilously over the deck.

Young people don't recognize this: that inside these faltering bodies, we feel exactly as young as they do. We still keep making the same mistakes, performing the same immature acts, indulging in the same idealistic hopes and desires. You get stuck at a certain age --somewhere in the late teens or early twenties (and if you're Donald Trump, maybe somewhere around 8 or 9!) -- and are shocked when you realize how others see you ...when you see yourself ...when your body betrays you. And shocked when you realize just how much time has gone.

It's also another tree poem. These are like the deer and dog poems: they keep coming up. So here again are the familiar tropes of stewardship, the miracle of photosynthesis, the usefulness and beauty of trees.

If there is anything stylistic in this poem that merits a comment, I suppose it's the liberal use of semi-colons. (I just counted: a total of 8, sprinkled throough 74 lines.) I've written before that I love semi-colons. But I usually set strict limits, because I know how they're misunderstood, or viewed suspiciously, or even despised. I find them especially useful in poetry. In prose, they help organize thoughts, give order to the longer and more complicated sentences. But in poetry, they help dictate the pace. Since poetry is meant to be recited, I think it's useful to give the reader a road map, or the equivalent of a musical score: so there's the hesitation of the normal line break; the prolonged pause of the comma; the good time-out of the semi-colon; and finally, the full stop of the period. The problem with semi-colons is that they can appear prescriptive, rigid, anal. They show a distrust of the reader, and could make her feel patronized. And they give the page a cluttered look.

The Small Victories

Sept 13 2015

The lawn machine cuts ruler straight.

Leaving a precise line

between thick leggy grass

and my finely manicured strip.

Which unravels in my wake

as if I had set into motion

a tightly rolled carpet

down the length of the lawn.

A verdant runner

lush as a putting green.

This garden tool

is an indiscriminate leveller.

Weeds, mowed down

dandelions severed,

crab-grass

made to look respectable.

For the time being, at least.

How irresistible,

this illusion of order

in an unpredictable world;

the meticulous back and forth

in neat parallel rows,

the border edged exactly

mulch evenly spread.

And the smell of fresh cut grass.

Which, with the heady scent of 2-stroke gas

lights up my brain,

the nostalgia

of summer Sunday afternoons

in furthest suburbia.

Come winter, I will clear the driveway

down to asphalt black,

cutting the same straight path

carving the same sheer wall

out of standing snow

as I did unruly grass.

Methodically back and forth,

until the rectangle

is reduced to order;

glistening pavement as decorative art,

obsidian glass

set in white enamel snow.

How satisfying

to gaze upon completed work.

Even knowing

that nothing lasts.

That the neighbours don't keep track.

That in the fullness of time

a haphazard job

would look just as well.

That chores come and go

and come again,

as predictably

as the seasons change.

Because this is what I crave.

The structure of daily life.

The reassurance

of regularity, and habit.

The reliability

of not having to depend

on anyone else.

The small weekly victories

of order, control

that are mine, alone

to execute

and savour.

A well cut lawn and perfectly cleared driveway are, I suppose, the ultimate bourgeois conceits. My house hardly looks like a real estate brochure or a House Beautiful showcase. But I do take a small private satisfaction looking back on a freshly cut lawn, a nicely shovelled drive.

There is the pleasure of repetitive mindless work. There is the feeling of virtue in doing what needs to be done. There is the gratification of physical labour.

And there is a dark side as well: the subtle -- and sometimes overt -- social pressure to conform; the sense of measuring up, of being judged.

Our manicured front lawns are like a rebuke to nature, which wants to be fecund and wild and diverse. We carve out these temporary illusions of simple order. But check out any place that's been abandoned for any length of time, and it becomes clear that our efforts are only temporary, our feeble attempts to confer order mere hubris.

Ghost Ship

Sept 9 2015

How remarkable

that the brain perseveres

as the body fails.

The most complicated object in the universe

is still furiously at work,

valiantly extracting

the last scrap of glucose,

hogging oxygen, atom-by-atom

from precious blood.

While the heart gasps and sucks

liver cells exhaust themselves

kidneys drink their poison.

Contemplating undone tasks.

Scribbling

its final revelations.

Embracing love

and fearing death

and wondering what comes next.

Like an alchemist, conjuring gold from lead,

somehow transmuting

whatever trickle of blood that's left

into thought

                 ...mind

                               ... self.

How sad

that the brain goes on

but the body not.

Or worse, when the mind has gone

and the machinery labours on

tenaciously clinging to life.

Like an ocean liner

whose bridge is sightless, lights have dimmed

while engines shudder, pistons pound

in the sweaty depths of its hull.

A ghost ship, rudder stuck,

endlessly circling round and round

until finally running aground.

An empty vessel

blissfully unaware?

Or a vital mind, betrayed;

still sentient, passionate, resisting death

to life's ignominious end?

Oliver Sacks -- a man whom I greatly admire; and with whom, in the most modest way possible, I somewhat identify -- has just died. He died doing what he did best, right to the end: writing long-hand letters to friends and acquaintances; chronicling his demise in the New York Times; consigning a final article -- published post-mortem -- to the New Yorker (the latest issue; which I just downloaded yesterday, and am greatly looking forward to reading). He clearly did not embrace death with fatalism or philosophy. I think he felt his body had betrayed him, and he was certainly not tired of life. But in the end, he did come to accommodate the inevitable, and may have found some solace in continuing his work, in accepting love, and in gratitude for a well-lived life.

His struggle with death and dying led to this poem. One wonders how the brain, in all its marvellous and ineffable complexity, manages to soldier on, even as the body fails. And imagines how furious he felt as his still incisive, curious, and vital mind was inexorably dragged down by his dying body.

Of course, we more often read of the opposite: the living dead, in whom a demented brain inhabits a strong body, stubbornly clinging to existence.

Yes, blissful ignorance has much to be said for it. But even with the pain of knowledge and the burden of fear, isn't it better to be sharp right up to the final breath than to have already died? To at least have a chance to complete your life, to make peace with death, to have a chance of finding meaning? To be intact and be useful to the very end? That's the dilemma of the poem. Oliver Sacks suffered from his premature death. But he also enriched the rest of us almost to his final day. (Which is, of course, why scribbling gets such prominence in that stanza: someone like Sacks (and me, apparently!) can't help writing and scribbling and journaling no more than we can help breathing.)

Death is probably harder for confirmed atheists like Sacks and me. I know that faith is not easy, and believers struggle with it. But when you now that death is final, there can be no possibility of consolation. Maybe that's why he kept writing so assiduously: his work was his posterity, his only after-life.

I've been asked why I don't write more about physiology, the practice of medicine, my own experiences. Perhaps if I had started writing earlier, this would have been the case. As it happened, the overlap between my working life and writing life was relatively short. And my memory is notoriously poor. But here is one of the few instances when I do. And, as always when I do, I wonder if I'm not just causing eyes to glaze over and pages to abruptly turn. Does anyone care to read about oxygen and glucose and assorted viscera?!! (At least I stuck with glucose, instead of contending with fatty acids and ketones. And spared myself trying to rhyme haemoglobin!)

I love the most complicated object in the universe. Of course, this isn't original (although I may have paraphrased). And I'd happily give credit, if only I could remember who said it first.

The final line was a choice between "ignominious" and "mysterious". "Mysterious", of course, always works: death, after all, is the ultimate mystery. But I preferred ignominious because it conveys this sense of betrayal, resentment, and unfairness that I think coloured Sacks' slow death by cancer: how he resisted death; how he "burn(ed) at the dying of the light." And because, despite our romanticism and hope, I don't think there are really many good deaths. Not when death is so often accompanied by pain, shortness of breath, indignity, and loss of control.

Minimalist Art

Sept 7 2015

I paddle my canoe

with easy practiced strokes.

It is red, of course.

All canoes are red,

even the blues and the greens

underneath

their trendy paint.

Canoes, which come and go;

but the same paddle

for over 40 years.

It's richly burnished cherry.

A hard wood,

strong enough to be made

with lightness, and grace.

It has a long tapered blade

thin neck

finely shaped grip,

that fits my hand

like something warm, organic.

It could very well be hung

as a work of art.

Because the true test of sculpture

is that you want to see it from every side,

circling, and circling again.

And that you can't resist touch,

warm wood

with its fine-grained gloss.

But its beauty

is not so much aesthetic

as utilitarian.

An engineer would admire its efficiency,

material pared down

to bare necessity.

And how perfectly

it suits its task.

Because there is no improving

on a canoe paddle.

Nor the canoe,

another triumph

of minimalist art.

I cut through still water

in a setting sun.

Its liquid surface

mirrors the sky's red glow,

my reflection

paddling in tandem

stroke-for-stroke.

The blade seamlessly enters.

Small vortices

spin-off in its wake.

And then the return,

skimming the surface in a perfect arc

trailing tiny silent drops.

In no direction, and to no particular end;

muscle memory

that seems effortless,

tracking true, and straight.

I paddle my canoe,

an old paddle, and an older man

in the cool dusk.

A secluded lake

that still retains

summer's fading heat.

 I have a beautiful cherry-wood paddle. It's a Grassmere paddle, and I had it made (custom ordered at what I then thought was exorbitant cost!) at the end of my last season working as a very poorly paid counsellor at summer camp (Pine Crest, out of the Toronto YMCA). It was a traditional camp: boys only, general interest outdoorsy stuff, and centred on canoe-tripping. I don't think camps like this exist anymore. Now they're all (quite sensibly!) co-ed. Now they're all about computers, or hockey, or music.

Actually, it's displayed more as a work of art than a functional piece of equipment. We would have called this a "style" paddle: no good for canoe-tripping; more for show. But even if it isn't used as the poem suggests, it's used in other ways. It connects me to this long ago past ...to a very significant stage of life ...and to a time of passage to the next. I'm not sentimental. I'm not much interested in "stuff" in general. And I have very few artifacts of my past. But this is something I'm very pleased to possess.

I thought of a paean to the canoe paddle while reading a review of Roy MacGregor's new book Canoe Country: The Making of Canada. I've written about canoes before; but never the paddle. Yet every time I look at this one, I think of its exquisite combination of aesthetic beauty, function, and minimalism; how it so perfectly ...suits its task. What could be more deserving of a poem? (I also wanted to include something of my snarling contempt for those who, with the blissful ignorance of the dilettante, call them "oars", not paddles. But manfully resisted!)

I think the ending could be read metaphorically. As it progresses from old paddle to older man, then calls back to the heat of summer, it seems to say that not only has paddling called up the narrator's long-ago youth, the summer of life, but that it actually restores him to that youth: he is the lake, and the heat of summer is in him once again.

I added the 2nd stanza in a last read-through I thought was just a formality that would confirm the poem was done. The original was this: I paddle my canoe/ with easy practiced strokes/ with a paddle I've owned/ for over 40 years. The repetition of with struck me as a little off. (Now, as I re-visist, it seems to work extremely well! And there's no doubt that the original version gets right into the meat of the poem with an elegant economy of words.) Nevertheless, now that I've written it, I can't bear to lose the line All canoes are red; even if it is an unnecessary digression. In fact, it may be my favourite line! I know italics are highly problematic: attentive readers resent being led by the nose; and if the context itself doesn't call up the emphasis, then it probably means I've failed to write well. But because all is so essential to the idea, and even though of course probably adds enough weight, I let it stand. (I don't at all mind using italics to indicate dialogue. I think quotations marks look clunky. And I think italics alters the reader's voice in a way that works better than quotes.)

The First School Bus

Sept 6 2015

The first school bus

catches me off-guard;

a sudden end to summer

the relentless coming of fall.

Its red lights flash, and all traffic stops;

an line of idling cars,

like sullen kids

waiting for class.

September is a bittersweet month.

The days can be just as hot,

but August's muggy thickness

has lifted.

While nights are long, cool, clear,

with a serious hint

of woodsmoke.

And even thought the world

is still green and lush

the first leaves have turned;

as if telling us

it's only a matter of time.

Labour Day weekend

and it's the best weather yet

in an unseasonably wet summer.

How cruel

to confine the kids to class

anxious, and bleary-eyed,

when they should be outside

accomplishing absolutely nothing.

And how sad

that it's nice, at last,

just when fall

is inexorably coming.

But a beautiful summer day

in September

is like anything rare;

we feel grateful, and blessed,

taking extra pleasure

in the unexpected heat.

Counting on this perfect day

to sustain us through a hard winter

reluctant spring.

The school bus starts, only to stop;

brakes squealing

straddling the shoulder, hogging the road.

Then starts again,

belching-out blue-black smoke

and grinding through the gears.

Red lights flash,

like a stern teacher

setting down the rules.

As if to warn us

that summer is over, back to school.

As if to say

please take your seats

real life resumes.

 For some reason, they started school here in the last week of August. I was surprised to see the first school bus -- resuming its regular route, at its regular time -- in the week before Labour Day. How cruel, I thought!

I'd prefer if we thought of real life as the summer, rather than the school year. I use the term ironically, even though that may not be obvious to other readers. After all, doing absolutely nothing -- unstructured time -- has much to be said for it. ...But so it goes.

It's Sept 6, and it's true: the last few days have been the best all season. At least the nice weather waited until there weren't any bugs! But how extra cruel is that: the kids, confined to sweltering classrooms, gazing longingly out the windows on such beautiful days? (Btw, bleary-eyed is because they're not used to waking up at such an ungodly hour. Even without the bad habits of summer, school starts too early for normal adolescents. And anxious is because starting a new school year is always filled with anxieties: will I get the "good" teacher(s)? ...will I wear the right clothes? ...will I fit in? ...will I be up to the work? ...will I make the team?)

Or maybe today's kids don't notice. After all, isn't most of their time spent indoors, in front of screens? And even when they are outside, aren't they always fixed on those little screens that are constantly at hand?