Sunday, April 30, 2017


Home Town
April 28 2017


The local paper
in my home town
is good for the ads,
and did for the puppy
when she learned not to pee on the floor.

It has all the scores
from high school.
Saturday's yard sales,
the worthy mayor's
speech to Rotary,
pictures of men
leaning on their shovels
around a half-filled pothole.
That is
all we really care to know.

And inside the back page, below the fold
some wire-service stories
about great affairs of state,
consequential men
somewhere else.

But by then
your hands are smudged with ink
and you just want to toss the thing,
flimsy paper
that could use more gloss and bleach.
Except we'd shake our heads at the waste,
and who would ever be willing to pay,
and anyway
it's always been like this.

But only after clipping out the piece
about your great aunt's big day.
Who will turn 90 next week;
and, as the story crows,
has lived her whole life
in her childhood home.
Or so far, at least.



I still read the big city paper. And now the digital edition; so it's not even a “paper”. But when the car was in the shop the other day, I picked up the complimentary copy of the local daily, and it reinforced how disconnected I am: in the media universe that comes to me over the airwaves, I could be living anywhere ...or nowhere. But mostly, I noticed how thin it was, and how provincial.

The real impetus for this poem came from a New Yorker article (A Long Homecoming – May 1 2017; by Ariel Levy) about the author Elizabeth Strout. She wrote Olive Kitteridge, a memorable character who embodies all the flinty repression of coastal Maine: I never read the book, but loved the serialized version on HBO.

As the subtitle of the article says, “The novelist Elizabeth Strout left Maine, but it didn't leave her.” It was this complicated interplay of attraction and repulsion, of belonging and ambition – ambivalence about notions of home; the contrast between “perching” and feeling rooted; the push/pull of claustrophobia and comfort; the pinched conformity of both tradition and expectation rubbing up against the restlessness of youth – that made me want to write about small town life. Except that would be an essay, or another novel. I'm too impatient and too susceptible to instant gratification for that. Hence, poetry: a modest poem about just one thing. I think this poem is as much encomium as gentle criticism: that there is nothing wrong with daily life, bourgeois values, the comfort of home; or doing what you can in the real world you actually know and touch.

I know I will be reprimanded for saying consequential men instead of people. I went back and forth, and only settled on the sexist version because of the sound. Although it could be argued that this works here because it reflects the patriarchal view of small towns and older people. It also calls back to the 2nd stanza, where the most consequential thing the local men do is manual labour.


I like the mischief of the last line. The misinterpretation of “having lived one's whole life” is a lame old one-liner. But it also hints at a restless undercurrent of escape. And even more, it shares a joke with the reader about the improbable prospect of change, at a life just beginning at 90!

Broken Wing
April 27 2017


Cradled in my hands
the injured bird went still.

The antelope comes to mind,
taken by a pride
when the fight goes out of him.
A lioness
crushing his neck,
teeth tearing
at living flesh,
his disembowelled entrails.
As he lies, unresisting
unblinking eyes glazed.

Do we all surrender, in the end
detach from pain?
So it's fight or flight
then giving in.
But how this came about
by evolution
makes no sense,
except to imagine
that nature has no use
for suffering without purpose,
that even in death
the universe is merciful.
A consoling truth
for those who believe in a higher power;
but for me
one more of life's great mysteries
I cannot explain.

The give and take
of finely-tuned touch, unconscious muscle
as I loosely cup the bird,
adjusting to its trifling mass
and sudden stirrings;
the fluttering of its tiny heart,
the unnerving lightness
of airy feathers
hollow bones.
Neither crushing
nor letting go.

A broken wing might heal
if it isn't killed by fright.
Or the shock
of a wild thing caged.

Would I choose death
over confinement?
                             Will this bird, biding its time
muster the will,
gathering strength
to fly again?



I've probably been watching too many nature documentaries. But this recurring image is really quite striking: the prey animal, lying calmly, as it's being eaten alive. We identify with the victim, and there is a consolation is seeing that it appears, however incredibly, not to suffer. But the biologist in me can't understand this. Because evolution operates by survival and reproduction: yes, playing dead might in very rare cases help an animal survive; but vastly more often, a prey animal is certain to die, so those genes that confer this singular mercy will be lost, not inherited. How, then, could this great rush of terminal endorphins ever be selected for?

No, I didn't rescue an injured bird. And have never held a living bird in my hands, But I have picked up a dead bird (who had flown into the picture window) and felt the surprising lightness. This poem started with a vague image of a bird in the hand that was used as a metaphor in something I recently read. The source has completely escaped my mind. But I think the author talked about the hands' precisely calibrated balance of pressure and touch, and this somehow stuck with me. Was he writing about a movie director managing his temperamental stars? A coach in professional sports massaging egos? Whatever it was, it was clearly a very effective metaphor!


Open Water
April 25 2017


The first canoe
was on the lake
before the ice was out.

But until the boat cleared the point
I couldn't be sure
those were voices I heard,
chitchatting
so unnaturally loud,
broadcast
from who-knows-where.

How sound carries
on open water.
Where the ice
wind-driven, and dull with slush
was nicely off shore.

I was shocked
by its glossy paint,
fire-engine red
against the water's grey chop,
the drab tufts of grass
and low leafless shrubs,
the dark jumble of rocks
half-submerged.
3 brightly dressed bodies, in a tippy boat,
its gunwales barely clearing
the lethal cold.

How hungry we must be
for sun, and open water
after winter's long hard slog.
Like starving prisoners
stumbling from our frigid cells
into unaccustomed light,
blinking, and rubbing our eyes.

They paddled lazily
zig-zagging along the shore,
not fishing
or racing
or out to explore;
a convivial boat ride
on the first warm day.

As if oblivious
to instant death
mere inches away.




It had been forever since we'd been down to the beach. (I use “beach” in its broadest sense. If you're picturing a manicured spread of tropical sand, think again!) I wanted to see how the break-up was coming along, and if there was enough open water for the dogs to swim.

Could those be voices? Could they be coming from the woods, across the narrows? No, it couldn't be: was someone actually out canoeing, in this lethally cold water? I looked hard, before I saw them, appearing from just behind the point and heading this way.

I would never be out in a boat, this time of year. My reaction was admiration and envy, mixed with pity at doing something so dangerously naive.

Now a few comments about some of the choices I made.

I was very surprised to find myself writing “nicely out from shore”. I've always regarded “nice” as a weasel word: too wishy-washy for poetry. And then to use the adverb – my least favourite part of speech -- no less! But something about it works here. Perhaps this is nothing more than the simple resonance between “ice” and “nicely”. Or maybe it's the implication that the open water was just inviting enough.

Gunwales” can also be “gunnels”. But I prefer the traditional nautical spelling. Which is OK, as long as this isn't an unfamiliar spelling that the reader then sounds out literally.

I'm pleased with “fire engine red”. It not only captures the startling contrast in colour, it conveys a sense of emergency: a telling bit of foreshadowing that makes sense with the final stanza.

Sunday, April 23, 2017


Winter Dogs
April 22 2017



A line of cedars
facing north.
Where, in a nascent spring
at the foot of the trees
a bank of snow persists.

A remnant of winter,
radiating cold
as I approach.

And like ticking-off a calendar
it tracks the sun's ascent,
edge receding
as the shadow steadily shrinks.
The succession of seasons
in a strip of shade
that will thin, day-by-day;
until the very first of summer,
when it reverses abruptly 
and the countdown to winter begins.

A pool of melt
where the dogs sluggishly step,
pink tongues
lapping glacial liquid
with slow deliberate flicks.
Eyes staring
as if mesmerized by drink
in this unaccustomed heat,
never questioning
the presence of water
the changing of season
the unfamiliar warmth.

The soiled snow
where the dogs contentedly sprawl
is concentrated by thaw,
has lost its pristine whiteness.
Gone, soon enough,
when the dogs will seek out the same sliver of shade
in the lee of the cedars
in a feverish spring;
and I can only wonder
if they know summer is coming
remember the season that was.

Sleeping dogs, in their winter coats
lying in the shade,
tongues lolling, sides heaving
eyes quivering beneath their lids.
Emitting high-pitched yelps
as they dream of beds of snow.



My kitchen window faces roughly southeast. On the far side of the driveway, a line of cedars stand like sentinels, in a gently curving arc. So I look out on the side protected from sun, where a bank of snow persists: a combination of the shade, and the accumulation from a winter of snow-blowing.

Toward my vantage point, there is a depression where the melt pools. The dogs, sensibly enough, sprawl full-length in the snow in the unaccustomed heat, and saunter up to the water as if it had always been there, and was naturally intended for them. They're Labradors – the quintessential Canadian dog! -- and do wonderfully in the coldest winter. The change of season is hard on them, and summer a trial without someplace to swim and reliable shade.

So I've ended up writing both a weather/seasonal poem and a dog poem all at once: two tropes I assiduously try to avoid, since I think I've already done both to death. But sometimes a poem comes, and my job becomes one of simply taking dictation. I needed to write; and this is what came to me, looking out my kitchen window on an unseasonably temperate day in a late spring that has whipsawed between warm and cold.

Wednesday, April 19, 2017


A Slip of the Hand
April 18 2017


Choose seasoned wood
that's soft, and clear of knots.

The granular strop-strop-strop
of a finely honed edge
on whetted stone.

Cut along the grain
angling away.
The thumb's broad callused pad
fine-tuning the blade,
muscle memory
feeling by way
of pressure, cant
depth.

Shavings curl off
in long smooth strips,
leaving a dark patina
of sweat and skin
from the carver's warm grip.
From all the people
who have handled it since.
Fingering, palming, passing it on.
Stroking its fine-grained finish.
Holding it up to the eye, and intentionally turning
so every side is seen;
the smooth surface
of burnished wood,
the play of light and dark.

One constructs by subtraction,
the mind's eye
conjuring negative space.
The way a growing brain
prunes its wiring,
until the ultimate hardening
of function and form.
Undone
by a slip of the hand
aberration of eye,
a fleeting lapse of mind.

Like red ochre paint
on the wall of a cave
too deep for natural light,
a length of found wood
somehow turned
to an enduring work of art.

A nameless carver
unschooled in his craft,
who never thought
he would leave his mark
on posterity.

Wednesday, April 12, 2017


4 Seasons
April 11 2017


She told me once
it takes all 4 seasons
to be sure.

Because love begins in summer
walks hand-in-hand in fall,
shares the same stale air
in winter's cramped fortress.

But is tested in spring,
when the frozen soil warms
green shoots unfurl,
blooms strike colour
into a dull brown world.
Petals, recklessly beckoning
the subtle attraction of scent.

Who isn't tempted
to re-invent themselves
in all this intensity?
Stepping-out
into sweet mild air.
The feel of sun
on impervious skin
unaccustomed to touch.
Made restless, and rash
by the lengthening day
softening light.
Urgently aware
of the fecundity of life
and its merciless transience.

The flowers of spring
are their own wedding bouquet
and funeral march.
Because life is short;
summer over
almost as soon as it starts.




It's very early days, and I naturally started to write about spring ...like a million other boring predictable poems before this one! But then, thinking about seasons, I remembered what she once said. Which gave me an entree into a poem about relationship: one that could be built on the scaffold of seasons, but be more than merely descriptive.

How it got from there to a poem about temptation, and even infidelity, is the mystery of the creative act. But spring has that paradoxical effect. There is the inspiration of new life and new beginnings, set against the awareness of the transience of that life: the sobering awareness that inertia is slow death; and that if you don't do it now, you may never.


Sunday, April 9, 2017


Rock Cut
April 8 2017


The rock cut
glittered with quartz.

In its darkened well
a ribbon of road,
thin asphalt
the weight of rock.

Sheer vertical walls
as if they were carved;
the diamond-tipped teeth, titanium arms
of some leviathan saw,
screeching through
solid rock.

Except it was TNT
in a massive charge.
Civil engineer
as anarchist,
toying with dynamite
in hard hat
corporate tie.

So the route need not vary,
flat as a level
due north.
Steam-rolled pavement,
through boreal forest
over muskeg and swamp
splitting igneous rock,
as if a ruler had been placed
between 2 points,
its builders instructed
to muscle through.
As if the planet's surface were true,
time
of the essence.

Eyes on the road
enclosed in tinted glass.
The cut, whisking past
in a heedless blur,
millions of years
of geologic time
reduced to seconds.
Cold rock, unearthed,
basking in sun
unaccustomed air.

Its granite face
in gradations of pink, and grey
catching the last
glimmer of light.






I glimpsed this reproduction in the Saturday Arts section: an ad for a gallery.

It immediately struck me how familiar and generic a rock cut like this appears to us. And how we tunnel through in a straight unerring line, as if the land were inconsequential, its vast history of no useful interest.

Except that the last rock cuts I drove through were, compared to this image, absolutely sheer and geometric: a perfect aesthetic for human mastery over nature.

Roads originally followed the path of least resistance. They may have been refined from cow paths, or may have taken advantage of trails made by wild animals. When you had to be observant, pick your way, detour around obstacles. When we moved in nature, not willy-nilly through it.

(I have some questions about the artistry here. It's an almost photographic rendering, and as such is technically impressive (as pretty much any visual art is to me, since I haven't progressed much further than stick figures and finger paint!); but I wonder what it actually says, what the artist wanted to express. Because the piece lacks any sense of narrative, any human interest, any particularity of place. ...So, could that be his message: the absence of people in a landscape that has been altered by man, yet where nature's majesty and indifference persist intact and undiminished?)


Wednesday, April 5, 2017


The Secret Life of Trees
April 4 2017


They hide in plain sight,
the secret life of trees
in their forest cathedral.

There's a path through the woods
where it straightens out
and trees line either side.
Smooth trunks, evenly spaced
rising-up like sentinels,
a canopy
of dappled green
in a gently curving arch.
Like the nave
of a great medieval church
I feel sanctuary under its vault;
the filtered light
the cool air
the lofty open space.

But the mystery of trees
is their underground existence.

Roots, dividing finer and finer
until they intertwine,
an elaborate web
passing molecules, messages.
Branching mycelia
who feed, and are fed,
microscopic saprophytes
resurrecting the dead.

And chemical signals
from porous leaves
resounding through the air;
the cacophony of trees
in the wood's majestic stillness.

I listen to a hard rain
on an aspen in spring,
its tight succulent buds
beginning to unfurl.
On a sprawling maple's
autumn foliage,
its brittle parchment's flattened note.
And a cedar's dark green fronds
absorbing, softening.

Like bird song
I learn the woods by ear;
each, a distinct sound
in a community of trees,
a congregation
singing from its hymn book.

Stopped
in the cool shade
of its high green canopy
we are small,
tiny inhabitants
of a larger body
too vast to comprehend.
We thought there were trees
when forest
was all there was;
a single organism
we never heard, and never saw
walking through its heart.




Scroll down to the bottom, and you'll find a link to the article that inspired this poem.

Ed Yong is a staff writer at the Atlantic, and almost every day produces a terrific piece of scientific journalism. The article is his review of a book by David George Haskell, The Song of Trees.

Yong describes Haskell as “a kind of naturalist-poet”, and I find this greatly appealing. My poetry is very much about close observation and microcosm; and from the sensibility and prose style this review suggests, I think Haskell and I think very much alike, are trying to see the world in much the same way.

The things that please me most about this poem are getting the religious metaphor just right, without laying it on too thick; and managing to shoe-horn in a couple of complicated technical words -- mycelia and saprophytes -- without jarring the flow. I really dislike taking poetic license with the science. 

I think the religious metaphor can be seen into the final stanza, even though there are no explicit references there. Because the idea of being in something bigger than ourselves but that we're unable to discern could be taken as a religious allegory as well: that is, our smallness and solipsism, set against the ineffable mystery of God  ...creation  ...the universe. 

By the way, there really is a spot like this. On one of the trails near my home on Hazelwood Lake. Harder to tell in winter. But once it's leafed out, this tunnel of green is quite outstanding. My first time there, the word "sanctuary" came to mind, as it does repeatedly each time I visit.

Anyway, here it is. I'm counting on the Internet's reputed capacity and permanence (as if!) to keep this link live.