Restoring Order

May 29 2011

The garage needed cleaning.

A good chore, for spring,

when daylight is inexhaustible

and it’s hard to keep putting off.

When restoring order

in a corner of the world

seems possible.

When the exuberant growth

of wild things

threatens to overtake us,

starting with the garden

then moving on,

invading the house

the idle body.

I moved the woodpile.

Which is like digging holes

just to fill them back in;

yet found myself

surprisingly gratified.

Because of the mindlessness

of the task.

Because of the heft of wood,

compact wedges that so nicely stack

locking solidly in place.

Work that lasts.

Work you can measure, that decisively ends.

Stepping back

hands on hips

I admire a job well done,

placing soft leather gloves

on top of the pile

with a ceremonial flourish.

I feel smug

at foresight
abundance,

plenty of fuel

for warm winter nights, a cozy glow.

At having regained some sense of control,

however delusional.

Manual labour

  —  slow methodical work,

the well-earned ache, afterward,

the hard and calloused hands  —

is a welcome respite

from complexity

uncertainty

powerlessness.

Moving wood

like moving words around the page

changes little

in the bigger picture,

the grim unpredictable world.

And in a few brief seasons

the pile of birch will be gone.

My words may not last

much longer.

Possession

May 26 2011

Your birthday, for sure

but rarely his.

And never on New Year’s

or Christmas.

He calls your place “ours,”

which is what it is

though his visits are quick.

Some toiletries, a change of clothes

the box of Cuban cigars.

How an alpha male marks

his territory.

And when he calls that woman

“the mother of my children”,

you let yourself be reassured

that she is the other

and you are first.

Lover.

Mistress.

Paramour.

Living like this

seems glamorous.

But more than cared for

you feel well kept.

And so you keep for yourself

the receipts he spent

and phone numbers left,

the petty resentments

you find hard to forget.

Protecting yourself

for the arrangement’s inevitable end.

To have and to hold

at his convenience

until it dies a natural death.

Which is the feeling you’re starting to get

since the last night you spent

together.

How it feels to possess

what you could never afford.

How it feels to be possessed.

Feeding Fire

May 23 2011

We feed the fire

a morsel of wood, a rotten log.

Sparks erupt,

choking smoke, roils up.

Pockets of sap

flare hungrily,

sizzle, hiss

and pop.

And like fine seasoning

a handful of dry needles

are tossed,

blazing-up in golden light.

Catching us

faces flushed, and glowing.

Its appetite

is inexhaustible

and we feed it, compulsively

mesmerized by its power.

A log, too long to swallow

will last all night long.

I stretch out my foot, nudging it deeper,

like a skewer

straight to the fire’s heart.

A hundred years of sunlight

released

in a few short hours.

We scour the forest

for fallen branches

snags,

driftwood, washed up.

Raid a beaver dam

for bone dry fuel.

Sitting around a campfire

  —  back, frozen
front far too hot  — 

we watch,

as greedy fire

consumes a woodpile

as big as a man.

An exothermic reaction of air and flame

that self-sustains,

releases heat

feeds itself

demands to be replenished.

I think how 200 seconds

deprived of oxygen

and our brains are fried.

And where enough of this toxic gas

would consume the planet,

in mass conflagration

wildfire.

And how it feeds the life

that smolders within us,

burning bright

giving off heat and light

illuminating the world

for our earthly pleasure.

And then leaves behind

exhausted bodies

to cool.

Like the pile of ash

we poke with a toe next morning.

The rocks still warm,

perhaps a glowing ember

buried.

Glottic Stop

May 19 2011

You could drown in a glass of water

some know-it-all said

in grade school.

Mere seconds, and you’re dead,

pulling my leg, for sure.

But after that

I could never drink from a glass

without thoughts of mortality.

The glottic stop,

the flap of frail tissue

that keeps me breathing

without needing to think.

And  seems to catch in my throat

when I do.

I heard about a chunk of rock

that killed a cow in a farmer’s field.

A meteorite, pitted black

surface, turned to glass

by heat,

coming a million miles

to land, by chance.

After that

I found it hard to trust the sky,

raining down lightning bolts

hail the size of golf balls.

The oncoming driver,

whose heavy eyes

closed a second longer,

watching the broken line

tick by

like a hypnotist’s clock.

And swerved

over the thin white divider

after just passing me by.

At 60 miles an hour

a-mile-a-minute,

when a single second

means 88 feet.

Not enough time

for your mouth to go dry

before swallowing

hard.

A believer would call these acts of God,

an atheist

contingencies.

That separate us by less than a second

from blind intersections,

the dumb luck

that comes at us

head-on.

I tried using straws

sucking on ice.

Never walking or talking

when I sipped my coffee,

or quaffed

a long tall cool one.

Which reminds me of the daredevil

on his high tower

looking down,

about to dive into a small pail of water.

Who bails out

descending the ladder, instead,

misses a step

and tumbles backwards,

straight down

into hard unyielding ground.

A second

that must have felt like hours.

An odd poem, that must seem both neurotic and morbid. And certainly something I’ve written about before:  the idea of contingency, blind fate, near misses; everything from accidents of birth, to birds flying into car windows. But it was fun to write, and that alone is enough.

I’m not sure where this began, where this idea of “drowning in a glass of water” came from. Perhaps I was thinking of all the out-dated shibboleths and finger-wagging parental warnings; especially in an era of over-cautious child-rearing, not to mention generalized anxiety.  Neither am I sure where the meteorite or high diver came from. But for whatever reason, both were irresistible images, and I went with them. So I hope it’s not fatally incoherent. Maybe when I re-visit this later, I’ll be in a better position to judge.

Luckily, we’re all very accomplished at denial, at drifting through daily life with our illusion of invulnerability – if not immortality – fully intact.  Otherwise, life would be so fraught it wouldn’t seem worth carrying on!

I, of course, am the atheist in this poem. Not the most comforting world view, but it’s mine nevertheless:  that we are the result of the random intersection of molecules in a cold indifferent universe, and neither illusions of agency, nor illusions of God, will protect us.

Intangible Air

May 16 2011

The funnel cloud

touched down outside our house,

hesitating

gaining strength.

I could feel the twister

sucking me in.

I turned

and without a thought, quickly locked the door.

Stupid, I know.

Later

when there was breathless talk

of trees

impaled by straws,

whole houses

lifted off their foundations

deposited blocks away,

the fine china vase

that was all that remained

amidst splinters, and broken glass,

I thought more

about random fate

the illusion of safety.

Of empty space

that only seems that way.

Because we live out our lives

divided by air,

slipping through

as if nothing

had come between.

A cooling breeze
unseen.

Blue sky
in all directions.

Sunsets

in every shade of red.

Forgetting

that actual space is a vacuum,

frozen, black.

Like the space in between

that reveals the truth,
the silences, and things unseen.

In the awkward pause

in a conversation.

In the ungodly wait

for luck to change.

In the seconds lost

between impact

and the gun going off.

Who knew

intangible air

could pack such awful power.

My jaw dropped

looking out the plate glass window

at the roaring cloud

black with debris.

Like a swaggering strongman,

top-heavy, muscle-bound

tottering on smallish feet.

And then moved on,

took the neighbour’s house

cut a swathe through the streets.

And left me standing

behind my door

firmly locked,

as the pressure dropped

a blood vessel popped in my eye.

Power lost,

the street

unrecognizable.

And in its wake

unearthly silence,

filled by the sound of air.
My rapid shallow breathing.

Personal Effects

May 13 2011

The air in the house

sits motionless,

as if heavier than the air outside.

As settled, and dense

as a body of water

left undisturbed.

So the dust has silted out

in a fine even layer,

and there’s that closed-in stuffiness

that makes you wary

of every breathe.

The scent of darkly polished wood.

Of musty clothes

and papers, decomposing.

Years of home cooking

that infuse the place.

And the door, creaking open

the expanding fan of light,

sending ripples of air

into every corner,

disrupting the stillness.

Like a stone

unexpectedly dropped.

Not that she was a hoarder

scarred by scarcity, or fear

  —  no Armageddon, or apocalypse,

but the Great Depression

had left its mark.

Most of all, she had an eye for a bargain

and one-of-a-kind.

And for frugal treasures,

she was sure

would be of use

some day.

You cannot dispose of a house

like a human body,

by cremation

man-made fire.

It must be done methodically,

dissected

taken apart.
The public face, the private parts,

no matter how embarrassing.
An autopsy

unofficial, ad hoc,

not into the cause of death

but a life, well-lived.

When everything disposed

is an act of disrespect.

And memories are stirred up like dust,

resurrected, then laid to rest

in flagrant acts

of forgetfulness.

She knew none of us

would want this stuff

she had spent a lifetime

collecting.

This was her personal journey

and now she was done,

never expecting to have ended up

anywhere

but here.

The house was eventually sold

for a tidy sum

to a young attractive couple,

besotted with each other.

Just starting out

with next to nothing at all.

We unstuck the windows

wedged open every door

before the deal finally closed.

But the smell of pot roast and onions

stubbornly persists,

in the paint, the hardwood

the varnish finish,

going dark with age.

And although the house

had been aired and gutted,

the scent of lavender, however subtle

clings to its skin.

Which I think would please her.

Because she liked to keep things,

and kept them well.

The Fullness of Time

May 9 2011

In the fullness of time

we will laugh about this.

Or have forgotten it
entirely,

ancient history

water under the bridge.

After which

a supernova will incinerate the planet

anyway.

A nihilistic thought, I admit.

But what giddy freedom it gives,

because if nothing ultimately matters

I might as well live

in the moment.

Yet time is never full.

It is full of holes

of forgetfulness

and drudgery.

It will never overflow

or even be filled.

And it is not a measuring stick

standing outside of us,

exact, inviolable.

We are each a clock of our own,

running erratically

fast and slow.

Slamming to a stop

in the fabulous clarity of falling,

the impact

of bottoming out.

In the very first kiss,

when tectonic plates shift

continents

can drift apart.

And when you depart

finished, or not.

From jilted lovers,

the basic struggle

for life.

It is true, though

that time accelerates

as we grow older.

Because we’ve seen it all before.

Because a month isn’t much

after more than enough of them.

But when a year was half your life

so far

it was a vast trackless place

in which to lose yourself.

A space you could not possibly fill

before moving on

to the next.

Before cynicism hardened you.

Before you got jaded

and bored.

You’d have thought

close to death

you’d give anything

for one more day

                                 …hour

                                             …second.

But even this depends

on how tired you are, how much pain.

How much

you so deeply desire the end.

When the fullness of time

sets you free,

delivered

from suffering.

Backbone

My 6 2011

There are no rules

underwater.

Exoskeletons

and fleshy blobs,

beasts who slip their shells

on and off.

But we are of the subphylum vertebrate,

our internal scaffold of bone

hidden from sight.

We are land animals, upright

defying gravity.

Calculating our centre of mass,

automatically

taking our weight for granted,

as we arise, and walk

distracted by important thoughts.

The skeleton in our closet,

the backbone

we need to go on.

Concealing the lives

we’ve left behind

or somehow forgotten.

Not just the hypocrites

and bold impostors,

but the innocents

and men of honour.

And even the most righteous among us,

who has his secrets

he keeps from everyone else;

even himself, sometimes.

I was surprised when I learned

that Mother Teresa spent her life

afflicted by doubt.

That Hitler

was a vegetarian,

concerned for the welfare of animals.

And that our fearless leader

doesn’t  much care

for the little people

he proclaims to love.

Like all of us,

the secret thoughts we dare not share

with any other.

So we go to the grave

wondering if we’ll be called to account

in the afterlife,

for thought crimes

and sins of omission.

If there is a God of forgiveness

or retribution.

Or if this is it

and then we’re gone,

consigned to the earth in a wooden box

that rots, along with our flesh.

Where our secrets are also interred.

Leaving teeth, showing their wear

and  a jumble of bones, picked bare.

That will go on and on,

containing our sins

forever.

Election Calendar

May 5 2011

It is election season.

Early spring

with brown lawns, and bare trees.

And signs sprouting in party colours,

boldly proclaiming

allegiance, identity

engagement.

Dirty ice

persists in the shadows

in pitted granular mounds,

desperately hanging on.

Like a war-horse politician,

who could never hold

a real job.

The buds are small, hard, tightly clenched.

Like penny-pinching citizens,

who feel over-taxed

and under-served.

The sky is a uniform grey,

as predictable as the suit and tie

that adorns the beaming candidate,

glad-handing surly voters.

And as leaden as the speech he gave

to the local Rotarians,

the party line

and platitudes and boiler plate

we find so reassuring.

Loads of leaves

are slowly decomposing,

matted together on unraked lawns.

Like the largesse

dispensed

by spendthrift politicians.

And like taxes and death

election day eventually comes,

winner take all.

Who is generous in victory,

thrilled, honoured

in debt.

And the gracious concession speech

of his rival,

he so humbly accepts.

Followed by summer

when we’ll have had more than enough

of politics.

Then winter, again,

the season of discontent

and broken promises.

When a beautiful blanket of snow

mercifully covers-up

our sins.

When the frost

puts a stop

to all that phoney posturing.

And hot air

can’t outlast the cold.

Looking Back

May 3 2011

I was young, that summer,

yet already feeling

life had passed me by.

Looking back

at the kids I once ignored,

who’d gone shooting right past me

suddenly so grown-up.

We are like generals

fighting the last war,

our plumed and polished cavalry

in their bright red coats

picked-off by bare-foot farm boys

concealed in the tree-tops.

Stuck in the past,

like Custer, and Maginot.

I drove west

across the prairie alone,

the car crusted with bugs

filthy with dusty

sheet metal hot as a fry pan.

“Fly over country”, it’s been called

the land-locked heart of a continent,

far from the teeming coasts

where life goes on.

And not as flat as I thought

but rolling like an ocean of soil,

the treeless plain

where the ghosts of buffalo thunder

and rivers run slow.

Indian wars, and wagon trains,

and bleached white bones

interred in an inch of soil.

I mostly remember the sky,

unbelievably high

and everything puny

beneath it.

Technicolor light,

with storm clouds

I watched coming my way

for days, it seemed.

And asphalt, going soft in the sun

laid out like a ruler across the landscape,

a line on a map

drawn by some hell-or-high-water surveyor.

Until the car felt motionless

with the land scrolling by beneath it.

And me, feeling claustrophobic inside,

angling my neck

to gawk at the sky
out the slit of windshield. 

And now, much older, I’m still looking back.

Heading into the setting sun,

my eyes firmly fixed

on the rear-view mirror.

I was listening to Sheila Rogers interview  Elizabeth Hay on her new novel Alone in the Classroom. Something she said inspired me to write this. They were talking about her inexplicable attraction to Saskatchewan (to which she's returned in a couple of novels), and its unappreciated beauty.  In particular, she made a comment about the myth of "flatness":  that the prairie is actually rarely flat. (And in fact, what defines it as prairie is not its flatness, but its treelessness.) It brought up some memories, and that's what set me off on this poem.

I've only driven once across the prairies. And it was decades ago. But some very powerful images still endure. I quit enjoyed the exercise of trying to convey them in this compressed poetic form.

I shake my head at how young I was on that trip, and yet how I was even then afflicted with this persisting feeling of missing out; of growing up too late; of being far too pre-occupied by regret and recrimination over the irretrievable past. This is the sub-text of the piece:  weaving through it, as well as beginning and ending it.