A Small Patch of the World

Aug 28 2013


The perfect length of grass.
So the cut is straight, sharp
as if to mark
an unambiguous act
completed.

Mowing, as in mowing down.
A small patch of the world
I find unaccountably pleasing,
overlapping rows
manicured, even.

Like winter snow, with just enough wetness,
my shovel smoothly slices
geometric edges.

And so I tend
to my modest plot,
conferring order, or its illusion
in a relentlessly messy world.
Where nothing is sure,
no end, definite.

I breathe in
the mulchy scent
of wet hay, and chlorophyll;
summer

in a whiff.
And odourless snow

in drifts, and windrows.

Although wet wool

brings me back,
redolent as fresh cut grass.
Radiators
in an over-heated school,
steaming
with multi-coloured mitts.
Dull-eyed kids

hoping for a white-out blizzard;
snow days
giddy with broken rules.

I survey my work, take its measure
pleased with myself.
The freshly cut lawn,
suffused
with the soft green light of dusk.

And underneath
restless weeds
already pushing up.


The poem is supposed to evoke the tension between order and disorder; between the bourgeois ideal of the well-regulated life, and a kind of restless bohemian undercurrent. So there is the sense of smell, with its primitive emotional power ...the snow day, with its anarchic release ...and the weeds, relentlessly growing, unseen.

The illusion of order we get from these mundane tasks -- the even swathes of a well-cut lawn, the geometric precision of cleared snow -- is unaccountably pleasing! I think this is because most of what we do is ambiguous, equivocal: work is unquantifiable, with no sure endpoint, no sense of finality:  shuffling papers …deals that go nowhere …meaningless busy-work, that does not last. So anything that offers a hard measurable outcome -- as you get when you stand back, hands on hips, and survey a well-cut lawn -- is an uncommonly satisfying. And actually getting something done through hard physical work is one of the simple pleasures of life. 

A Boy and His Dog

Aug 25 2013


In the old folks' home
which everyone calls it,
even though old folks
are now all "seniors",
and the warm comfort of home
has become a halfway-house

in a holding pattern.

Like planes, low on fuel
circling to land.

Perhaps a facility
with green institutional paint
the taint of neglect.
Or a community, manor, estate,
where elegant women
are still well-dressed,
the men outnumbered.

Where proud owners
escort their dogs,
calm ones, with glossy coats
and soft brown eyes.
And shaky hands
with parchment skin
stroke them slowly
hard,
the topographical faces
that chart their lives
beaming.

And a confused man
who won't let go,
as if at sea
clinging to a piece of the wreck,

his vintage plane, ditched

short of the landing strip.
Who may be happy there
regressing to boyhood,

cradling the neck

of his big dependable dog.

While wagging, licking, nuzzling for treats
the dogs do not see
age, or loss.
And so uncommonly gentle
with the frail.

We are most in love
when we feel needed,
so what else could this be?
The eager dogs,
who give themselves to strangers

so completely,
accept each poke and prod
with stoic dignity.
The bed-bound, and dependent
who still have something of worth
to offer a beautiful creature,
hands extended
the coming together
of touch.
To be lifted up
like a lighter-than-air machine.

For a moment, at least
as inseparable
as the boy and his dog,
whose body remembers
though he may have forgot.

My elderly and increasingly confused father finds himself for the next 4 weeks largely bed-bound, in an assisted living home, awaiting an unfortunately long-delayed revision to his prosthetic hip.

When my mother began talking about some of the entertainments that make the place bearable, I began to think about therapy dogs visiting the elderly and institutionalized. I've always thought my own dog (Skookum, the wonder-dog!), who is uncommonly loving and gentle, would be perfect for this -- once she settles down. (She's a Lab, and apparently this takes years!) I was wondering if they ever had such visitors at the place. And I also suggested my mother start thinking about a small dog of her own. Because I know how valuable the companionship of a good dog can be; especially since she hasn't been on her own in over a half century.

In the first stanza, I couldn't resist poking fun at the euphemisms for "old". I know that when "senior citizen" was first used, it had a certain dignity: the idea of citizenship, after all, has the connotation of usefulness and involvement. And "senior" is more a term of respect than relegation. But now, it has an air of ridiculousness about it. Referring to "seniors" just sounds condescending to me. Anyway, I'm pretty sure my cohort -- the giant wave of baby boomers entering their advanced years -- will resist this expression, since it belongs to a different generation and so has lost its euphemistic power. (And if not my generation, then me!)

The rest of the poem needs no explanation -- the beaming faces; the unexpected strength of an old person's grip; the unconditional and unjudgmental dignity of the dogs; and the power of touch. (I originally had "desperate for touch". I chose "the coming together/ of touch" not only because it alludes to this power, but because it's more egalitarian, doesn't distinguish between recipient and giver.)

In the first version, the aviation metaphor touched down just a couple of times -- the holding pattern, ditching at sea. (There is nothing profoundly meaningful about this choice. When "halfway house" wasn't quit strong enough to convey that sense of waiting -- of anteroom or limbo -- "holding pattern" nailed it; so aviation it was.) I thought that abandoning the metaphor there was a weakness in the poem; which is when I added "to be lifted up/ like a lighter-than-air machine." The depiction of aged faces as topo-maps that chart their lives (something you might navigate by, looking down from a plane) was the final change. I'm quite pleased with this: "topographical faces" seems so much better than such tired alternatives as lined, wrinkled, shrivelled, etched. On the the other hand, I wonder if I've flogged the metaphor to death, and it's starting to interrupt the flow, sound shoe-horned in: that is, drawing attention to my cleverness, rather than enhancing the poem.

"A boy and his dog" is almost archetypal. I'm late middle aged; but ever since I got my dog, I often feel as if I'm living a second childhood when we are out together: in the simplicity of our play; in the power of the bond. Here, at the end, the title becomes “the boy and his dog”, calling back to the fourth stanza’s confused man.

Whole Cloth

Aug 22 2013

I pass through dreams
awakening.
Loosely woven cloth
that frays, disintegrates
flutters weightless away.
I try to sustain
this reverie,
amazed
at the warp and weft
of my untethered brain,
which forgets nothing
confabulates the rest.

But before I dreamt

I tossed and turned on a bed of nails,

my mind
brooding on a single thread;

rumination, recrimination

regret.

As if transfixed
by a blinding light
in a long dark tunnel;
a speeding train,
or the way out

a glimpse of day?

Like a lens

funnelling sun to a lethal point,
as when we were kids
torturing ants
for fun.
My mind

fingers its worry-beads,
circling, returning

churning with thought.

I try to travel back
re-imagine the whole cloth,
lying still

emptying out.

Like walking with a full glass
trying not to spill.

But cannot
sustain this fragile trance.
And my problem, lost
in the kaleidoscope
of pink and golden dawn,
in through my window like clockwork.


That bizarre incoherent trance in the morning, as you emerge through REM sleep (Rapid Eye Movement sleep, or dream sleep) into wakefulness, is called the hypnagogic state (a word that sounded horrible anywhere I tried to shoehorn it into the poem!) It makes little sense; but as I've tried to cultivate my dream life -- something I used to deny even having, since I never remembered my dreams -- I've trained myself to lie perfectly still, letting my mind free associate and travel back as methodically as I can through the incoherent logic of my latest dream. Which only takes me so far, of course, before all remnants of the dream disintegrate irretrievably, and wakefulness intervenes.

The night before was diametrically opposite. (What else is new?!!) Instead of a barrage of unrelated thoughts, you tend to fixate obsessively on one: some insoluble problem; perhaps some cringe-worthy humiliation. In my case, the focus lately has often been a lot less cerebral: it's been a very bad summer for bugs, and as often as not I'm preoccupied with itching/scratching somewhere on my badly afflicted body. I may distracted enough by the busyness of daytime not to notice; but infallibly, at night, a barely noticed itch becomes unbearable.

What an odd trick of the mind, not to mention bad timing: to go from this laser-like focus at bedtime, to incoherence and fluidity on awakening. And how frustrating, when night begins: trying to get to sleep, only to find yourself so utterly pre-occupied, pulled back into anxious consciousness. Morning, similarly, has its frustrations: grasping at these wisps of dream, just as they dematerialize, or drift beyond reach. ...Of course, the alchemy of the sleeping brain is that you will often awaken to problem solved; or at least awaken with improved perspective, so if not "lost", then not quite such a problem after all.

There is a bit of a dog's breakfast of metaphors here: from cloth to light (which is the major recurring one) to a full glass; not to mention a bed of nails, a magnifying glass, worry beads, and a claustrophobic train tunnel! So I hope this isn't too busy and scattershot. I think it works well enough. But then again, I'm too close to poem right now to judge. I need to let go, and revisit later.

An alternate title -- perhaps a better one -- is "Whole Cloth". I like the misdirection here, as opposed to the absolute lack of ambiguity in "Awakening". Comments welcome.

(Oh oh. I just looked it up. They have "hypnagogic" as the state immediately before falling asleep. Oh well. I'll invoke the universal exculpation of poetic licence, even if my serenely confident statement of fact is unequivocally wrong!)

Cueing Up Some Cool Jazz

Aug 19 2013


I have heard actors say
you build character from the outside in.
The costume, the wig,
how the outer trappings
transform the man.
Not method, but craft,
free of the anguish
of living in your head.

Just as DNA
is expressed
according to the outside world,
deception
hardens into self.
Because how the world sees us
we begin to see ourselves,
empowered
by that protective skin;
while curled within, still warm and wet
the timid homunculus.

I hear her on the radio,
a beautiful voice
both at ease, and masterful.
I imagine her
as perfect as she sounds,
as intimate
as the single listener
she was taught to picture
one-to-one.

You hope never to see
radio people,
who will only disappoint.
Her disembodied voice
here with me
in this warm safe place,
whispering in my ear;
cooing the news, the weather
the latest hit,
cueing up some cool jazz
at 3 am.

Which we will enjoy, together
some far-off day;
a dream sequence
on a private stage,
playing as ourselves
in a clever masquerade.

I was just reading a piece in the weekend paper about a woman named Lake Bell (love the name!) She is an actor who always dreamed of being a voice artist, and who is still fascinated by the inscrutable power of the invisible voice: on stage, over radio, and in voice-over. She's just written, directed, and acted in (at a ridiculously young age, further confirming my self-image as a horrible under-achiever) a very well-received indie movie called "In A World ..." (add your own deep apocalyptic voice and over-hyped music!)

I've loved public radio for as long as I can remember. (So "the latest hit", needless to say, is poetic licence; since as much as I love public radio, I detest top 40.) This shouldn't be surprising, because it seems a perfect match for a solitary type who is very good at living in his head (never mind an information junkie). When I've gotten to see the person behind the voice, I've almost always been disappointed. So I'm very aware of the power of a beautiful voice; and quite certain I'd rather keep my illusions intact. (Which reminds me of that cleverly self-deprecating expression: "I have a face for radio." But the less on that the better!)

I think it was Alec Guinness who said something to the effect that costume and make-up transformed him instantly into character; that character builds naturally from the outside in. This idea of craft appeals to me, and seems the essence of acting. I find the anguish of "method acting" both over-wrought and unnecessary: after all, the audience isn't privy to the inner turmoil going on in the actor's head, which all seems rather solipsistic and pretentious.

In real life we also carefully construct personas, presenting ourselves to the rest of the world in calculated and self-conscious ways. And when we inhabit this way of being long enough, it becomes more real than pretence.

So, whether costumed actor or well turned-out fashionista or disembodied voice, the viewer projects freely, attributes to him/her all sorts of undeserved qualities. This is the halo effect of a beautiful disembodied voice. It's easy to fall in love with an announcer's seductive charms, sight unseen.

This poem is also a pean to radio, an old technology that is still very much with us; and of which -- as I said -- I'm a giant fan. I love the intimacy of radio. I love the theatre of the mind. Because in radio, as has often been said, the pictures are the best part!

I suspect the poem might be criticized as an awkward marriage of two very different pieces: that it probably would have been better to lop off the first 2 stanzas, and simply start with "I hear her on the radio": a really strong first line with which to hook the reader, in contrast with the more analytical and less visceral bit about the stage. Or perhaps I could have reversed the order, moving from "masquerade" to " ...actors say", and ending with the quivering homunculus. I'd very much appreciate feedback on this. I'm quite willing to consider the change.

Here's why I think the poem works as is. It ends with a call-back to actors on a stage, which helps pull it together, cinch it tight. And the theme is coherent: the idea of the power of surface; the idea of becoming what we appear. And the title, an obvious reference to radio, should stay with the reader and help steer her through to the 3rd stanza, where that subject again picks up. And I like the more detached start, which then shifts gears into something more personal and confessional: it's as if there is this bravely hidden vulnerability that can't help but eventually break through.

All Day

Aug 17 2013


On a weekend
near summer's end
I feel the pressure of time,
the pleasures of an August day
undone
by fun's urgent pursuit,
trying to cram in 

all I missed.
How impending fall
makes dwindling summer
more precious yet.

Chilly dawn
when the sun is as sluggish as me,
lingering behind
the line of trees
still half-asleep.
Its light
in a fitful breeze, dappled green,
like a heavy eye-lid
lifting.

And night
that comes too soon, falls too quickly,
insistent days
that will constrict and constrict
all the way down
to December.
When I will look up
from a deep dark well
to catch a glimpse of sun.

So I hope
for Indian summer
before September mellows to fall,
the balm

of cool nights, delightful air.

A second hatch of black-flies
the kind that rarely bite.
And the last brisk swim, skinny-dip
in frigid lake, a bracing wind;
goose-bump skin, already beginning to pale
beneath a paper-thin tan.

When the last loon's haunted call
ululates sadly.
Deer, in rut, pursue each other madly,
big bucks
snorting, tussling
blundering through the bush.
And geese, in ragged Vs
wing toward permanent summer,
where they will have all day
to squabble, and graze
and raise their sun-warmed young.


Another of my so-called "nature poems".

I live a pretty solitary uneventful life in a low-stimulation environment. So it's more a case of close observation and microcosm than it is of grand themes, deep emotion, and personal angst; more a case of craft, than an unstoppable torrent of heart and soul.

Poems come to me through the window; poems about nature ...the weather ...the wildlife. It's a case of much of a muchness, so it becomes a challenge to keep these "nature poems" (which are really classic lyric poems -- roughly defined (I think!) as something intensely personal, and grounded in nature) interesting and fresh, worth the reader's investment in time and effort. Which I hope this one is.

Other than that, the poem speaks for itself. Although the pressure to cram in "all I missed" is that much more urgent this year: the year without summer. Finally, a nice weekend. But it's already almost the end of August, and the days are markedly shortening, the nights are too long and cool for the lake ever to warm up, and it seems summer is ending before it's even begun! I can feel it starting on the long implacable descent into cold and dark, and that it will be nearly 10 whole months until summer comes once more. ...Isn't there an old saying that goes something like "not having the sense God gave geese"?!!

All We Are

Aug 15 2013


Once you come to accept
that memories drift
shape-shift
spin fibs,
like a fast-talking grifter
or confidence man,
you will always suspect the truth;
not just her version, or his
but your own.

Memory is liquid,
bending some light
reflecting more.
As water, cupped in your hands
slips through your fingers
takes its container's form.
So that quick-silver truth, from which memory's born
runs-off
into porous soil.

We reconstruct memories
each time we call them up,
contaminate our own
with something seen, or told.
There is no album
of family photos
opened, and closed.
No documentary film
whirring away 
in its projector,
saturated light
in a blacked-out skull.

So what to make of us
if all we are
is what we remember,
can be re-invented
despite ourselves?

When even the best intentioned truth
is subjective,
and the utter conviction
of the sworn eye-witness
unreliable?

When we stand on shifting sand
and thirst for a firm foundation,
while the past
spills through our hands
and we dig ourselves deeper?

For happy or sad
better or worse,
but never quite sure
it happened like that.


I've written about this before: the malleable, unreliable nature of memory. (And how much I tried to get "malleable"/"fallible" to work somewhere in the poem -- unsuccessfully, as it turns out!)

Dementia, most of all, makes us appreciate how critical memory is to our sense of self. Memory situates us, creates personal meaning from a loosely connected series of events, places us in a 3-dimensional past. Without memory, we disappear. Living in the immediate and ephemeral present, our personality and temperament may be preserved, but life is shallow: as fleeting, superficial, and frictionless as skating over the surface of a frozen sea.

This is why I chose "All We Are" as the title. I wanted those words to jump out when they come up in the poem, to have the extra powerful resonance of recognition and repetition. "So what to make of us/ if all we are/ is what we remember?" (2nd line of the 4th stanza.)

The other message of the piece has to do the neuroscience of memory; that is, its fluidity: the way we reconstruct a memory each time it's recalled. And the critical meaning here is the utter subjectivity of truth: not only that everyone has his/her own version of events, but that we have a changing and unreliable one ourselves. This is the Rashomon take on the world, calling into question not only the nature of truth, but the idea of an objective reality altogether.

This is valuable perspective to take through life. It counsels one to be humble about certain belief, to eschew self-righteous conviction, and to be receptive to seemingly contradictory views. (Of course, most of the time I fail at this!) It's why a court of law may render a verdict of right or wrong, while both may be true. Why in break-ups and in war, all sides have their cherished narratives, and partial truths. Why eye witness testimony has no validity, and why there may be more versions of the truth than there are participants.

We may comfort ourselves with the illusion of standing on solid ground, on the bedrock of accumulated memory and sense of self. While in fact, the foundational beliefs and self-evident truths which guide our lives may be no more than shifting sand. Which is OK, just as long as we realize, deep down, that such certainties are merely convenient constructs, put in place to make life bearable, predictable, and coherent; to get us through.

In The High Latitudes

Aug 14 2013


We are unused to sun
in the high latitudes
in the doldrums of summer.
With our fish-belly skin
dazzled eyes
unacclimatized bodies,
we gasp, sweat, fry;
in the soft decadence
that, in the fullness of time
will exact its reckoning.
Because such easy living
can never be free.

But I luxuriate
in unaccustomed heat,
every fibre of muscle
released,
loose-boned
marrow-warmed
at ease.
And my hotly gleaming skin,
as if a barrier
had softened,
my permeable body
melding
with super-heated air.

I would be a bronze god
if not for burning, redness, sweat.
On endless days
when the sun eventually sets,
blazing red, and immense
just above
a hazy horizon.

And the surprising chill
the second it's gone.
Where northern tribes like us
belong;
aspiring gods
who have fallen to earth
from cool clear Olympus.

Summer here is short, sweet, intense. We barely have time to acclimate. And inculcated with that northern Puritan work ethic, we feel vaguely guilty in its indolence and ease. (Speaking generally of course; since so far, this is the year without summer. And speaking generally, of course; since I'm never guilty about indolence and ease!)

I wanted to express that delicious feeling of sun-bathing on a hot summer day -- that bone deep feeling of relaxation and heat. And then juxtapose this with the discomfort of unaccustomed northerners; who, in our injudicious greed, try to cram in every second of precious sun. So when (the admittedly obvious) "bronze god" came to me, it was a welcome gift, leading me naturally into fallen gods, in turn allowing the heights of Olympus of the final stanza to call back to the high latitudes of the first.

I almost always find my poems too wordy. For me, the pleasure of this art is in its discipline: the distillation and compression; the need to trust the reader. So I'm pleased I kept this fairly short and sweet, didn't try to overload it.

Which is also probably why I write these blurbs, the essay being far more my natural medium than poetry: both because I like clarity and precision in my writing, and because I admire logical sequential thought. (And also because I'm far more comfortable with ideas than feelings; with the rational instead of the visceral. Poetry forces me to go outside this comfort zone. But I digress.) Since poetry is more about holding back than being expansive, more about allusion and ambiguity than precision and exactness, a poem often leaves me feeling all pent up: as if I hadn't fully exercised my writing chops. Hence the essay elaborating on its far less wordy poem. Which I know is actually a bad idea, since it implies that there is a correct way to read the poem; when in fact the hypothetical reader should feel absolutely free to interpret however she likes. Not only do idiosyncratic readings of the poem mean I've succeeded, but I'm quite happy to take credit for brilliant connections I never either intended or perceived!

3-Legged Stool

Aug 12 2013


A 3-legged stool
in a salt-box house
at the end of the road.

In dark fine-grained wood,
the seat is round

bevel-edged
worn smooth.
3 unadorned legs
evenly splayed
sit flush with the ground.
Any less, and it would topple,
while a 4th
would be 1 too many.

This is poetry, in wood
but far more useful.
A 3-legged stool
is elegant, minimalist
utility distilled,
the beauty of something
true to itself.

As functional as its house,
4 walls, a roof, a door
one window, looking out.
As strangers come
looking for something
at the end of the road.
Then re-trace their steps
searching still.

So many 3-legged stools
worth nothing, tossed out.
Forgotten
like the words of a poem
heard over and over
until all they are
is sound,
worn down
by repetition.
As scorned
as the simplest Haiku
self-evident truth.

I think the first time I heard 3-legged stool used as metaphor for a number both necessary and sufficient was in relation to the treatment of diabetes, in which the 3 legs were diet, exercise, and insulin. I came across it again today; although in this case, in a more literal form. It was photo of a piece by the brilliant artist Ai Weiwei. This sculpture is composed entirely of 3-legged stools: in his commentary on China's breakneck modernization, the stools symbolize its hastily discarded and scorned past. As usual, Weiwei accomplishes this on a large scale, with perfect economy and visual wit. 



The salt-box house is the iconic structure of outport Newfoundland, and as quickly fading into history. It looks just as it sounds: a simple rectangle, as economical and utilitarian as the 3-legged stool. (I couldn't find that particular picture, but the only one I recall seeing prior to writing this was as flat-roofed and simple as a box of Sifto salt laid on its side. However, according to Google, the peaked roof is more typical; and 2 stories appears to be common. Oh well. The idea still works. In the end, I managed to find a picture that approximates my recollection.) This is exactly the sort of thing you'd expect subsistent and self-reliant fishermen to build for themselves, with few resources but basic tools and their hands. The name, too, is powerfully evocative. Because what could be suggestive of something foundational and abiding than salt: the "salt of the earth"; a rock that is ubiquitous, essential, radically simple chemically, and prized throughout human history -- or at least until we learned to mine it industrially. Think of the etymology of the word "salary"; think of Gandhi and the salt marches protesting the British raj.

I favour simple design: a lack of clutter; furniture that's minimalist, utilitarian, unornamented. This is like the best poetry, where less is more. And I am reminded of the value of the old abiding truths; which, in all the superficial sophistication of modernity and youth, we too easily disdain. 

I can't think of an object more beautiful than the 3-legged stool: the perfect combination of simplicity and utility.

Half-Full Day

Aug 8 2013


On a half-full day
I stood.
Between a cerulean sky
as if drawn by a child
on thick white bristol-board,
a fresh blue crayon
clutched
in her vicelike fist.
And wind-tousled clouds, scowling down
like dull grey battleships,
a vast armada
forging full-speed-ahead
downwind.

In bare feet, short-sleeves
silly grin,
feeling bone deep warmth
and cool rain.
Which is more like mist
in the gusts of wind
that shift, unpredictably,
as if even the weather
can't decide.

In a sun-shower
you can be an optimist.
The half-full sky
you see coming
from miles upwind,
knowing, in the fullness of time
the sun must shine.
Even someone like me
who finds darkness comforting,
enclosed
by the soft light, low cloud
of half the sky.

Although I am, by nature
a pessimist.
But what's to complain
on half-empty days
caught out in the rain?
The ascetic pleasure
of its cooling cleanse.
The thrill of weather’s

restlessness.

The act of surrender

to forces bigger than me,
so vastly indifferent to us.


This is truly turning out to be the year without summer. The weather report dangles a clear sunny day in front of our eyes. But time after time it turns out to be a moving target. August 8, already: time is running out!

Today, again, mixed sun and cloud turned out to be mostly cloud; and a chance of rain turned out to be 100%. But it was a sun shower day more than all-day rain: a dark foreboding sky that would just as suddenly turn an intensely clear blue; and with that delightful phenomenon of the sun shower -- of cool rain with bone deep sun, so you find yourself instantly dry.

When the metaphor of "half full" and "half empty" occurred to me, I realized the crux of the poem: that I could turn the sky into a rumination on temperament and the half full glass.

So, is a day like this half full, or half empty? Being the inherent pessimist, I suppose I'm obliged to go with the latter. But really, no matter what your temperament, the weather complies: look one way, and the sky is full of storm clouds; turn 180 degrees, and it's a beautiful summer day. Not that it matters if the pessimist's dark prediction is confirmed: so what if you're caught in the rain on this sort of day?!! (Even the pessimist who prefers miserable weather gets to feel triumphally vindicated, his pessimism confirmed: just look up, and he can see more damn sun ...lol!)

Not that you can do anything about it, anyway. One thing weather can be counted upon is to keep us humble: a necessary corrective to human hubris; to our false sense of mastery over the forces of nature. Which is where the poem ends: a little preachy, I know. But sometimes I indulge. 

Let There Be Light

August 6 2013


I peered down the well.
That knowing look,
as I do when popping the hood
of the steaming car
stalled on the freeway.
Hoping, if nothing else
to release the dark humours
coursing beneath
its smooth metallic skin.
Stranded
on the narrow shoulder;
a trembling eddy
in the Niagara of traffic,
blasted
by 18-wheelers
jetting past.

Here, when I bought the place.
Steel pipe, with its patina of rust
plunging straight
into chilly darkness.
Thick black cable, snaking its way
to the precisely machined
German pump.
A silver bullet
sleekly immersed
in hard black water,
the mineral smell
of airless earth
cold Precambrian rock.

The same knowing look
of a man who is good with his hands,
can fix things
knows how they work.
But everything I depend upon
is a black box,
might as well be magic
as bargaining with gods.
Davening
let there be water, ignition
light.

My ear to the pipe
I hear rushing sounds,
a subterranean river
falling and splashing and branching its way
through fractured strata
of ancient rock.

In absolute darkness
for tens of millions of years
until that well was sunk.
Broke through, in an instant,
the distant noise
of men and machines
from far above,
squinting down
that narrow opening.

A brilliant dot
of soft blue sky,
with its warm fragrance
of high summer,
the colour of light.

I'm intrigued by the idea of this utterly alien world a short distance under our feet: not only black cold and lifeless, but ancient and unchanging. (Although, of course, it changes slowly -- as everything must. And there is indeed life: extreme forms of bacteria that literally live in rock deep inside the earth.)

I'm trying to dramatically juxtapose these contrasts, render them stark: that is, our familiar airy world with this dark subterranean space, as well as the sleek machines of human creation with the rawness of nature.

And paralleling this darkness is my own ignorance: the helplessness of a man -- who isn't at all handy -- in a technological and highly specialized world. Which is where that reassuring -- if fraudulent -- "knowing look" comes in. So finding myself gazing confidently down into the depths, I thought of how I gazed just as knowingly under the hood; despite knowing nothing of either cars or pumps. Although the first stanza probably goes on too long: too soon in the poem for such a long-winded tangent. On the other hand, I'm really pleased with all the "watery" allusions I managed to come up with: which, aside from acting as a nice kind of foreshadowing, help cinch it tighter with the the rest of the piece, giving it just enough coherence to let it stand. Of course, living in the country and depending upon a well, events have forced me to acquire a certain amount of knowledge, if not skill. I lost water twice this past year or so: the old well need to be hydrofracted in the middle of cold December (big machines, and men much larger and more competent than me); and later on we had to pull a blown pump. So I got to peer down into that cold mysterious space, listen to the buried rivers rushing by in its dark impenetrable depths: a barely imagined subterranean geography in all 3 dimensions.

The final stanza flips the point of view, and the reader is left looking up through this tiny aperture of pipe, as if squinting through the small eyepiece of an old telescope: from the cold dark stillness, into "a brilliant dot/ of soft blue sky." I was really pleased with "warm fragrance": the way only 2 words can so fully capture a summer day; the power inherent in invoking the too often neglected sense of smell; and the telling contrast between it and the "hard black water", with its "mineral smell/ of airless earth/ cold Precambrian rock."

"Davening", by the way, is a real word -- despite the stern disapproval of spell-check. It's a form of Jewish prayer, associated with Orthodox worship: men standing, rocking, and muttering their own idiosyncratic version of liturgy. The sound is a kind of mumbled sing-song chant. I'm a devout atheist. But davening appeals to me. I like the implication of a personal connection to God, rather than one limited or prescribed by liturgy. And I like the controlled chaos of the Orthodox service, which seems far more authentic than everyone mouthing along with the same formulaic prayers.