Playing God
Nov 26 2014


In late fall
there are mice in the house.
Through infinitesimal cracks
in window sashes
under doors.
Who inhabit the night, uncannily quiet
in a Malthusian nightmare
of fertile mice.

Broken bodies, in baited traps
snapped shut.
Whose hard black eyes
gaze up at me
sightless.
As if at an unappeasable god,
who metes out life and death
as capricious as chance.
As if I had knowledge
of some divine plan
in which they played their part.

In my weaker moments
I think how close we are,
genetic cousins, only bigger.
My mercy
is in hoping it was quick,
an instantaneous death
no one saw coming.

I turn out
their cold stiff bodies
in leaf litter, early snow.
No burial, or holy water.
No slow return to earth
in a closed coffin, formal clothes. 

And by morning, they are gone.
Nothing wasted, in nature
where nothing escapes its end.
Whose theology
is thin consolation,
unlike the promise
of gospel truth.

Unless you take comfort
in being of use.

There's a lot going on here. My guilt at taking a life, simply for the privilege of enjoying my sovereign space. The ease with which we categorize the worthy and unworthy, and reserve our empathy for the former. How the power of life and death can be exercised so unfeelingly. The commonality of all life, no matter how much we tend to be preoccupied by difference. The age-old conflict between science and religion: explaining the world through rational thought, instead of dogma and superstition (pretty clear which side I'm on!); and in particular the cycle of life, with its cold comfort, in place of the false consolation of heaven.

Nevertheless, I've become very adept at regarding these tiny objects covered in grey fur as inanimate. I consider suffering only fleetingly, and when I stray into thoughts of bereavement or motherless kids, I'm quick with scornful accusations of sentimental anthropomorphism. And ultimately, in a biosphere ruled by "eat and be eaten" (I've substituted "and" for "or" because in the grand scheme of things, we all -- ultimately, and in one way or another -- are) there is no exemption due to moral qualms and higher callings. Even Buddhists swat at flies. And as hard as it is to imagine, we will also meet our end.

First Haircut
Nov 24 2014


The old-fashioned barber chair
was cherry-red naugahyde
and brightly polished chrome.
An over-stuffed throne, men-only,
in a plain-walled sanctorum
ornamented wholly
by fancy bottles.

By bracing astringents, and manly cologne
medicinal shampoo, fragrant emollients.
Straight razors, and leather strops,
a swirl of foam
steaming hot.
Black combs, in blue disinfectant
on the shelf above the sink,
along with sleekly sculpted implements
in surgical steel.
And the cleansing scent

of menthol after-shave,
slapped-on
in a ritual end.

Comfortable men, in unmatched chairs,

chatting, smoking
cracking jokes.
There was a pedestal ashtray, overflowing with butts
and a scuffed table, eternally covered
with last week's papers
well-thumbed sports.

Men's journals, and the wholesome sort

of pin-up mags,
winking coyly, like the girl-next-door.

Where a little boy

with curly blonde hair
perched on a red naugahyde wedge

that was tucked into the chair,

ratcheting-up

on its gun-metal lever,

spinning on well-oiled gears.

But my memory of my first haircut

is less this
than a still image, tinged with fear --
a strange-smelling man
in a tight jacket,
flashing scissors
in meat-mitten hands.

And room-length mirrors, front and back
with the repeating image of me
receding at the speed of light.
As if an infinity
had somehow opened-up
behind this wall of glass.
As if I were falling, falling,
and this small room
unaccountably bottomless.

Children are exquisitely receptive
to the inexplicable,
magic accompanies the day-to-day.
But still, I had never considered
that solid objects might be permeable,
surfaces
not to be trusted.

That there were mysteries to be plumbed.

That you could get under the skin's

tender cover.

That you could dive-in

break the glint of light.

Like the still water

above Atlantis.

Like a leap of faith

into silvered glass.

It was while writing my last poem -- The Invention of Glass -- that I recalled my first time experiencing this common but unsettling phenomenon: the recursive image created by opposing mirrors. It's part of my vague memory of my first haircut -- along with the natural fear of a strange man wielding sharp objects! (And yes --believe it or not -- I once did have curly blonde hair!)

So this poem gave me the chance to do two things: to not only write about that glimpse into infinity, that illusion of falling; but also to luxuriate in sensuous detail about a rite of passage in a past world. Because the old-fashioned men's barbershop is an anachronism these days; replaced by sleek barber chairs and unisex salons and fancy decor. Even the men's magazines are different: more explicit porn than the sweet corn-fed girl-next-door. (Or so I've been told!)

Although poetry is supposed to be about compression and distillation, I like the way this poem slows down, indulging in elaborate description and the telling detail. Not not does it revel in the material world, taking delight in stuff; it also tries to push just far enough to become a parody of masculinity -- or at least its pose.

And I like the metaphor of physical surface and metaphysical depth. I was thinking in particular of the unknowability of "the other": there is the surface people present; and then the inner life we can only guess at.

I've said many times that I write a poem, and then move on: as soon as I start the next one, the last is gone. So my uncertain memory isn't surprising; but I strongly suspect I've already written this poem. Or something very much like it. I'll have to delve into the archives to check. But I'm fine with revisiting a subject. Another chance to get it right! And also a good gauge of my progress. Am I getting better at this business of poetry? Or is it time to give it up and move on to something new?

(A final pedantic note: you won't find "sanctorum" in the dictionary (or at least I didn't in mine, when I checked). But you will if you look under sanctum sanctorum, which is defined as the "holiest of holies". My understanding of this term comes from Judaism, in which it refers to the inner sanctum of the great Temple in Jerusalem where the Torah was kept. I took advantage of poetic license, and shortened it.)

The Invention of Glass
Nov 21 2014


The bay window, behind the kitchen sink
frames a rugged landscape
I never tire of seeing,
grass, and rock, and trees
dusted with snow.

On the cusp of fall

dense arctic air
has settled over the world,
holding my small tableau

perfectly still,
as artfully composed
as a snow globe
at rest.

After dark, I watch myself
in its phantasmagorical mirror,
doing dishes
in my cozy kitchen
standing by the sink.

Before the image
disappears in steam.

The invention of glass
is one of those small wonders

that would seem miraculous
were it absent from our lives.
Takes sand
and makes it clear.
Looks out
as well as back.
Is strong enough
to wall off winter

from my brightly lit kitchen,
where dinner
simmers on the stove.

Except for the tumbler

that slipped from my grasp,
shattered in a million bits. 

The Empties
Nov 17 2014


The empties clink
in the unheated porch

when the back door swings open.
The place that would have made

a perfect sunroom
if we hadn’t let it go.

Where green and brown bottle-glass
torn cardboard two-fours

litter the floor.

And sticky liquid

from drunken spills

marks scuffed plywood boards;

darkly hunched forms

like outlines at a crime scene.

Closed, all winter,

single-glazed windows, broken screens.

When stale smoke

clings to every object.

When the place is filled
with sweetness, yeast, and hops;

the drops of brew

that cling to the bottom

no matter how thirsty you are,

the residue

of gassy heads, gone-off.

That stinks

of biker bar

in the bleak light of dawn.

Empties
destined for the beer store,

return deposit

cash for more.

Along with aluminum cans

in discontinued brands;

crushed flat

or split in halves

sharp enough to cut.

And pull-tabs, bottle caps

scattered on the floor,
leg-hold traps

for unsuspecting toes.

A minefield

of broken glass,

stepping out back for a smoke.

This is soooo absolutely NOT me! I almost never drink beer. I don't have a porch full of empties; not even a single empty, in fact (empty wine bottles notwithstanding!) I don't smoke. And I have no idea what a biker bar smells like!

The inspiration for this poem was so tenuous, out of context, and insubstantial that I'm reluctant to even mention it. But, of course, I will. I was reading The New Yorker on my iPad, and inadvertently swiped to the next item: the title page of a short story called The Empties (by someone named Jess Row, in the Nov 3 2014 edition of the magazine). I didn't read the story; but the title somehow struck me (enough to steal it!) I think because we all instantly know what he means -- the universal short-hand of language. And I think because of the word's metaphorical potential. And I think because of how evocative such a simple word can be: I immediately heard and smelled the old bottles. I immediately visualized the cluttered enclosed porch of an old wood-frame house: like the archetypal "student" house from university days.

Which was plenty to play with. Which is what it was -- play: a delightful mix of word play and a mischievously ominous undertone.

(American readers may appreciate a translation of "two-four". This is Canadian for the standard case containing 24 bottles of beer. Also, I think "pull tabs" are a glaring anachronism: aren't they now buttons that depress, and remain attached? But that's OK, because I think this reinforces the idea of neglect: that the bottles have been piling up for years, and even decades.)

Hunger
Nov 16 2014


The vegetable patch, flash-frozen
under a thin blanket of snow

is like a still life

of time lost.

Rows of broccoli still stand,
like stout green trees
beneath a soft white cover.

While ripe tomatoes are blasted,
branches grounded
vines collapsed.

And hardy kale, touched by frost
surprising in its sweetness;
frilly leaves, intact
as if they still basked
in August heat.

The carrots remain,

enclosed in warm dark earth

as if too bashful to emerge.
Orange flesh, aiming down,
like missiles, in underground bunkers

that will never launch.
They look perfectly preserved
but are soft and punky,
caught by winter
and left to rot.

The garden that was planted in spring
and missed its harvest
will remain all season
in winter's iron grip.

A frozen tableau

behind its sagging gate, chicken-wire enclosure,

waiting to be worked

into freshly thawed soil;

another hopeful crop.

Because in short sharp summer
we seed more than we can eat,
desperately hungry
to plant.
To put our hands
into newly warmed earth.

To tend the land
and watch things grow.


About 10 days ago the temperature dropped, and there was a good 3 inches of snow. So whatever was left in my neighbour's vegetable patch flash froze, and now sits under a thin blanket of snow like a simulacrum of summer, incongruous in the winter landscape. There is something touching about this tableau of abandoned hope, this materialized version of arrested time. (Those last 2 sentences came to me while writing this blurb, and I liked them so much I was tempted to shoe-horn the good bits into the poem. But realized that what works in prose is often too cumbersome for poetry. Or at least for my taste in poetry.)

I went next door to scavenge what I could of the leftover kale. I've found that kale touched by frost is remarkably sweet. I've been surprised at how hardy it is in the cold. Although this stuff is more than touched(!), so we'll see.

It was seeing the garden like this -- before it completely disappears under the inevitable accumulation of snow -- that gave me this poem. I have no idea what actually happened to the tomatoes, broccoli, or carrots; whether harvested, or not. So those descriptions are purely acts of imagination. I mostly followed sound: the short "a" of "flash" took me by the hand and led me through. And then my mind's eye descended and I saw carrots hiding out, enclosed in soil, where the frost had not yet penetrated. I couldn't resist the contrast of warm dark earth with its insulating blanket of snow.

The waste of unharvested produce struck me. But the reason is obvious, and it became the heart of the poem: that universal and overwhelming drive in a land of hard winters, late springs, and all-too-short summers to plant; to put our hands into warm earth, and see things grow.

935 James St., Suite 133
Nov 13 2014


The government clerk
fired-off forms
like a croupier dealing blackjack.
They flew bewilderingly fast,
duplicate pages, legal disclaimers
and lengthy questionnaires,
initialled, signed, stamped.

My modest transaction
at the fluorescent counter
had the important air
of affairs of state.
As if all the way up the chain of command,
where some grave mandarin
will cock his brow
pondering my paperwork.
And I stood a little straighter,
a valued citizen
civilly served.

The bureaucracy
runs on paper,
boxes checked, receipts relayed.
On functionaries, like this good lady
presiding over this orderly place.
Her small principality
of shabby chairs, and weary supplicants,
in work clothes, and baseball caps
blankly shuffling in line.

She smiled nicely
in her brisk competent way.
And I smiled back, expressing my thanks,
gathering up
my allotment of paper
and staggering out.

Which I shall dutifully save.
Bequeath
like some cherished possession
to my heirs, and descendants.
A Delphic riddle
from beyond the grave,
they'll gamely attempt
to puzzle out.


My simple transaction consumed a vast forest of forms.

The lady behind the counter was cheerful and competent: a good civil servant, good at her job. And the entire process was reassuringly efficient. But all it produced was a pile of paper that will be filed away, never to be looked at again.

Of course, I gathered up the papers she conferred, and took them home. I'm not quite sure what for; yet feeling I must honour the process by dutifully filing them away somewhere. And so I imagine a lifetime of inscrutable forms -- yellowing, and gathering dust -- puzzled over after my death; because surely they must have been vitally important to have been so diligently saved!

I think a good alternate title -- and there be a million little teasers you could think of here -- would be "Paperwork". But what I like about this choice is its enticing mystery: you really can't resist reading on. And it's utterly unnecessary specificity: just like the punctiliousness of form after form. And one of the thoughts I had was of this small office and its regular inhabitants -- not just the bureaucracy it contains, but the actual physical space. To me, it's a forgettable place that occupies a brief moment in my life. But to the ladies working there (and they were all ladies) it's like a second home, with all the sweet personal touches of coffee mugs and loved ones in picture frames; as well as a community, with all the complicated interpersonal dynamics of which a client like me has absolutely no idea. So to me, it's an address; but to them, almost a domestic space, more lived-in than passed through.

Will Only Exist ...
Nov 11 2014


No one remembers, anymore.
Because the last veteran
recently died,
a man weary with life
who had travelled through time,
marooned
in the wrong century.
So from now on, when we pause
on the 11th hour
                           of the 11th day
                                                     of the 11th month
the Great War will only exist
in history books.

In the printed word.
In news reels, and photogravures,
their grainy black and white
distancing us
from an unknowably alien world.

On granite walls
where names are formally carved.
In unknown soldier, and heroic charge
cast in solid bronze.
Which I'm told will stand
for tens of thousands of years,
perhaps the last man-made object
to survive.
A mysterious artifact
of a species long extinct,
a living planet
left in peace.

In audacious acts
of imagination.
Which can never be as bad
as that war's industrial killing.
As fetid trenches, and random death,
as blood and mud
and meaninglessness.
As bloated horses, put to rest
in the charnel mess
of no-man's land.

South of the border
the 11th is known as Veterans' Day.
When bewildered children
watch old men parade,
thinking boney hands, and rheumy eyes
were always that way,
uniformed men
bodies bent, but heads held high.
As if only veterans were concerned with war.
Not long-suffering wives
or workers, left behind.
Not their slaughtered brethren
or damaged descendants
or the children never born.

But here, on November 11, we all remember.
Not only to honour the past
but as a bulwark against forgetfulness.
As a cautionary tale
for the next great patriotic campaign.
As an admonition for peace
to be more than the absence of war.

Anyway, the ranks of the veterans are growing
despite our collective abhorrence,
preferring to talk
but willing to fight.
How shocking
that instead of stooped and grey
these veterans are young, and straight.

But who still have the same
thousand mile stare.
That faraway look
a little anguished, a little off.
Lost in remembrance.
Or perhaps, trying hard not. 

The last few years, I've missed writing my "annual" Remembrance Day poem. I think because it's all been said; and because it's easy to fall into platitude and cliché. And perhaps I feel unworthy to write, having sacrificed nothing, and having never really known war.

Nevertheless, it all needs to be said over and over again. Especially because some people mistake the meaning of November 11: that it's not to glorify war, but to soberly reflect upon it; that it's not an act of mindless patriotism, but an expression of gratitude to those who have served; and that it's not only about war, but about the peace it was supposed to have won.

I suspect I'm wrong, but I somehow have the impression Remembrance Day is more venerated in Canada than Veterans' Day, its counterpart in the US. Either way, I can't help paying attention to language. And "Remembrance" seems more inclusive and universal; while a day to honour veterans seems limited, like a dutiful gesture to a select group. So -- as usual! -- it was language that gave me one way into the poem.

The other was that the First World War is no longer in the realm of personal recollection and living history. I heard a commentator say something to the effect that the war now only exists in the dry pages of history books; and it seems to me it wasn't that long ago the last veteran died. So something that already seems so distant from our lives has become even more distant. (Although, to be fair, some thoughtful film-makers have curated first person "remembrance projects", in which veterans are recorded telling their unmediated stories.)

Of course, November 11 is not only about the Great War. It also commemorates, WWII, Korea, and Afghanistan, as well all of our peace-keeping operations and armed interventions, from Cyprus to Kosovo to Libya. But the tradition began in the armistice that ended WWI. And it was not only the first "modern" war -- with its industrial killing and technological one-upmanship -- but a war of unparalleled carnage and suffering: almost as much civilian as soldier. So it stands out, like an icon of the worst of war.

This isn't the first time I've used the image of the dead horse. I find it powerfully compelling. I think because it's so representative of such an utterly different time, when horses were instruments of war. And because the death of an animal is so touching, especially an innocent conscripted into our senseless killing: I picture a dutiful blinkered draught horse in its death throes, dying alone. And also because the bloated carcass festering in the blood and mud of no-man's land is so evocative of trench warfare: of the prolonged suffering of static fronts, of battles that lasted for months.

The notion of remembrance is also ironic. Because it is remembering that is the basis of post traumatic stress disorder. Before I sat down to write, I had just finished reading a feature article by Sarah Hampson (in this weekend's Globe and Mail) about the history of "shell shock", so perhaps this influenced the direction the poem eventually took. And where it ends: in the irony of trying to forget, while still honouring memory. I also like the way this book-ends the opening line: "No one remembers, anymore."

Inevitably, my usual misanthropy and nihilism wormed their way in. I just couldn't resist: " ...A mysterious artifact/ of a species that went extinct,/ on a living planet/ left in peace. ..."

The Certainty of Spring
Nov 9 2014


I would have been as fearful
as the world grew dark.

As winter's night
relentlessly strangled the light,
its great black hand
steadily tightening.

Before artificial light
warmed our thin abodes,
spilling out
into the vast blackness
of brooding snow.
The hard gleam
of winter's bone
stripped clean of flesh.

Before we knew
about planets and stars,
their clockwork wheelings, inexhaustible springs,

certain

the season will turn.

When the day lengthens
and light escapes,
its beating heart
imperceptibly quickening.

Before enlightenment,
when the illusion we’re safe
had us turning away
from the cold.

As if the stars and the planets
were not their own,
magnificently indifferent
and uncontrollable.
Huddling around
hearth and home,
counting down to light.

A bit of a different take on the longest night of the year, towards which I can feel us hurtling. It's a poem about hubris and modernity, and I think attempts to sympathetically inhabit the world view of our not-so-ancient forbears.

It's the 4th poem in a row I've written about snow. I'm not thrilled about this. I keep trying to write a prose poem: something that reads in a more conversational way, seems less staccato and structure and lean. And I keep trying to write something more narrative, personal, emotional, rather than another seasonal poem. But as I've said before, writing often feels like channelling: as if I were simply a stenographer, taking down what comes.

Once I had the image of the vice-like hand closing off the light, I was emboldened to work the anatomical metaphor. Perhaps worked it too hard: I wonder if the "winter bone" and the "beating heart" might come off as strained, or shoe-horned in. Even "turning away" and huddling around", which loosely follow.

I repeatedly assert that I despise adverbs; yet I've used 4 of them here (relentlessly, steadily, imperceptibly, and magnificently). The danger of adverbs is that they explicitly say what's already implied, which is both redundant and patronizing. In my defence, I think my choices here are powerful and descriptive: the poem would be much thinner and weaker without them.

There was a persistent image in the back of my mind that I think informed everything I wrote here: of a small wood-framed shack in a vast expanse of snow in the steely black of night. It's seen from a distance. Feeble yellow light is leaking out. Perhaps a single strand of smoke curls up from its chimney. The feeling this conveyed was of smallness, vulnerability, isolation. I think you can see this in the image of "huddling"; in the turning inward to light and its illusion of safety.

I would have loved "Winter's Bone" as the title; but it's already been taken by the Academy Award-winning movie (or if not the movie itself, then its leading lady). Nevertheless, "The Certainty of Spring" gets closer to the theme: the presumption of certainty; the fear that it's not certain at all.

Descending

Nov 8 2014

The road winds down toward the shore,
passing through warmer air
as the lake draws closer.

From above
you'd see a small blue car, beetling along
following its cone of light.
And a thin ribbon of road
snaking through the tree-tops.

Going from white to dark,
as hard snow
turns soft and sloppy
and then to rain,
wipers thwacking, thwopping
the hum of heat.
Blades encrusted with ice, tires skating
on pavement slick with sleet.

But the city is bright, and bustling
the highway wide.
Rain-black roads, reflecting light,

cars starting and stopping

in orderly lines.
A half-hour drive
that might be a thousand miles
from my winter night
in its still white blanket.
Or a journey through time
back to fall.

From the virgin snow
I've left behind.
Marred only by 2 parallel tracks, heading out,
the surface cut
by ruled edges
tread sharply impressed.
A precise footprint
you could forensically match
with me.

The evidence relentlessly vanishing
as flakes steadily fall.
As if there had been
no comings and goings.
The place abandoned to nature,
lost

in a mountain of snow.

The micro-climate here is in sharp contrast to the city: warmer days and cooler nights in summer; colder all winter. This is a combination of the city's heat island effect, the moderating influence of the big lake, and my elevation. At this time of year, the less than 30 minute drive takes you from winter back into fall: as much time travel as distance. And when there's precipitation, takes you through this shifting transition zone of treacherous road. 

Late Snow
Nov 7 2014


A tulip
in early bloom
in freshly fallen snow,
translucent white, from melt.

Looks luscious, in April light,
defiant, erect
in vivid green, and fuchsia red.
Makes you feel like the sightless man
with a vague recollection of grey,
struck by colour
too dazzling to comprehend.

It might survive
a light frost.
Or have come too soon, and die,
lying flat, in damp brown grass
colour drained.

Like all the visionaries, who were scorned in their day,
unremembered, unlamented
in the riot of spring's excess.


A nice bookend to my previous poem, First Snow. Although it didn't come about that way.

The vision of intense arresting colour actually came from a quick cut in the opening sequence of HBOs latest mini-series Olive Kitteridge. This complicated woman is repelling, fascinating, and yet deeply sympathetic; and the show is a wonderful depiction of nuanced relationship, repression, and subterranean suffering in an unremarkable working-class town in coastal Maine. But that's not what this poem is about. It's simply about this image, which jumped out of the screen and seared itself into my retina, calling out for a short sharp homage. (Although I think the garden is important in the show, and not simply incidental: something she can care for; a way to show her love undemonstrably, and without the risk of betrayal or disappointment.)

This early tulip was too eager for life, too irrepressible: like the lost visionaries and go-getters and innovators, unceremoniously cut down by a late snow, unremembered and unlamented.

Oliver Sachs wrote about a man who suddenly recovered his sight. He found the newly seen world incomprehensible and overwhelming. I've always remembered this: the gift of sight, but his brain and his spirit had no capacity for it, and vision ended up a terrible burden.

It's also a way to simply say "stop and smell the roses" without resorting to cliché. It reflects my preference for microcosm, close observation, the still life. Which is what poetry is all about: not just looking at the world, but stopping, taking time, seeing it as if newly made.

I always feel I want to write less; that the apotheosis of my work will be a poem of a single word. That was something I set out to do here: write something sharp and short. Not nearly there, of course; but at least closer!

First Snow
Nov 6 2014


The first snow
comes unexpectedly.
It feels like hard rain,
slanting down in sloppy splats

hypodermically cold.

In wet flakes
that cling to my lids

for the briefest instant,
veiling the world
in a curtain of bluish light.
Then melt quickly,
sending cold rivulets
down my open neck.

The moment it touches
warm green earth
the early snow vanishes,
leaving glistening grass, stiff with frost
in the thin light

of early dawn.

Then the first time
a soft blanket covers it all,

the democracy of snow
turning everything white.
When it feels the world has been put to rest;
nothing growing
and the soil slowly
replenishing itself.

Until fast

in February’s fortress,
when snow seems permanent
winter eternal.
In the clear arctic air, when it's too cold to melt,
and sits
on my hat, my shoulders
my frozen lids.

When I feel enclosed;
comforted
to see the world
through a refracted blur 
of crystal light.


A purely descriptive poem, which I always resist writing, but end up doing anyway. I like to think that once I get something like this out of my system, I'll feel free to write something more affecting. But maybe this is what I do, and should just accept.

The poem started with that first fall snow, when it's half rain/half snow, and you can feel it as much as see it.

And then the early dusting, that instantly disappears like a magician's trick. A nice dry run of impending winter, when you know there will be nothing to drive in or shovel, and the living is still easy. ("...early dusting ...a nice dry run ...nothing to drive in, or shovel ..."; hmmm, maybe that should have been the poem!)

And the comforting feeling I get when the snow is here to stay: as if the world were at rest, time on hold.

And at either end, when I just let the snow fall on me: accumulating on my lids, and blurring the world away.

In this poem, I'm revisiting what I think was the first poem I ever write, in late 2001. It was also called First Snow (I think). I remember looking out the kitchen window at dusk, and feeling suddenly inspired. It will be interesting to see how my writing has changed, and whether I've progressed -- or not. That is, if I have the nerve to search it out and  put it up! I’ve also used “democracy of snow” before, in a poem I still think is a good one: one of my favourites snow poems (if I remember it correctly), with a very clever martial theme deftly running through it.

Arms Race
Nov 5 2014


The arms race of plants
growing towards the sun.
Vine-wrapped trees,
grasses, poking up.
Green stems, unfurling skyward
their broad leaves, basking in light.

The canopy, high above
is dappled, and sun-warmed.
While here, on the forest floor
it's cool and dark,
organic matter, decomposing
blackened fungi, releasing spores.

The slow trees
are starving, and stunted,
moss clings
to gnarled trunks.
Small animals, by the whites of their eyes
biting insects, busily buzz.

In the darkness, I stumble.
On cold wet ground
that smells earthy, and pungent.
On immoveable boulders
that go all the way down,
the weathered tips
of subterranean mountains
anchored in ancient rock.

This place absorbs sound,
so as loud as I shout
my thinning voice
is swallowed-up.
I am pale, and hungry for sun.
I can only run deeper
or climb my way out.


I read this in a New Yorker article about a magazine start-up called Modern Farmer:

“ “How Modern Farmer came about is she was always rooting out the next thing,” he went on. “I was getting wrapped up with the anarchist farmers. The anarchists farm with no land. They do crop mobs and seed bombs. For a seed bomb, you take a bunch of clay and you put seeds in it, and you bomb it where somebody has told you that you can’t plant.” ”

I enjoyed the article, because I'm always interested in publishing, and I admired its founder's (Ann Marie Gardner) entrepreneurial pluck and vision, her dynamism and creativity. But this small excerpt -- which makes no sense, I know, out of context (and actually, very little in!) -- stayed with me. Not only the anarchistic incongruity of "crop mobs and seed bombs" in the staid context of agriculture, but the idea that plants are driven to germinate and grow in the worst conditions; that seeds will seek out the sun, no matter what. Which is when the phrase "plants always grow towards the sun" came to mind, and which seemed to call for a poem. So I put it down on paper, and started channelling. I had a vision of those stop-motion films of growing plants, where weeks or months are compressed into minutes.

The result has nothing to do with crop mobs, and even less with the article. So if the poem takes a dark turn, blame my subconscious; since I had no idea where it would go, and certainly no plan.

I've used this trope of the forest floor several times before; but I think this iteration may be the best yet.

A Pinch of This
Oct 30 2014


The old woman with the thick arms
and flour-dusted apron.
Who will leave no recipe cards
or well-thumbed pages,
butter-stained
with a cinnamon scent.
Because she bakes by heart
and eye, and hand;
a pinch of this, a taste of that,
adding and subtracting
by feel.
Who knows the batter by touch
and cooks until it's done,
cooling on the kitchen counter
on a wire rack.
Under faded tea towels, ironed flat,
flimsy as gauze
from wash after wash.

Her imprecision
is not evasion,
unlike those other old ladies
who are vague about measurement
or somehow forget
the secret ingredient.
She simply cannot say;
because it's art, not chemistry
and how nonsensical would it be
to bake-by-number?

And if I said
the secret ingredient was love
you'd call me a dumb romantic.
Which must be why
I can’t stop smelling her bread,
melted butter
drizzled on top.
Whisked from the oven
and still too warm to cut.


I read an excerpt from the musician Alan Doyle's new memoir Where I Belong: From Small Town to Great Big Sea. He talks about his mother's home-made bread, and transcribes an amusing dialogue between him and his mother as he asks her for the recipe. This is a common story: the experienced baker with the "secret" recipes that are never written down -- recipes that seem improvised, but somehow always come out right.

I barely remember my maternal grandmother; but she was a similarly celebrated baker. (Unfortunately, the baking gene seems to have skipped my own dear mother!) I bake one thing, and that's the world's best(!) banana bread. Last batch I made, I reflected on the fact that I do it all by feel, as well: there is a recipe written down somewhere, but I never refer to it. And if someone were to try to use that written version as a guide, it probably wouldn't work. So perhaps I'm turning into that sturdy flour-dusted old lady myself! We're not keeping secrets; it's just that we've done it enough, we know it by heart.

Transcendence
Oct 30 2014


There is a moment in time
when the high-wire artist stops,
the long pole quivering, his body light.
So exquisitely still
I am filled with certainty
perfection is possible,
that all the forces in life
can balance out
exactly hold.

His muscled feet
grip the wire
shoulders ache with the weight of the pole.
But from here, it seems effortless
and we all seem to levitate
locking our gaze overhead.
A small lithe man
suspended so high in the air.

But it's not his weightlessness
we should envy,
as he dances, imperceptibly
and sweats in his spangled vest.
It's his singular focus, intense devotion
to one consuming thing.
Because if his eyes were lasers
the wire would burn,
if his mind a poem
a single word.

This is the purity
we seek out all our lives.
That one ecstatic moment
when we rise up out of ourselves
and feel transcendent peace.
When everything stops.
When time doesn't count.
When the universe
is so perfectly balanced
we needn't look down,
and there is no place to fall.


Transcendence is a universal drive, something we all seek out. It's one basis for religion. It's why we do drugs, or meditate. I understand some lucky people experience something similar to this with LSD: a oneness with the universe, a sense of utter serenity. The single word that says it best is "balance". And what better way to exemplify balance that the high-wire man?

Elizabeth Renzetti, a writer I much admire, wrote a piece in today's paper about work/life balance (Searching for a Balanced Life). It was she who used the tightrope walker as a motif (in particular, Philippe Petite, who in 1974 performed a daring and clandestine walk between the newly erected World Trade Centre Towers). I was moved to try my own riff on this, and so shamelessly stole her idea. (Was it Oscar Wilde who said something like "good artists borrow; great artists steal"??!! I hardly claim to be great. But I think in art this idea of re-working existing ideas, of derivation and homage, is universal and unavoidable. Very little is truly original.)

In the poem, this sense of balance and serenity -- and even transcendence -- is achieved through focus. It's easy to envy his apparent weightlessness and effortlessness. But as the poem makes clear, his act is neither; it's hard work. What's enviable is his singular focus, as concentrated as a point of magnified light. I think "flow" -- that wonderful clarifying quality one feels in a highly creative state -- is roughly similar, in its concentration and exclusion, to the laser-like focus the aerialist of the poem must feel.

I like the lines: ... if his eyes were lasers/ the wire would burn,/ if his mind a poem/ a single word. Because I began the poem with that image of the laser-like eyes, so it was gratifying when it found its way in. And because the rhyme and cadence of these 4 lines work really well. But also because I have this recurrent thought: that all my poems are too wordy, and that the absolute apotheosis of my writing would be when I can distill a poem down to a single word. There is a quote I can't attribute, but will paraphrase: "all poetry aspires to be Haiku." At least!