Enduring Object

Sept 27 2011

My favourite mug

is grey-blue glazed,

a shade I find tasteful, calming.

A heavy vessel

made from proletarian clay,

its thick blunt rim

sits gently on my lips.

Not fine bone china

that digs in

chips easily

totters on a matching saucer,

tinkling

like tea-time, and finger sandwiches.

A substantial handle

that accepts my fist

with a firm reassuring grip.

Like shaking hands

with a real man,

not a politician’s wet fish.

The generous cup

will hold enough

to keep the coffee hot,

topping it off

with strong black java

steaming up.

My favourite mug

does not say

“World’s Greatest” anything.

Should I spot it

on the lawn

at an early morning garage sale,

I’d forgo the thrill of the hunt

pony-up full price.

It would not do

in a crockery fight

between warring spouses.

Would not shatter against the wall

in a grand denouement,

but instead

would dent the sheetrock

fall to the floor

with an anti-climactic thud.

And we would both watch it

roll to a stop,

half hoping

it would have broken,

relieved

it did not.

An enduring object

you can depend upon.

And when she leaves

early next morning

my favourite mug will keep me warm,

steady

my trembling hands.

Our Beautiful Daughters

Sept 23 2011

Don’t over think this

I’ve said to myself

too many times to count.

Things are complicated enough.

Go ahead, trust your gut.

A little prayer

wouldn’t hurt.

And don’t be too proud

to learn

from the politicians  —

there’s a simple answer

to every problem,

so what if it doesn’t work.

Does this come from the gut

the heart

the soul?

When you just know,

when feeling is so utterly sure

you never second guess yourself?

Some people always go by feel.

They have the conviction, the passion

the rest of us lack.

Attractive, charismatic

we can’t help but believe

as well.

Just like falling in love

when I kept my doubts to myself.

If I’d given it some thought

I’d have stopped

at falling in like.

As it was, I fell hard,

the love of my life

who would quickly break my heart.

And the glorious leader

we wanted so much to believe,

despite his silly cowboy hats

the conspicuously dropped “g”s.

We were all his loyal followers,

until he made off

with our bank accounts,

our beautiful daughters.

A poem about the pitfalls of faith;  about people who prefer the easy route of feeling over the rigor of cold rational thought.

Although the poem hints at romantic love and a broken heart, it actually began with how much the current crop of Republican Presidential pretenders disgust and repulse me. People like Michelle Bachman and Rick Perry, who are clearly incapable of critical thinking; who repeatedly demonstrate such a breath-taking lack of self-awareness; who can be so blithely and unselfconsciously ignorant of basic facts, and don’t care if the facts don’t fit; who prefer bromides and slogans and ideology over thoughtfulness, openness, and nuance. I am gobsmacked by the smug preening confidence of these utter mental cretins, to sincerely believe they are even remotely capable of being President. (Don’t get me started on the Harper Conservatives!)

These are the leaders we get, and the leaders we deserve, because their simple solutions, their empty but handsome suits, make us feel good. Stephen Colbert’s TV persona constantly mocks this:  by proudly proclaiming he only goes by gut feeling; by flaunting his determined anti-intellectualism. The trouble is, Colbert’s flagrant parody isn’t very far off the real thing. Which utterly demoralizes me.

…On the other hand, comparing Rick Perry to a con-man cult leader and sexual predator was very satisfying (if egregiously unfair)!

Yeats, of course, comes to mind:   “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. ”

High-Water Mark

Sept 20 2011

The high-water mark

lasted all summer and fall.

Where spring run-off

thick with pollen

stained the sheer granite wall,

plunging down

into deep black water.

The smooth round rocks

that bob in the shallows

like balding monks;

a fringe of hair

a vow of silence.

The line reminds me of a bathtub ring,

grey water

circling the drain,

sucking, slurping

gurgling down.

Winter

will scrub it clean.

Or break-up

scouring the rim with a crush of ice.

There are familiar markers all around

methodically tracking

the passage of time.

The line of shadow

that marches down the deck

like a daily measuring stick,

how quickly summer ends.

Pine cones, or what’s left of them,

in scattered piles

where squirrels furtively dined.

And leaves, of course.

Although here, it’s variations on yellow,

too far north

for the burnished oaks

flamboyant maples.

The tamaracks

I planted years ago

will drop their needles;

but first

turn a luminous orange-red.

Not evergreen

like the rest of the conifers;

but better for shedding snow

when it’s heavy, wet,

letting wind slip through.

Pliable, slender,

they poke up into the breeze

like moistened fingers

testing the air.

And all the while

the high-water mark

glares passively back at me.

As if I had shirked my basic chores,

leaving the tub to cool

a leaky stopper, badly plugged.

But we choose what’s important

and what can wait.

Next May

will be soon enough  —

spring break-up

the first warm day.

And the lake

returning to life;

full, again.

In My Mind’s Eye

Sept 19 2011

I did not need to be told

that seeing is believing.

Even the blind

feel their way through the world

according to surfaces.

But to see

you must believe as well.

That the mirage will dematerialize

revealing truth.

That the outermost layer

of molecules

carries all the way through.

That we are all tuned

to the very same light;

reality

is absolute.

When I first saw your body

in the 40 watt glow

on that sweltering night,

your nakedness slowly revealed

the desire in your eyes,

I felt sure.

Looked away, looked back.

Breathed you in

saw with my hands,

sun-warmed skin

the salty wetness.

Then began with your lips

our moistened tongues,

eyes, drifting shut.

Now, 20 years later

I see you exactly the same.

Laid bare, beside me;

in my mind’s eye.

Could reproduce

every curve of your body

all the secret parts,

off by heart.

I feel no older,

and believe

as surely as I did

2 decades before.

We have explored

so far below the surface

it’s as if a thousand bolts of light

had turned us transparent

left

temporarily blind.

Yet not even caring,

because we’d seen all we needed,

gone deep inside.

Now, This …

Sept 17 2011

Tomorrow’s high, seasonal.

Home team wins,

stocks closed mixed.

Tuned-in

to the usual politics

celebrity gossip,

the latest medical marvel

that will fizzle-out

next year.

The radio is on

in the background,

a liquid voice

connecting me to the outside world.

True facts,

which don’t much matter

in the larger pattern

that might actually make sense,

and leave me feeling worse

  —  even more powerless.

Wondering what gets in,

when just about everything’s

left out.

Until pretty soon

could anyone tell

if they re-played last year’s version?

An urgent loop

of human oddities

mass atrocities

news-you-can-use.

Anchors

making happy-talk.

In World War II

Lorne Greene read the news.

That’s right, the guy from Bonanza.

The “voice of doom”

he was called,

the reassuring gravity

of his deep dulcet tones,

coast-to-coast

across Canada.

Keeping up morale

on the home front,

instilling sacrifice.

Maybe it’s the common purpose

we lack.

The clear distinction

between good and evil,

the certainty

of where we stand.

Or tune-in to the music station,

easy listening, modern jazz.

The familiarity

is comforting,

keeping company

with people just like us.

Serving up

an up-beat version

of a better world,

current

informed

reassured.

Where, if nothing else

we can at least mouth the words,

tapping our toes

all the way to utopia.

Here for Good

Sept 14 2011

A gentle slope

of wildflowers, stunted brush,

dropped by wind

on runners, burrowing-in

underground.

Stony soil, good sun,

where stiff nor’westers

blow unobstructed.

A decade since

we put in the jack pine,

grown from seed.

A sharp jab

with steel shovel,

spindly sapling, seated roughly,

earth tamped neatly back.

Repeat.

So 5 years on

end of season

I survey the survivors.

There was the frantic greening of June,

when it felt like a steamy bayou

that would choke-off, swallow-up

everything made by man.

And a hot dry August,

that sent roots deep

tested toughness.

Noticeably taller

some inching over my head.

But willowy, wands in the wind,

as if they grew too quick

were life or death.

Needles thin, top-heavy

like hungry new-born birds.

  …But all-in-all, here for good.

I will grow old

and they will be full,

generous with shade.

I will be gone

and they will be strong,

with thick branches

wizened, twisted.

A monument to foresight,

on a hot spring day, long forgotten.

When we scattered saplings, without a plan

on that tangled slope

that had gone to nature.

Imagining cool escape

in high summer.

A sanctuary of trees,

wind-toughened

green canopy, up above.

Not really believing

they’d come to much.

Alone With Your Thoughts

Sept 12 2011

To have gone through life

and never known silence.

I mean absolute silence,

so deep and sublime

all you can hear

is the hot rush of blood

in your seashell ears.

So never truly by yourself

alone with your thoughts.

No cloistered cell

renouncing talk,

expelled to the desert

wandering, lost.

Your place is here,

the city you never left

and always loved.

And the wilderness, you know something of  —

reassured it exists,

and that’s good enough.

How can I describe such a silence?

Like colour, to a blind man

love, a psychopath,

but worse.

Because this is an absence,

the distillation of less

to less and less,

essential

ineffable

pure.

As impossible as proving a negative.

The unimaginable stillness

of the world at rest.

A held breath,

the seconds left

before your heart contracts

again.

I think you would find this unbearable

and quickly flee,

seeking solace in noise

and constant motion,

the illusion of progress.

Or your over-wrought brain

abhorring the vacuum

would fill it with static

invent a new sound-track

crack under the strain.

I can just imagine

how oppressive this might feel.

A hundred atmospheres

bearing down

on top of you.

The floor of the sea

the density of water.

Or softly swaddled

in countless cotton balls,

unable to move

breathe

think.

Anyway, is silence really possible?

The flush of blood.

The butterfly brush

of air on skin.

The microscopic life

that rushes in.

So you went through life

consoled by noise,

lost

in its anonymity.

Content

to wait for death;

an infinity of silence, then.

The Inaccessible Queen

Sept 11 2011

This was the season of anthills.

As if overnight,

great monuments of sand

several feet in diameter.

Like pyramids, ziggurats

lost cities,

that layer by layer

have risen above

more ancient ones.

I am impressed by the industry.

By the plan, when there is none,

each automaton ant

acting on its simple order.

Yet every grain of sand, uniform.

The smooth symmetrical surface,

as if rounded down

by unseen hands.

Black lines of ants, racing to and fro

in a frenzy

of incomprehensible purpose.

Our modest temperate version

of African termites,

who fashion giant mounds

as big as a man,

as idiosyncratic

as avant-garde art.

Tiny insects

that alter the landscape,

leave tell-tale remains

of their brief existence

some future civilization

will ponder on.

Or not.

Because anthills are taking over my lawn.

So one-by-one, I kick them down,

watch worker ants scatter

soldiers, scurry into action,

I can just imagine

glaring up at me.

Squirming larvae

abandoned,

the inaccessible Queen.

Destruction comes

as sudden as an asteroid

the hundred year flood,

the judgement of a God

who is quick to anger.

As philosopher ants

consider the nature of evil

free will

dumb luck.

Next day, to my surprise, the mound is up

as big as it was.

Tiny black ants

frantically bustling,

chemical instructions

impelling them.

Slender antennae touch the air

sampling, seeking,

bodies brush, and greet.

As anthills rise, generations succeed;

oblivious to me.

Unit of Measure

Sept 8 2011

You’d think 10 years

would be just about enough.

A nice round number,

the counter re-setting to one.

As if starting over

was somehow possible. 

This is, after all, how we measure out our lives

however unevenly.

The decade of your teens

filled with slow desire,

and then your 40s, flying by.

As each milestone year

gets less and less consequential.

So a decade after the big event

that changed everything,

that made odd expressions

like “the new normal”

make a kind of sense,

you’d have at least expected

some comprehension

numb acceptance

or even dull forgetting,

however tenuous.

Not closure, of course.

That presumes things end,

doors close

irrevocably

behind us.

Because what happened is done

but never over.

And it’s true what they say,

you can’t go home again.

So you go on

carrying what you left with,

all you ever needed

to feel anchored, grounded

a sense of place

  —  safe, in your inner harbour.

But baggage accumulates,

and like dead weight, a ball-and-chain

pulls you down.

Relationships change, love alters.

The earth shrugs,

and solid ground

will never feel the same.

But not how towers collapse  —

in an instant

before our eyes

leaving gaping holes in the sky.

All over the world

hospitals were full

of dying people

that very day,

the high drama

of little lives.

Some expected,

others, a call in the night.

But these were not monumental,

and our attention

was somewhere else.

And then, when the dust finally settled

we carried on.

Except 10 years later

the body count hasn’t stopped.

A state of war, that’s constant

a culture of fear.

And 1st responders

who still thanklessly fall.

And a hole in the sky

defying us

to build stronger

                              …finer

                                        …high.

I don’t think I’ve ever written a 9/11 poem. Which may seem odd, since I began writing poetry in Oct 2001. As it is, pure coincidence. There were other reasons I turned to poetry. And other than that, politics is one of 3 things I’ve tried to resist in my writing; the others being confession, and personal therapy. I have too much concern for the reader’s patience to indulge in any one of those!

The opening question – how much distance do we need to fully understand something – reminds me of Chou en Lai’s (the premier of China at the time of Nixon’s landmark visit) famously amusing quote. He was asked his opinion of the French revolution. His response, succinctly and inscrutably Chinese, with all the world-weary patience and historical perspective that implies, went something like “Too early to tell.”

But we humans have this penchant for decades: for the round number, for big commemorative events. There is nothing intrinsically significant about 10 years; but, like football fields and Volkswagens, it seems to be an awfully convenient unit of measure. So that’s where I got my initial traction in this poem; and it went from there. Which means that the poem is as much about the idea of a decade later as it is about 9/11 itself.

I touch on many things, but briefly. I’ll trust the reader to take it from there. Although the idea in the 3rd last stanza has interested me ever since I heard Joan Didion interviewed about her beautifully written book The Year of Magical Thinking, about her husband’s untimely death.  He died unexpectedly in New York City on Sept 11 2001. It struck me that the monumental events of 9/11 somehow diminished all the other deaths that must have occurred on that same fateful day; and by diminishing their deaths somehow invalidated their lives. Which in turn touches on the idea of US exceptionalism:  all over the world, people have been dying daily in horrible wars and terrorist incidents; and yet Americans was so utterly shocked to learn that they (we?) are not immune, inviolable, exempt.  At the time it was – and still is – rather subversive to suggest that the horrible destruction of the twin towers should be set among all these incidents, rather than being set apart as something particularly horrifying and unacceptable. I didn’t say any of this in the poem, of course:  that would be far too political for my taste. So I kept things typically small and personal. (Actually, I think that 9/11 does stand out as perhaps the most egregious:  not only the fact that it still stands as the most deadly terrorist attack ever, not only its undeniable symbolic weight, but also the way it does seem to have changed everything. Of course, as I said in the beginning, it seems awfully presumptuous to declare such a thing a short 10 years on.)

The new tower that replaces the World Trade Centre will, in fact, be higher:  1776 feet, to be exact. No matter what you think of American politics and American culture, you can’t help but admire their irrepressible patriotism!