Time Enough
Sept 28 2013


There should be pretty girls
encircled in their arms,
sailors stealing kisses
illicit feels.

Or the home team
in Cadillac cars
in a blizzard of ticker tape,
drunk
on victory.

Delirious leaves
in the first big wind of fall,
burnished yellows and rusts
in swirling curtains, and gusts
funnelling up
in wind-spouts,

filling the air
like confetti, from pent-up fans.
Or from the weary masses

done with war.
In a windy blast
in a single day
all the trees laid bare.

Fall came, and went
like a victory parade;
returning men
thrilled to be alive,
all the girls

ecstatic.
Time enough
to remember fallen friends
in the winter of discontent
the morning after.

The trees have turned,
exhausted limbs

stripped clean.
Next week
I will rake up spent and crumpled leaves,
put them to rest
unmarked
in neatly spaced piles.

Fall is short here, and the colours unspectacular. So a big wind -- like today -- is pretty much enough to turn the soft beauty of fall into skeletal trees and crumpled leaves.

The gusting leaves looked like a storm of confetti, except that the crucial celebration was missing. The scene needed that iconic picture of the anonymous soldier and girl kissing in the street on V-E day; or the New York Yankees waving from the seat backs of 1950s Cadillac convertibles, parading down the canyons of Wall St in a blizzard of ticker tape.

This image of an exhausted population in the aftermath of war led me to the bitter-sweetness of fall: the death of leaves; the coming of winter. Like the drunken bacchanal of these public celebrations, there if often a dark undercurrent beneath the beauty and joy.

The hard part was having the poem take this dark turn. Too sudden or too dark, and it would seem false; or even emotionally manipulative. I hope the bit of foreshadowing, and the way the poem dips in a toe and then back out, helps to soften the turn; helps make it seem natural, if not inevitable. And that the mounds of leaves resembling unmarked graves is not too heavy-handed.

Bumblebee
Sept 23 2013

Yellow, bristling, plump
the bumblebee buzzes
improbably,
a gaudy ornament
in the sweet warm air.
Bumping up and down, shunting unsteadily,
as if drunk
on fermentation.

In the dry equation
flight is impossible.
But the theorists under-estimate
how the rules change
in microcosm.
Like the order of magnitude
inhabited by our gods,
whom we are told
are unknowable,
are proscribed from naming.
The mysteries
that layer by layer
constrain human pride.

Meanwhile, the bee hovers and flies
intent on nectar,
eventually coming to rest
on my outstretched hand.
I feel no weight,
and did I imagine
the electric tickle of its tiny legs,
the susurration of air
as it lifted off?

Busily, on its zig-zag path,
dusted with pollen
impossibly fat.
Magnificently unaware
of its landing spot.

I've written this poem before. I think then it had something to do with spiders. It's the idea of orders of magnitude, of which we occupy a tiny layer. Of how much we are unaware. Of what hides in plain site. Of the ineffable and impenetrable complexity of nature, large and small.

And, of course, a theological theme is hardly unusual with me. As an unrepentant atheist, I suppose I'm supposed to believe that all the mysteries of nature are susceptible to human inquiry and the rigour of rational minds. But that's not true. I find that the more I know about science, the greater the space for mystery and wonder -- you hardly need superstition and magical deities for this. And I also find that the more I learn, the more I learn to be humble about the limits of knowledge. Which is what I'm getting at with the lines "The mysteries/ that layer by layer/ constrain human pride."

("...proscribed from naming" may need explanation, as well. This is very much a tenet of Judaism (if not of other religions): that God is never to be looked upon, or named. So Biblical references are always indirect. The theological explanation, I suppose, is this idea of unknowability: a corrective to human hubris and presumption; and a reminder of our fatalistic submission to (excuse my paraphrase) "His wonders working in mysterious ways.")

The poem was written out of season, so the inspiration was not personal experience. It actually arose from something I read, and immediately felt the urge to riff upon. Here it is:

"A few weeks ago, I noticed a bee clinging to my bathroom window. It was dusted with yellow pollen, drunk on the stuff, and I brought my face in close to look. But I was busy, just taking a quick break so after a few seconds I blew gently on the screen; the bee buzzed away. Immediately, I wished I'd watched it for longer."

The author was J. R. McConvey, a documentary film producer. On the theme of nature, and under the title Paradise Lost?, he was writing a review of two books -- George Monbiot's Feral, and J.R. MacKinnon's The Once and Future World. This was the introduction. While not quite plagiarism, I'll certainly own up to a lack of originality (and reluctantly admit that the dusting and the drunkenness are not mine.)
.
When I began, the poem was going to be short and whimsical: one of my so-called "word-play" poems, where it's all clever rhymes and quick cadences. (Really, have I ever managed to stop myself before a short sweet poem went on too eye-glazingly long?!!) But then what immediately came to mind was that old trope about bees being theoretically unable fly. And, in keeping with the paragraph quoted above, the idea that if you don't look, you won't see. So I wanted to describe something small, transient, and finely detailed. Which is, after all, the purview of poets: to stop; to observe closely; to make unexpected connections; and to cherish the simple pleasures. And which is exactly what McConvey and his two authors are preaching to a distracted and solipsistic world.

I wonder how it would change the poem to have gone with "he" instead of "it"?

Weather Report

Sept 21 2013

We even disagreed
about the weather.

While complete strangers
find it easy breaking the ice
when a day

is unexpectedly nice.
Making small talk
over shared misery
bad predictions.

But she worshipped sun
and I am consoled by rain.
Omens
darkened her clouds,
she took stormy skies to heart.
While I see Greek tragedies, and pagan gods,
enthralled
by the pageantry
the sturm und drang.

Which is why
when she disappeared one night
I figured California,
where it's always gorgeous
and weather reports
aren't much.
Because when beautiful days
are ho-hum
what's to say?

But how do strangers meet
in paradise?
And how do the brooders, the glumly saturnine
survive
the high pressure
of perfect weather?
When there's no excuse
for bad humour,
and pathetic fallacy
is as shallow
as a happy face.

She sent a postcard
of Pacific sunset,
no return address.
Some darkroom magic, I suspect
in the sparkling blue
the pinks and reds.
Her perfect fantasy,
but less epiphany
than farce.

Which was after midnight, here,
with a waxing moon
breaking fitfully through
roiling ragged cloud,
wind-driven
spiked with rain.
A vast drama
playing out in the upper atmosphere
over-powering sleep.

How ecstatic I felt
to be so small.
To disappear
one night
as well.

I was reading a short essay in which the author confessed she had always disparaged talk about the weather as pointless and banal, but then came to realize that it was the perfect way in, between strangers: non-threatening, and universal. Of course here, the weather is always interesting; sometimes vital. Weather reporters can be celebrities.

I had to admit that I often resort to short weather reports speaking long distance with my elderly mother. She reciprocates, and seems cheered by a nice day -- even though she can easily go through daily life without ever actually stepping out into it, moving from her condo to the underground garage and then by car. Weather has a powerful effect on our moods, even if we're just observing through glass.

But who's to say what's good and bad? Sometimes, a stormy day is exhilarating. And sometimes, we all need the enforced time out of a snow day. "Good" weather isn't always good!

And how different this all must be in places like Hawaii, or Southern California, where the weather is as predictable as sunrise: sunny and dry and temperate. Who listens to the carbon copy weather report? And aren't all those good days wasted; hard to appreciate when they're taken for granted?

Anyway, all these thoughts morphed into this poem. It's not autobiography; although I do love a good storm, and often find overcast days unaccountably restful. Although if not autobiography, perhaps an exercise in unbecoming self-flattery, since the sun-lover comes across as shallow; while it's implied that those attracted to "interesting" weather are more thoughtful, sensitive, and deep. ...Or at least more susceptible to angst!

My favourite part of the poem is the call-back in the very last sentence: " ...disappear(ed)/ one night ...". (I also quite like "ho-hum"!) I think this does get a lot closer to autobiography, in that I'm very good at living in my head: while the hypothetical "she" may have needed thousand of miles to disappear, I can quite happily disappear in thought and quiet observation. No going anywhere. Here, of course, it’s disappearing into insignificance against the majesty of nature.

At Rest

Sept 18 2013


Her face softens
in sleep.
One hand
clutching at wrinkled sheets,
a frazzle of hair
undone on the pillow.

A girl, again,

her features slack in repose.

The years dropping off
like weight from her shoulders,

until she's lost, who knows where;
paper-thin lids, unnaturally calm
teeth and jaw unclenched.

In the green glow
of a bedside clock
I watch,
a mix

of transgression

protectiveness.
Her laser eyes, turned in
from the world outside,
a sigh, held breath
short shriek.
Her bed, undefended,

her rest

beset by dreams.

Which she rarely remembers, or wished she'd forget
in the prickly sweat
of awakening;

covers in knots

the familiar set of her face.

Except today,
when she will open her eyes
with a vague sensation of watchfulness,
feeling inexplicably safe.

Point and Shoot

Sept 16 2013

Even snapshots
have their artistry.
In the accident
of pointing the camera,
the intersection
of light, and action
and chance.

The image, fixed.
Seen
as reality can't,
an infinitesimal instant
you can hold in one hand,
re-visit, re-live.
But more important, what's missed;
the before and after,
the telling absences.

As in music
where beauty
is in the space between the notes.
The expectant pause, ear cocked,
and the sublime release
of completion.
And when the music stops, but lingers,
notes that resonate, unplayed
on weightless vibrations of air.
Or the last word
in a line of a poem,
hovering
like the final measure
still unresolved.

Her unblinking eyes
so wise, so world-weary
locked onto mine
like a diamond-tipped drill.
In that one still moment
all we will know of her;
surface, as in everything we see,
but somehow deeper
indelibly.

What took place before
will happen after
the interrogating lens
moved on?
And was he caught, or posed,
distilled
in the click of a shutter
in darkness, and light?

Nothing

is entered into evidence
no fact is hard.
Because every picture
is projection, inference,
every photograph
a trick.
Especially in black and white,
its austere view
more essential
than colour’s literal truth,
so faithfully reproduced
we hardly notice.

Like that skinny little boy.
So earnest, and dignified,
so fragile, beside
the big black car.

He arrests my eye
stopping time.
A universe
in the small gradations of grey.
In the unnatural stillness
where he will always remain.

I struggled a great deal with this poem. It's one of several I've written about photography, trying to capture the powerful effect of arrested time, the indelible power of the still image. I don't think I've ever succeeded.

And I suspect this effort may be a step back, not forward. Because there were many false starts and rejected revisions. And in the end, I don't think the poem works. Probably because there are too many words. And because I never found the phrase that really nails it.

On the other hand, I think I salvaged enough to keep it, and post it. Perhaps a reader will find more here that I can see. And perhaps I will return to it, eventually; or, if not return, then at least plagiarize the good bits!

In

Sept 12 2013


Old married couples
who are still in love
can seem preposterous.
What did she see in him, you wonder.
Or what a beauty
she must have been
to have pursued, and won.
Although, in the fullness of time
it's hard to judge.
Because we all know
how old married couples
come to resemble each other,
until the least likely coupling
hardly seems odd.

Or are they out of love
but stay,
because change is tough
and the inertia of day-to-day
makes life bearable?
Because the weight
of expectation

anchors them,
the others who want, and need
this beacon of faithfulness?

You judge
by the small unacknowledged kindnesses.
The indulgent rolling of eyes
when he repeats that story
she knows by heart.
How unmoored she feels
when he is gone,
paper unread
table set
for one.
And his sleeplessness
left alone in bed
the night she spent
away.
Their settled love
protected inside

the castle walls,
where they tend to their garden
in the ever-after
of domestic life.

We think of falling in love
as a thrill-ride,
stepping over the edge
into giddy surrender
that never ends.
Of lust,
urgent, and reckless.
But not the love
that comes with time,
so enmeshed in the other
one is half a couple
more than oneself;
drawbridge drawn up,
temptation held
at the gate.

When the comfort of home

is wherever she is,

and here, with him. 

It is how they touch
that lets us in.
Straightening his tie
firmly, but gently,
thick hands, not quite so deft

buttoning the back of her dress.
Despite short tempers

long silences,
grudges, regrets, and tough times,

he still sees
his white-gowned bride,
and she, her gallant suitor.

More perfect, even
in the comforting blur
of failing eyes.
In the dim light
of their stone-walled fortress.

Taken

Sept 9 2013

To take a lover.

It seems so simple

put this way;

as if reaching up

for succulent fruit

at the peak of ripeness.

Whole orchards

of unplucked trees

that await
your pleasure.

As if he will be consumed

utterly.

Your appetite, insatiable,

the fickle plaything

your jaded whimsy

desires.

I say he,

because men do not choose

as freely.

He must tend to his garden

attentively,

pursue his quarry

relentlessly,

with offerings

and flattery

and lavish gifts. 

And she will never truly be his;

taken, perhaps

but never fully given.

To take a lover

sounds insincere,

because we idealize romantic love

as virtuous

forever.

While the lover you lust

will be discarded

once you are done.

The inedible pit

unsentimentally tossed aside,

sweet fermented juice 

sucked dry.

Retreat

Sept 7 2013


They have begun their retreat,
in a slanted line
in the high clear sky
of September.

They slipstream south
along the path of least resistance,
a roughly staggered line
back, and to the side
drafting behind;
a ragged procession of geese
that wavers
but holds.
So sensibly honed
by nature,
riding the front-runner's wake
taking turns.

They are not elegant fliers
and hardly fast.
I can see the effort
in their necks, straining ahead
the urgency of wings.
The long-endurance muscles
of their powerful breasts,
as voracious
as jet engine intakes
sucking up air.

Is there a leader
or do they share,
beating upwind?
And are they kin,
or do they assemble
by some inscrutable signal
only birds discern?
Strangers, brought together by luck
who will quickly disperse
when the trip is done.
Like commuters
who avert their eyes
on the journey home,
tolerate
the unnatural closeness
for now.

I look up
in Indian summer
and wonder at their rush,
when the living is easy
and winter seems theoretical.
But they have sensed the briskness
the dearth of insects,
the early setting
of sun.

In spring, their journey reversed
we will welcome them,
harbingers of warmth.
Big awkward birds
honking raucously, and close to exhaustion
putting down hard.
But now, I am caught off guard.
A stab of melancholy
in bitter-sweet fall.


I was caught off guard today: the first sighting of geese, heading south. It wasn't the classic "V"; more of a slanted line -- ragged, but holding. I like what this -- the strategy of drafting off each other's wig-tips -- says about the razor of evolution: selecting the perfect aerodynamic form by trial and error, by the random culling of chance.

Talk about a challenge. Another "nature" poem about migrating geese? Really, does anyone need that?!! So I hope I managed to inject some originality into this. And sufficient small rewards and unexpected pleasures to make worthwhile the few minutes it takes to read ...and (I hope) re-read.

First Day

Sept 5 2013


There are only so many
first days of school.
But for all the remaining Septembers
I am there, again.

The fresh start,

no homework to do

nothing overdue

as yet,
notebooks, unblemished
homeroom freshly waxed.

Before wet wool, and chalk dust

in a few more months.

And the end of summer
as if sentenced to house arrest.
Feeling frayed and stretched
in an tempestuous tug of war --
trepidation

versus excitement.

I remember how anxious I felt
how easily I flushed,
in hand-me-downs, and brand new sneakers
still white as beacons
a size too large,
head down, eyes averted
expecting taunts.
I cringe, even now
how oblivious I was

to fashion, status

sex;

perhaps still am.

I still awaken, in a sweat
in the middle of exams
for which I never studied,
the only thing worse
than first day nerves.
And regret the pretty girls
I might have asked out,
had my vision not blurred

tongue thickened.

And with all that I have learned
in my adult life
I suspect nothing has changed
should first day once again come,
the big kids
strict teacher
new school.
Self-conscious, and feeling set apart,
unguarded
from all-seeing eyes.

The child inside
in the morning light
of September
watching the children walk to school,
hair slicked back
in bright back-packs
and fashionable clothes.
But feeling relieved
I'm now too old
to tag along.

And perhaps a little envy
that I may be too far gone
for fresh starts;
notebook unmarked,
blackboard sparkling clean.


What's good about poetry:

I use these blurbs to elaborate on a poem, and often to bookmark in memory its inspiration and process of creation. Nothing needed here. But I will take this opportunity to suggest to my hypothetical reader a fabulous poem I read shortly before sitting down to write.

In commemoration of his recent death, The New Yorker of Sept 9 2013 reprinted a poem of Nobel prize winner Seamus Heaney (it first appeared in the June 25 1979 edition). What a terrific piece. (Not to mention what a refreshing change from the arcane, pretentious, and unpleasant sounding poetry they usually chose!) So I would highly recommend the Irish poet to anyone trying to understand what's good about poetry. It's called The Guttural Muse. Short and sweet and note perfect, with an unerring ear for the musicality of language: not one word too many or too few; and certainly no need of any elaboration or explanation.

Too Small

Sept 3 2013


It is too small
to appear on maps.
It has many names,
depending on the trees, the season
the angle of sun.
On whether the moon was new, or full;

a silver carpet, rolled-out invitingly,

or inky-black

bad luck.

Modern explorers

stumbling out of the bush, onto its shore

give names

to this anonymous lake,

just as those before them.

Because naming things

is our way into the world.

Mud, Bulrush, Boot-Suck Lake,

fixing place

as mnemonic, epithet, metaphor.

It is no northern beauty,
with pink granite rocks
descending to the water's edge,
lush green moss
softening each step.
Where windswept pines
tower over scant underbrush
in even airy light.

No, it is dense scrub
a tangled shore,

stunted spruce, spindly poplar.
Almost muskeg, sphagnum swamp
where the drainage is poor.
You peer back
at the dark damp interior
and realize how this lake was lost,
one tiny patch of blue
in the boreal vastness.

I watch, under a waxing moon,
distilled light, glinting thinly

in a riff of cool wind,

mirror broken.
And the ghosting trees
that seem to move
all on their own.
Somewhere, piercing the gloom
a loon gives throat,
its ululation
as eerily pure
as it is alone.

I did not name this lake
will let memory stand.
Anyway, the path has overgrown
there are no maps.


As Canadians, we tend to romanticize the north, celebrate the notion of wilderness. Especially at the end of summer, when we are susceptible to nostalgia. That was the case this Labour day, when the Globe featured a piece by Roy McGregor -- both about canoeing the Petawawa, and as a remembrance of Blair Fraser (a celebrated journalist, who died in the rapids there 45 years ago); and a complementary piece by Lorna Crozier -- about the sanctuary of a tiny anonymous lake, a rare blue moon (which is not just a convenient rhyme, but an actual technical term referring to the occurrence of a full moon twice in the same month), and a moment of rumination on a dying friend.

She wrote: "You're not sure why you've chosen this lake -- no one has even bothered to name it. If it was located in southwest Saskatchewan, where you grew up and where water is scarce, you'd find it on a map." I also lifted "Mud" and "Bulrush" from her (she included "Antelope", as well) -- her Saskatchewan names; while her Ontario ones suggest more congenial places: "Trout, Canoe, Devil's Lake." They may be hypothetical, but the names say it all: cattailed and weedy and soft-bottomed, as opposed to clear pools set into ice-age granite.

This idea of the unnamed and unmapped lake really caught my imagination. Because when you travel through the north by canoe, you encounter countless muddy scrubby aesthetically unmemorable lakes, often resembling as much a wet spongy lowland as a legitimate body of water. You know this place has never been charted, and its only names were uttered by some previous traveler -- likely attached to an expletive!

I also liked the idea of a private meaningful place, no need to explain why it gives you solace and sanctuary; even when it would seem utterly unappealing to anyone else.

This is more of a composite than any particular lake. Although it is a bit closer to mine -- with its heavily wooded shore and dense underbrush -- than that postcard Muskoka landscape of pink granite, majestic white pines, open and airy vistas. The contrast was especially salient with when I wrote this, since I'd just seen a documentary the night before, and it featured a particularly beautiful postcard lake; which only served to remind me how deficient in conventional beauty is my own. Having paddled a bit of the Petawawa myself, I know how pretty it is, as well.

So it was with the conflation of all these images, impressions and personal memories that the poem emerged. I think it's a much more accurate rendition of wilderness than the more conventionally beautiful, than cottage country. Because most of the boreal north looks like this. Although there is a different kind of beauty in the feeling of mystery, remoteness, and inaccessibility; in the lack of human presence; in a less hospitable place unsullied by man.

An Augury on Stars

Sept 1 2013


A small fragment of rock,
like an airless planet
erratically circling the sun.
From before the land weathered
the mountains cooled,
before plants, animals
man.

I imagine an ancient remnant,
craggy, black
and infinitesimal,
when it crossed paths
with us,
barely touched
the outer atmosphere.
Where it skimmed, like a skipping rock,
stray molecules of air
sparking-off
its hard glassy surface.

It lasted
for a second, or so
just as I looked skyward,
flaring up
in the brilliant dark
against a million points of light.
That sleepless night,
seeking a sign
some higher power.

A cold black cinder
which was not a star
and did not fall
but intersected blindly.
A billion years
extinguished in a blink of light;
a smudge of heat, a puff of ash
too small to matter.

And was I the only witness
glancing up
that fateful instant?
Or was another privileged to see
the enormous sky
its vast indifference?

How dare I think
the universe would answer me,
take note
that I existed.

The day I wrote this I had been listening to a radio documentary about religion; various people talking about their search for transcendence, surrender to faith, or disillusion. This particular man spoke about looking for a sign, and seeing -- as if right on cue -- a highly visible shooting star. But he wasn't ready, and -- laughing at himself -- thought he'd be the typical Jew and go for 2 out of 3. (As a "Jewish atheist", I can take the liberty of repeating this in its proper self-deprecating spirit!) Of course, the next time, exactly the same thing happened. So, he joked, what choice did he have?

Where I live, the skies are relatively free of light pollution. On cloudless nights, the stars can be brilliant, and shooting stars (falling stars?) no at all unusual. So I'd certainly be loath to attach my fate to something so commonplace.

A recurring theme in my more philosophical pieces is a militant atheism and suspicion of faith that veers toward the nihilistic. The ending here revisits that theme: how infinitesimally small and insignificant we are in a cold indifferent universe. Complementing this is a related theme: how magical thinking about a higher power -- not to mention the self-referential thinking of a personal relationship with God (even worse than the medieval earth-centric universe, a "me"-centric one) -- is closer to narcissism than it is to the humble submission earnest believers seek.