The Milkman’s Horse
Jan 28 2017
The ruts, where we come and go.
The rise, between them,
like a gently rounded shrug.
Which overgrows, in summer,
greening-up
with leggy grass, toothy weeds.
Wildflowers, succeeding each other
in brief seasons
of subtle colour.
The handles, the doors,
where the power of touch
has dulled metal
burnished wood.
And the floors, where we retrace our steps
revealing their wear;
the Persian rug, threadbare
hardwood scuffed.
Even the drive, to and from home
the car seems to do on its own.
Like a milk-run nag
clomping through its route,
blinkered, sway-backed, brown of tooth
rooting in its feedbag.
While your mind wanders
who-knows-where,
and the radio, unattended
plays on.
Because there is consolation
in routine.
Even after we’re gone
the comfortable ruts we wore will be left
on our tiny patch of earth;
the trampled grass we cut across
the garden path we walked,
the furrows
habitually plowed.
Like graffiti artists, tagging our work
as if to proclaim we were here.
At least until rain
washes out the road,
its small opening
merges into forest.
Until new owners
renovate the house.
Or small animals
shelter in its ruin.
I like the misdirection of the title. I suspect the average reader will have forgotten it once she starts making her way through the poem, and that it will come back with a start of recognition when she gets to the milk-run analogy. Although perhaps not so much misdirection. Because the poem really is about that milkman’s horse, since a life of comfortable routine isn’t that much different from the muscle memory of a milk-horse, head buried in its feedbag.
I have my doubts, though, about the graffiti artist reference: it seems to come out of nowhere, and is then left dangling.
Otherwise, the poem offers a sobering corrective to our conceit of posterity.
This poem began with another: as usual, one that arrived in my in-box courtesy of Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac. I only read the first few lines when I was taken with it and decided to try my hand at my own version. I hadn’t even gotten to the killer ending! So let’s call it an homage rather than derivative (or worse, plagiarized). And so, by way of homage, here it is:
Things Shouldn’t Be So Hard
by Kay Ryan
A life should leave
deep tracks:
ruts where she
went out and back
to get the mail
or move the hose
around the yard;
where she used to
stand before the sink,
a worn-out place;
beneath her hand
the china knobs
rubbed down to
white pastilles;
the switch she
used to feel for
in the dark
almost erased.
Her things should
keep her marks.
The passage
of a life should show;
it should abrade.
And when life stops,
a certain space—
however small—
should be left scarred
by the grand and
damaging parade.
Things shouldn’t
be so hard.
“Things Shouldn’t Be So Hard” by Kay Ryan from The Niagra River. © Grove Press, 2005.
Sunday, January 29, 2017
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
The Smell of a Good Cigar
Jan 23 2017
My father gave up cigars
before I was old enough to be schooled
in the manly art of lighting up.
The meticulous ritual of cigars,
comforting
in its sameness.
I imagine inhaling
the humidor’s rich wetness
of grass and loam
and saddle leather.
Eyeing the greenish-brown wrapper
for colour, sheen, vein.
Sniffing the tobacco along its length,
before fingering
for freshness, packing, heft.
And then, with its purpose-made implement, clipping the cap
with a guillotine’s exactitude.
Finally, circling its foot above the flame
before the long first draw.
Then the orange glow, the wreath of smoke
the bluish-grey cloud,
like a comforting shroud
hovering over the room.
The lengthening ash, like combustion’s grey ghost
hanging stiffly on.
I loved the smell of a good cigar.
But not the stale smoke afterward,
clinging to furniture
soiling his clothes
infusing his car.
The ashtray
with its soot, cinder
sodden butt.
And when, in the company of others
he snuck just one,
my mother’s stink-eye
spoiling the fun.
A fat Cuban, rolled by hand
in the sultry heat
of some sweet-smelling factory.
My uncle would come from the States, and sneak them back;
2 childhood rivals,
stiff drinks
in heavy tumblers
clinking with ice.
2 middle-aged brothers
in the den’s deepening murk,
fondling Havanas
cracking wise.
I watched, wishing I could grow up faster
and learn to smoke cigars,
the rite of passage
that makes a boy a man.
I still recall
dark leather
and over-stuffed chairs
and rich wood paneling.
The heady scent
of fine tobacco
sweetening the stagnant air.
I suspected I’d written this poem before. So when I finished, I entered “cigar” into the search engine and this came up (see below). I think I may have done it better 6 1/2 years ago, which is somewhat depressing: not just that I’m pointlessly repeating myself, but that I’m doing it less well instead of improving. I would have to say of both, though, that there are far too many words, and that neither reads as naturally and conversationally as I would like: my usual criticisms of pretty much everything I write! (On re-reading, A Fresh Fat Cuban (great title!) seems to stop instead of coming to a proper ending. May another line or two would help.)
A Fresh Fat Cuban
Nov 2 2010
There was the smell of cigars.
In the den, where he read the evening paper.
In the car
always a late model Oldsmobile.
Smudging the windows
with a dull blue haze,
crumpled in ashtrays, the blunt remains
of stogies
dark with spit.
Rolling around his lips
not paying much attention,
the way a couple kiss
after 40 years of marriage.
Stale cigar smoke
is like a beer parlour at closing time,
better in low light
urgently opening windows.
But when someone puffs
on a fresh fat Cuban
you can’t get enough,
inhaling the 2nd hand smoke
with greedy pleasure,
nose extended, nostrils flared.
Impatient to be grown up,
when you will be ushered in
to the secret society of men,
who can knot a bow-tie, eyes closed,
tell off-colour jokes,
light up a stogie
old-school.
My glamorous uncle
would come all the way up
from New York City,
stashing a box full of hand-rolled Cubans
in his matching bags.
The thrill of contraband
immensely improving
the long slow draw
of well-cured tobacco.
My dad quit
a few years after I left home.
I never did learn how to smoke.
But I still love the smell
of a good cigar.
The thick smoke, uncoiling;
the rich brown leaves
with a little green
in the wrapper.
I can only hope
that one day
I will have something to celebrate
worthy of a fine cigar.
Passing around
a well-stocked humidor
to comrades, and co-conspirators,
swapping backslaps
and manly laughter.
The closest I ever got were those cheap wine-dipped and plastic-tipped Cigarillos: in my defence, a mercifully short-lived form of adolescent rebellion.
The rest is largely true. With embellishment (poetic license?), of course. My father never really smoked that often; only on special occasions. And he never drove an Oldsmobile; but the brand has that nice archaic sound, and evokes a past era delightfully – well before the age of political correctness. Back when a prosperous executive bought a new car every two years. And fits nicely this whole archaic notion of “manliness” (Which, needless to say – except somehow I feel I need to say it – I’m using entirely ironically!) I don’t think anyone says “late model” anymore, either. And while newspapers still struggle gamely on, the evening editions have altogether disappeared. The New York uncle always did seem glamorous; and I’m sure those illegal Cubans tasted twice as good because of it. And the smell of stale cigar smoke is really quite revolting, while the smell of a freshly smoked cigar is intoxicating: better, I think, 2nd hand than it is for the actual smoker.
My mother eventually had her way, and my dad quit. My brother, too: also to the eternal relief of his own long-suffering wife!
I’ve been watching a TV series called Boardwalk Empire, set in Atlantic City at the time of prohibition. The men here drink too much, step out on their wives, wear gorgeous suits and great hats, and smoke big fat cigars with impeccable style. I don’t want to emulate them. But these archetypes do strike me as the essence of manliness, and the well-savoured cigar is an indispensable part.
…I just realized that when the paternal side of my family first came over from Europe in the 1800’s (from Amsterdam, actually) they were in the cigar business! In fact, the precursor to a fairly big chain called United Cigar (which may not still be around; but was when I was a kid.)
So perhaps there’s a cigar aficionado’s gene lurking somewhere inside me, and I was destined – sooner or later – to write a cigar poem!
Jan 23 2017
My father gave up cigars
before I was old enough to be schooled
in the manly art of lighting up.
The meticulous ritual of cigars,
comforting
in its sameness.
I imagine inhaling
the humidor’s rich wetness
of grass and loam
and saddle leather.
Eyeing the greenish-brown wrapper
for colour, sheen, vein.
Sniffing the tobacco along its length,
before fingering
for freshness, packing, heft.
And then, with its purpose-made implement, clipping the cap
with a guillotine’s exactitude.
Finally, circling its foot above the flame
before the long first draw.
Then the orange glow, the wreath of smoke
the bluish-grey cloud,
like a comforting shroud
hovering over the room.
The lengthening ash, like combustion’s grey ghost
hanging stiffly on.
I loved the smell of a good cigar.
But not the stale smoke afterward,
clinging to furniture
soiling his clothes
infusing his car.
The ashtray
with its soot, cinder
sodden butt.
And when, in the company of others
he snuck just one,
my mother’s stink-eye
spoiling the fun.
A fat Cuban, rolled by hand
in the sultry heat
of some sweet-smelling factory.
My uncle would come from the States, and sneak them back;
2 childhood rivals,
stiff drinks
in heavy tumblers
clinking with ice.
2 middle-aged brothers
in the den’s deepening murk,
fondling Havanas
cracking wise.
I watched, wishing I could grow up faster
and learn to smoke cigars,
the rite of passage
that makes a boy a man.
I still recall
dark leather
and over-stuffed chairs
and rich wood paneling.
The heady scent
of fine tobacco
sweetening the stagnant air.
I suspected I’d written this poem before. So when I finished, I entered “cigar” into the search engine and this came up (see below). I think I may have done it better 6 1/2 years ago, which is somewhat depressing: not just that I’m pointlessly repeating myself, but that I’m doing it less well instead of improving. I would have to say of both, though, that there are far too many words, and that neither reads as naturally and conversationally as I would like: my usual criticisms of pretty much everything I write! (On re-reading, A Fresh Fat Cuban (great title!) seems to stop instead of coming to a proper ending. May another line or two would help.)
A Fresh Fat Cuban
Nov 2 2010
There was the smell of cigars.
In the den, where he read the evening paper.
In the car
always a late model Oldsmobile.
Smudging the windows
with a dull blue haze,
crumpled in ashtrays, the blunt remains
of stogies
dark with spit.
Rolling around his lips
not paying much attention,
the way a couple kiss
after 40 years of marriage.
Stale cigar smoke
is like a beer parlour at closing time,
better in low light
urgently opening windows.
But when someone puffs
on a fresh fat Cuban
you can’t get enough,
inhaling the 2nd hand smoke
with greedy pleasure,
nose extended, nostrils flared.
Impatient to be grown up,
when you will be ushered in
to the secret society of men,
who can knot a bow-tie, eyes closed,
tell off-colour jokes,
light up a stogie
old-school.
My glamorous uncle
would come all the way up
from New York City,
stashing a box full of hand-rolled Cubans
in his matching bags.
The thrill of contraband
immensely improving
the long slow draw
of well-cured tobacco.
My dad quit
a few years after I left home.
I never did learn how to smoke.
But I still love the smell
of a good cigar.
The thick smoke, uncoiling;
the rich brown leaves
with a little green
in the wrapper.
I can only hope
that one day
I will have something to celebrate
worthy of a fine cigar.
Passing around
a well-stocked humidor
to comrades, and co-conspirators,
swapping backslaps
and manly laughter.
The closest I ever got were those cheap wine-dipped and plastic-tipped Cigarillos: in my defence, a mercifully short-lived form of adolescent rebellion.
The rest is largely true. With embellishment (poetic license?), of course. My father never really smoked that often; only on special occasions. And he never drove an Oldsmobile; but the brand has that nice archaic sound, and evokes a past era delightfully – well before the age of political correctness. Back when a prosperous executive bought a new car every two years. And fits nicely this whole archaic notion of “manliness” (Which, needless to say – except somehow I feel I need to say it – I’m using entirely ironically!) I don’t think anyone says “late model” anymore, either. And while newspapers still struggle gamely on, the evening editions have altogether disappeared. The New York uncle always did seem glamorous; and I’m sure those illegal Cubans tasted twice as good because of it. And the smell of stale cigar smoke is really quite revolting, while the smell of a freshly smoked cigar is intoxicating: better, I think, 2nd hand than it is for the actual smoker.
My mother eventually had her way, and my dad quit. My brother, too: also to the eternal relief of his own long-suffering wife!
I’ve been watching a TV series called Boardwalk Empire, set in Atlantic City at the time of prohibition. The men here drink too much, step out on their wives, wear gorgeous suits and great hats, and smoke big fat cigars with impeccable style. I don’t want to emulate them. But these archetypes do strike me as the essence of manliness, and the well-savoured cigar is an indispensable part.
…I just realized that when the paternal side of my family first came over from Europe in the 1800’s (from Amsterdam, actually) they were in the cigar business! In fact, the precursor to a fairly big chain called United Cigar (which may not still be around; but was when I was a kid.)
So perhaps there’s a cigar aficionado’s gene lurking somewhere inside me, and I was destined – sooner or later – to write a cigar poem!
Friday, January 20, 2017
The Wind in His Face
Jan 19 2017
What they missed.
Even the astronauts
who remained earthbound
in their hardened air-locked lab.
Roaming jagged lava-rock
in pneumatic ersatz suits,
behind fishbowl glass
reflecting blackly back
like Apollo astronauts.
Alone, on their blasted island habitat,
20 minutes after
the rest of planet earth.
Not the crash of surf.
Not the setting sun
in its own re-entry fire.
Not the smell of a ripe tomato
weighing down its branch,
picked warm
in the dog days of summer.
No,
it was the passing breeze, the feel of wind
they hungered for.
Something as simple
as the movement of air
you miss only when its gone.
Like when I turned away
as if the wind in my face
had blinded me.
Like when I seemed to cry
but said dust in my eye
had teared me up.
They drink recycled pee
breathe each other’s air,
share
their cramped simulacrum of space.
But what they long for
is touch.
The freedom of wind
tousling his hair, caressing his skin.
As light
as a fingertip tracing
his naked arm.
And strong enough
to hold him up
leaning hard against it.
It’s odd how poems come. I was out with the dogs, walking in the woods after dark, and for some reason thought about the recent National Geographic series Mars. Cleverly interweaving documentary with scripted drama, this was about the first manned exploration of our sister planet.
In particular, what came to mind was a bit about a biosphere-like Mars simulation high on the lava-rock of Hawaii. This long duration experiment was mostly to explore the human factors of isolation and communal living. The subjects were confined to this cramped sealed habitat. They could only leave in simulated space suits, walking outside like explorers on an alien planet.
I also recalled reading or hearing -- somewhere else, I think -- about what at least one of these experimental subjects missed most. Surprisingly, this was it: the freedom of feeling the wind in his face.
I think it was then that the poem started to write itself as I walked.
I’ve written before that I like to invoke the senses in my poetry; to make it more visceral than intellectual. And especially the more neglected senses, like touch and smell. Because we are creatures of touch, and what he misses beautifully demonstrates this basic human need. I think, with this in mind, that the abrupt shift into first person in the 4th stanza is telling. There is a suggestion of something else gone, but the narrative is left open-ended. For me, that stanza calls back to the first: the image of the man in the fishbowl helmet, invisible behind its reflecting glass. (When I wrote this, I had in mind those pictures of men on the moon: a big glass visor with a black reflection of an American flag, or of the space-suited comrade taking the picture, but with no inkling of the man behind it. This image seems like the apotheosis of isolation and unknowability.) Ultimately, in the final stanza, touch expands from skin-on-skin, to being held, to feeling the emotional support of intimacy.
Jan 19 2017
What they missed.
Even the astronauts
who remained earthbound
in their hardened air-locked lab.
Roaming jagged lava-rock
in pneumatic ersatz suits,
behind fishbowl glass
reflecting blackly back
like Apollo astronauts.
Alone, on their blasted island habitat,
20 minutes after
the rest of planet earth.
Not the crash of surf.
Not the setting sun
in its own re-entry fire.
Not the smell of a ripe tomato
weighing down its branch,
picked warm
in the dog days of summer.
No,
it was the passing breeze, the feel of wind
they hungered for.
Something as simple
as the movement of air
you miss only when its gone.
Like when I turned away
as if the wind in my face
had blinded me.
Like when I seemed to cry
but said dust in my eye
had teared me up.
They drink recycled pee
breathe each other’s air,
share
their cramped simulacrum of space.
But what they long for
is touch.
The freedom of wind
tousling his hair, caressing his skin.
As light
as a fingertip tracing
his naked arm.
And strong enough
to hold him up
leaning hard against it.
It’s odd how poems come. I was out with the dogs, walking in the woods after dark, and for some reason thought about the recent National Geographic series Mars. Cleverly interweaving documentary with scripted drama, this was about the first manned exploration of our sister planet.
In particular, what came to mind was a bit about a biosphere-like Mars simulation high on the lava-rock of Hawaii. This long duration experiment was mostly to explore the human factors of isolation and communal living. The subjects were confined to this cramped sealed habitat. They could only leave in simulated space suits, walking outside like explorers on an alien planet.
I also recalled reading or hearing -- somewhere else, I think -- about what at least one of these experimental subjects missed most. Surprisingly, this was it: the freedom of feeling the wind in his face.
I think it was then that the poem started to write itself as I walked.
I’ve written before that I like to invoke the senses in my poetry; to make it more visceral than intellectual. And especially the more neglected senses, like touch and smell. Because we are creatures of touch, and what he misses beautifully demonstrates this basic human need. I think, with this in mind, that the abrupt shift into first person in the 4th stanza is telling. There is a suggestion of something else gone, but the narrative is left open-ended. For me, that stanza calls back to the first: the image of the man in the fishbowl helmet, invisible behind its reflecting glass. (When I wrote this, I had in mind those pictures of men on the moon: a big glass visor with a black reflection of an American flag, or of the space-suited comrade taking the picture, but with no inkling of the man behind it. This image seems like the apotheosis of isolation and unknowability.) Ultimately, in the final stanza, touch expands from skin-on-skin, to being held, to feeling the emotional support of intimacy.
Tuesday, January 17, 2017
In Camera
Jan 15 2017
The sense of detachment
behind the camera
is one way to pass through the world.
I feel protected, there;
shrouded in my black drape
peering through my blinkered frame.
A tight shot, on fast film
a shallow depth of field;
like life, thin-sliced
glimpsed through a keyhole.
Glass plays with light,
breaking, and bending, and sending it back
so nothing is
as it seems.
Its constant speed,
even as time is stopped
and light caught
in endless shades of grey.
How clear
if there were nothing between us?
No clouded lens, flawed cornea
murky layer of tears?
If all of you entered
would your light strike me blind?
While so much hides
in plain sight
or wilful illusion.
And memory
weaves its fabulous tales;
conjuring the past
in the red glow
of its dark cloistered chamber.
How a picture appears
in its fixative bath,
the slow reveal
the moment captured.
And a photograph yellows
in back of sticky drawer,
which has, for years, held fast.
If the eyes
are a window into the soul
how long can I keep them closed,
before the darkness
is overwhelming?
The Latin in camera at first glance confuses. It seems to suggest openness, because a camera looks in; but, of course, actually means “in secret session”. Since the poem is about the slipperiness of reality, I thought the inherent confusion of this term made a good title. I like how the opening stanza then whipsaws the reader from secrecy to seeing.
We live in a visual world, and seeing is believing. Or is it? Because everything we know as true is merely a representation, reproduced in the hermetic darkness of the skull and mind. And depends on incomplete information, on attention and salience, and on the psychological tricks played by circumstance, mood, and predisposition.
Memory is not fixed. The brain is not a movie camera. Every time we recall something, the memory is remade: depending on the context, certain aspects are reinforced, embellished, or suppressed. This confabulation makes even the past unreliable.
The poem alternates between photography (non-digital) and the camera of the eye, between vision and perception. It touches on memory and our incomplete understanding of reality, and in so doing seems to be working through some failed relationship and inner struggle. Nothing is specified. I want the reader to read him/herself into it.
Jan 15 2017
The sense of detachment
behind the camera
is one way to pass through the world.
I feel protected, there;
shrouded in my black drape
peering through my blinkered frame.
A tight shot, on fast film
a shallow depth of field;
like life, thin-sliced
glimpsed through a keyhole.
Glass plays with light,
breaking, and bending, and sending it back
so nothing is
as it seems.
Its constant speed,
even as time is stopped
and light caught
in endless shades of grey.
How clear
if there were nothing between us?
No clouded lens, flawed cornea
murky layer of tears?
If all of you entered
would your light strike me blind?
While so much hides
in plain sight
or wilful illusion.
And memory
weaves its fabulous tales;
conjuring the past
in the red glow
of its dark cloistered chamber.
How a picture appears
in its fixative bath,
the slow reveal
the moment captured.
And a photograph yellows
in back of sticky drawer,
which has, for years, held fast.
If the eyes
are a window into the soul
how long can I keep them closed,
before the darkness
is overwhelming?
The Latin in camera at first glance confuses. It seems to suggest openness, because a camera looks in; but, of course, actually means “in secret session”. Since the poem is about the slipperiness of reality, I thought the inherent confusion of this term made a good title. I like how the opening stanza then whipsaws the reader from secrecy to seeing.
We live in a visual world, and seeing is believing. Or is it? Because everything we know as true is merely a representation, reproduced in the hermetic darkness of the skull and mind. And depends on incomplete information, on attention and salience, and on the psychological tricks played by circumstance, mood, and predisposition.
Memory is not fixed. The brain is not a movie camera. Every time we recall something, the memory is remade: depending on the context, certain aspects are reinforced, embellished, or suppressed. This confabulation makes even the past unreliable.
The poem alternates between photography (non-digital) and the camera of the eye, between vision and perception. It touches on memory and our incomplete understanding of reality, and in so doing seems to be working through some failed relationship and inner struggle. Nothing is specified. I want the reader to read him/herself into it.
Friday, January 13, 2017
10 Days In ...
Jan 11 2017
10 days into the new year.
Far enough
for lower case.
Over a week
since the festive Eve
and its morning-after namesake
New Year’s Day.
Awakening late
to softening balloons, boozy bilious blear,
lipstick-rimmed flutes
whose toast has lost their fizz.
As dull a day
as tinseled trees
shedding needles by the curb.
As if a midnight kiss, a quick embrace
and then it’s all downhill
for the next few hundred days.
Because how long
until it’s awkward shaking hands
with a Happy New Year?
Until resolutions fade, Christmas bills appear?
But then it dawns
under clear blue skies
on a world concealed in white,
softened
by the democracy of snow.
A world
whose beauty recurs, year after year
in the cycling of seasons
as old as the earth.
A world
reassuring in its sameness,
where arbitrary dates
pass majestically unnoticed.
Because nature is indifferent
to the conceit of human progress,
our illusion of a future
just out of reach.
An occasional day
in lower case
in winter’s vast middle.
I don’t see this poem so much as a celebration of winter as I do a perspective on nature. This is a trope I return to so frequently it’s becomes tiresome, and strikes me as intellectually lazy. Which may be one of the reasons I was lukewarm about this piece. Anyway, as I read it, the poem is mostly about humility: about man’s conceit that he occupies the centre of the universe, contrasted with our true insignificance; about nature’s imperious (in the poem I use “majestic” ;-)) indifference. Which perfectly suits my general philosophy of nihilism and atheism: that we inhabit a cold indifferent universe; that our presence here is accident and epiphenomenon; and that we are meaningless marginal actors who will not be missed. Here, the human conceit is the arbitrariness of the calendar, and this is never more clear than the new year: a capitalized day in the vast middle of winter.
That’s my favourite line. I like the way the geographic connotation of “vast middle” calls back to the landscape of unbroken snow. I like that the best line is the last. I like that I was able to resist my usual tendency to tie up the ending with a cutesy little rhyming couplet -- a stylistic tic I often can’t resist. (I like “democracy of snow” as well. But I’m loathe to highlight is, since I plagiarized this from myself. I know I’ve used it once before; maybe twice. Technically, of course, you can’t plagiarize yourself! But you can go to the well too often, becoming lazy and predictable and uncreative.)
The “future” is an invention that came very late in recorded human history. It’s the hallmark of this notion of “modernity”. Because life, from birth to death, hardly changed for our subsistence ancestors; there was no expectation of progress or newness. They didn’t view history as an upward sloping curve; they viewed history as unchanging and cyclic, circling back on itself just as the cycle of life and the cycle of seasons. So they had no trouble imagining themselves co-existing with their dead ancestors. They didn’t die afraid of “missing out”, nor end life feeling useless. They lived in the moment so much better than us. They didn’t think old people were dispensable and hopelessly square, unfashionable, and behind the times; rather, old people were repositories of essential knowledge and suitably revered.
This is what I was getting at when I wrote “illusions of a future” and “conceit of human progress”. It’s all hubris. Nature is eternal, and goes on with this almost contemptuous indifference toward our pompous self-importance. Which is why I like stepping out of the breathless breakneck “now” and slowing down.
Everything old is new again. There is nothing new under the sun. The important things in life are eternal. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Tired cliches; but with a core of truth. A lot of what preoccupies us -- in news, social media, technology -- is all just noise.
I’m pleased with “occasional day”, because the meaning cuts both ways. Occasional, in everyday usage, has a quality of randomness. But it also contains “occasion”, which is something special and singular. In poetry, there is something called “Occasional Poetry”, which may sound like it’s just something you do once in awhile when the mood strikes, but actually means poetry that’s written to mark a formal public occasion: the crowning of a king, the signing of an armistice. It’s what a poet laureate is supposed to do. So the word has this upper case and lower case thing going on simultaneously. And here, in the poem, it seems to say that even an undifferentiated random day is as beautiful as the designated celebration.
This is a good example of every word in poetry carrying so much more weight than prose! I love how you can invest so much power in a single word. Sitting down to write is like taking your place at this great buffet of language that English provides, and having the pure joy of picking over this cornucopia of choice for whatever it is that delights you, that perfectly captures your thought and feeling. When you struggle and then nail it, when you can compress something complex or ineffable into a single word or phrase, and then when the sound and cadence fit, it feels almost orgasmic! ...OK, that’s obviously a bit of an exaggeration. Still, it’s addictive. You want that same feeling again. Another hit.
Jan 11 2017
10 days into the new year.
Far enough
for lower case.
Over a week
since the festive Eve
and its morning-after namesake
New Year’s Day.
Awakening late
to softening balloons, boozy bilious blear,
lipstick-rimmed flutes
whose toast has lost their fizz.
As dull a day
as tinseled trees
shedding needles by the curb.
As if a midnight kiss, a quick embrace
and then it’s all downhill
for the next few hundred days.
Because how long
until it’s awkward shaking hands
with a Happy New Year?
Until resolutions fade, Christmas bills appear?
But then it dawns
under clear blue skies
on a world concealed in white,
softened
by the democracy of snow.
A world
whose beauty recurs, year after year
in the cycling of seasons
as old as the earth.
A world
reassuring in its sameness,
where arbitrary dates
pass majestically unnoticed.
Because nature is indifferent
to the conceit of human progress,
our illusion of a future
just out of reach.
An occasional day
in lower case
in winter’s vast middle.
I don’t see this poem so much as a celebration of winter as I do a perspective on nature. This is a trope I return to so frequently it’s becomes tiresome, and strikes me as intellectually lazy. Which may be one of the reasons I was lukewarm about this piece. Anyway, as I read it, the poem is mostly about humility: about man’s conceit that he occupies the centre of the universe, contrasted with our true insignificance; about nature’s imperious (in the poem I use “majestic” ;-)) indifference. Which perfectly suits my general philosophy of nihilism and atheism: that we inhabit a cold indifferent universe; that our presence here is accident and epiphenomenon; and that we are meaningless marginal actors who will not be missed. Here, the human conceit is the arbitrariness of the calendar, and this is never more clear than the new year: a capitalized day in the vast middle of winter.
That’s my favourite line. I like the way the geographic connotation of “vast middle” calls back to the landscape of unbroken snow. I like that the best line is the last. I like that I was able to resist my usual tendency to tie up the ending with a cutesy little rhyming couplet -- a stylistic tic I often can’t resist. (I like “democracy of snow” as well. But I’m loathe to highlight is, since I plagiarized this from myself. I know I’ve used it once before; maybe twice. Technically, of course, you can’t plagiarize yourself! But you can go to the well too often, becoming lazy and predictable and uncreative.)
The “future” is an invention that came very late in recorded human history. It’s the hallmark of this notion of “modernity”. Because life, from birth to death, hardly changed for our subsistence ancestors; there was no expectation of progress or newness. They didn’t view history as an upward sloping curve; they viewed history as unchanging and cyclic, circling back on itself just as the cycle of life and the cycle of seasons. So they had no trouble imagining themselves co-existing with their dead ancestors. They didn’t die afraid of “missing out”, nor end life feeling useless. They lived in the moment so much better than us. They didn’t think old people were dispensable and hopelessly square, unfashionable, and behind the times; rather, old people were repositories of essential knowledge and suitably revered.
This is what I was getting at when I wrote “illusions of a future” and “conceit of human progress”. It’s all hubris. Nature is eternal, and goes on with this almost contemptuous indifference toward our pompous self-importance. Which is why I like stepping out of the breathless breakneck “now” and slowing down.
Everything old is new again. There is nothing new under the sun. The important things in life are eternal. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Tired cliches; but with a core of truth. A lot of what preoccupies us -- in news, social media, technology -- is all just noise.
I’m pleased with “occasional day”, because the meaning cuts both ways. Occasional, in everyday usage, has a quality of randomness. But it also contains “occasion”, which is something special and singular. In poetry, there is something called “Occasional Poetry”, which may sound like it’s just something you do once in awhile when the mood strikes, but actually means poetry that’s written to mark a formal public occasion: the crowning of a king, the signing of an armistice. It’s what a poet laureate is supposed to do. So the word has this upper case and lower case thing going on simultaneously. And here, in the poem, it seems to say that even an undifferentiated random day is as beautiful as the designated celebration.
This is a good example of every word in poetry carrying so much more weight than prose! I love how you can invest so much power in a single word. Sitting down to write is like taking your place at this great buffet of language that English provides, and having the pure joy of picking over this cornucopia of choice for whatever it is that delights you, that perfectly captures your thought and feeling. When you struggle and then nail it, when you can compress something complex or ineffable into a single word or phrase, and then when the sound and cadence fit, it feels almost orgasmic! ...OK, that’s obviously a bit of an exaggeration. Still, it’s addictive. You want that same feeling again. Another hit.
Immaculate Egg
Jan 2 2017
I try to balance an egg, end-on.
I test its strength,
compressing its length
as far as I dare.
My fingertips gently rub.
The sure grip
of its fine matte surface,
densely cool
curve-on-curve.
I admire its elegant shell.
A marvel
of minimalist design,
engineered by chance
the mathematics of survival.
In soft absorbent white
chalk, ivory, pearl.
And the heft, just right;
lightly tossed and eyed
like an expert guessing weight.
The complete food
in its neat practical package.
Which looks impervious, yet breathes.
But how I wish its shell
were water-proof, air-tight;
an immaculate egg,
nestled snugly
in its hermetic dew-drop home.
As if purity existed.
As if all eggs were virginal
and perfect always white.
Dropped
in a roiling boil
in a burst of scalding steam.
Then left to cool
and deftly thumped, crunched, thumbed.
Where, beneath its crackled shell
a gauzy slip of skin
resists, before it gives;
peeled, stripped, shucked.
A glistening egg, still warm
humdrumly uncovered.
Its congealed white, hardened yolk
touch of sulphur smell.
I’ve talked about microcosm and close observation: how I love to write about very small things, about the diurnal and mundane and neglected. And also how I make a conscious effort to involve all the senses (especially smell, which I think gets short shrift), because I think poetry is more about sensation and emotion than it is about abstract thought and ideas. (I much prefer the essay for that.)
In meditation, one exercise involves eating a raisin. Not absent-mindedly popping in a handful, but taking all the time in the world and focusing every sense on a single raisin, experiencing its look and smell, its taste and texture. As I understand it, this is all about being present, mindful, in the moment; and in so doing, out of yourself. I quite dislike raisins and don’t meditate. But still, the concept greatly appeals! This poem is in that spirit.
I’m not sure what led to it. All I know is I pictured an egg (a white one, even though my aesthetic preference is brown) and thought how perfect it was: the perfect food, the perfect white, the perfect engineering for strength and minimalism. So I played with it in my head, rolling it between my fingers, squeezing it end to end, tossing it lightly. I wanted to make the reader slow down, experience it fully and in all the senses. Except for the self-indulgent digression on this quixotic idea of purity, the poem goes nowhere and means nothing. Yes, part way through, it seems headed toward some kind of profundity; but then circles back and ends in a bit of silliness.Which, for me, is exactly right!
I’m interested in this idea of purity, since it’s the rot at the core of much of both ideology and religion. And certainly racism, where throughout recent human history it’s gone hand in hand with whiteness. As unlikely as it is that white supremacists/the alt-right/neo-Nazis and ISIS would have anything in common, this is it: the notion of purity. ...And I guess “as if all eggs are virginal white” is the answer to that age-old question: yes, the egg came first!
Jan 2 2017
I try to balance an egg, end-on.
I test its strength,
compressing its length
as far as I dare.
My fingertips gently rub.
The sure grip
of its fine matte surface,
densely cool
curve-on-curve.
I admire its elegant shell.
A marvel
of minimalist design,
engineered by chance
the mathematics of survival.
In soft absorbent white
chalk, ivory, pearl.
And the heft, just right;
lightly tossed and eyed
like an expert guessing weight.
The complete food
in its neat practical package.
Which looks impervious, yet breathes.
But how I wish its shell
were water-proof, air-tight;
an immaculate egg,
nestled snugly
in its hermetic dew-drop home.
As if purity existed.
As if all eggs were virginal
and perfect always white.
Dropped
in a roiling boil
in a burst of scalding steam.
Then left to cool
and deftly thumped, crunched, thumbed.
Where, beneath its crackled shell
a gauzy slip of skin
resists, before it gives;
peeled, stripped, shucked.
A glistening egg, still warm
humdrumly uncovered.
Its congealed white, hardened yolk
touch of sulphur smell.
I’ve talked about microcosm and close observation: how I love to write about very small things, about the diurnal and mundane and neglected. And also how I make a conscious effort to involve all the senses (especially smell, which I think gets short shrift), because I think poetry is more about sensation and emotion than it is about abstract thought and ideas. (I much prefer the essay for that.)
In meditation, one exercise involves eating a raisin. Not absent-mindedly popping in a handful, but taking all the time in the world and focusing every sense on a single raisin, experiencing its look and smell, its taste and texture. As I understand it, this is all about being present, mindful, in the moment; and in so doing, out of yourself. I quite dislike raisins and don’t meditate. But still, the concept greatly appeals! This poem is in that spirit.
I’m not sure what led to it. All I know is I pictured an egg (a white one, even though my aesthetic preference is brown) and thought how perfect it was: the perfect food, the perfect white, the perfect engineering for strength and minimalism. So I played with it in my head, rolling it between my fingers, squeezing it end to end, tossing it lightly. I wanted to make the reader slow down, experience it fully and in all the senses. Except for the self-indulgent digression on this quixotic idea of purity, the poem goes nowhere and means nothing. Yes, part way through, it seems headed toward some kind of profundity; but then circles back and ends in a bit of silliness.Which, for me, is exactly right!
I’m interested in this idea of purity, since it’s the rot at the core of much of both ideology and religion. And certainly racism, where throughout recent human history it’s gone hand in hand with whiteness. As unlikely as it is that white supremacists/the alt-right/neo-Nazis and ISIS would have anything in common, this is it: the notion of purity. ...And I guess “as if all eggs are virginal white” is the answer to that age-old question: yes, the egg came first!
Sunday, January 1, 2017
To Have and to Hold
Jan 1 2016
Dark matter
holds the universe in place.
How odd that physicists
who measure fractions with such exactitude
would so blithely wave their hands,
conjuring matter
to balance the equation.
As if the universe would fly apart
if they hadn’t thought of it,
thinning out to absolute zero
utterly black.
Like the dark ages, dark arts, dark continent
we gloss over ignorance
by simply naming it,
seize control
of the feared unknown
in a cosmic bluff.
So I wonder
about the dark matter in relationships.
I imagine a kind of glue
that hardens with age.
But can also crumble,
the way all matter deteriorates.
How to explain the couple
who baffle their friends;
“what could they possibly see in each other?”
everyone says.
And how the perfect match stunned us all
by breaking up.
Perhaps a ballerina, or a fireman.
But you never thought you’d grow up to be
all alone.
Or that they could be together
only so long,
because his time eventually comes
and she still ends up
dying by herself.
The dark energy
that drives them apart
when even love is strong.
Leaving a widow
detached from her anchorage
and aimlessly adrift.
No longer had.
No longer held.
I may have written a poem about dark matter before. I’m not sure. But I read the expression again today, and thought it rich with metaphorical possibility I couldn’t resist playing with. As well, I like the ominous connotation of “dark”: its unkowability, its sinister undertone.
And since, in cosmology, dark matter is balanced by dark energy, there is even more with which to play.
From the start, I fully intended to somehow turn this toward relationship; but -- as usual -- had no idea what direction or end this would take. I hope it works.
Jan 1 2016
Dark matter
holds the universe in place.
How odd that physicists
who measure fractions with such exactitude
would so blithely wave their hands,
conjuring matter
to balance the equation.
As if the universe would fly apart
if they hadn’t thought of it,
thinning out to absolute zero
utterly black.
Like the dark ages, dark arts, dark continent
we gloss over ignorance
by simply naming it,
seize control
of the feared unknown
in a cosmic bluff.
So I wonder
about the dark matter in relationships.
I imagine a kind of glue
that hardens with age.
But can also crumble,
the way all matter deteriorates.
How to explain the couple
who baffle their friends;
“what could they possibly see in each other?”
everyone says.
And how the perfect match stunned us all
by breaking up.
Perhaps a ballerina, or a fireman.
But you never thought you’d grow up to be
all alone.
Or that they could be together
only so long,
because his time eventually comes
and she still ends up
dying by herself.
The dark energy
that drives them apart
when even love is strong.
Leaving a widow
detached from her anchorage
and aimlessly adrift.
No longer had.
No longer held.
I may have written a poem about dark matter before. I’m not sure. But I read the expression again today, and thought it rich with metaphorical possibility I couldn’t resist playing with. As well, I like the ominous connotation of “dark”: its unkowability, its sinister undertone.
And since, in cosmology, dark matter is balanced by dark energy, there is even more with which to play.
From the start, I fully intended to somehow turn this toward relationship; but -- as usual -- had no idea what direction or end this would take. I hope it works.
Departed
Dec 29 2016
That
started out plump, and red
and
mostly head.
Then
grew sturdy, and dense
on
coltish legs
like
watching asparagus grow.
Then
blossomed,
urgent
and awkward
and
fully sexed.
The
shoulders and chest
of
her David made flesh, and blood.
The
luxuriant hair
that
made callow men long
to
touch.
Until
the prime of life,
when
it was supple, and strong
and
immortal as gods carousing.
The
petty flaws
you
only saw
in
the foolishness of youth.
With
the improbable hope
of
growing old
with
acquiescent grace.
But
inexorably
grew
wrinkled, shrunken, stooped;
muscles
wasted
joints
rusting out.
Then
bed-ridden
in
a stiffly fetal curl.
All
skin and bone
and
gasping breath,
sweet
with
death’s sickly scent.
Until
the body finally fails,
and
all there is left
is
human remains.
A
dead body
eyes
glazed and skin waxy
seems
unnaturally still.
It
looks deflated;
not
just the air gone out of it, but actually smaller,
as
if a few ounces of weight
had
departed.
Still
warm, but gone.
An
empty stare, a cooling carcass.
The
dearly departed,
consumed
in soil
reduced
to dust and ash.
Molecules,
dispersed
in water and air
to
the ends of earth
and
back.
Like poems about weather, I find it hard to resist poems about death. If I let myself, all of my work would be horribly morbid. But once in awhile, I indulge. This is one of those times.
I’ve never understood the sentimentality over human remains: the closure people seek in recovering a dead body, no matter what the cost or risk; the denial of death that this simulacrum of life enables. Because we talk in euphemisms about dead bodies: human remains and mortal coils and the dearly departed. While the nihilist in me sees death as final: there is no afterlife; dying is an act of annihilation. And similarly, my inner nihilist sees the dead body not as sacred but as after-thought: cooling meat, a decomposing carcass. So I don’t care what neglect or indignity happens to my body after I die. (Although knowing, in life, that my organs will be harvested and put to good use is immensely consoling.)
Anyway, I came across the common expression “unburied human remains” (I guess most common in crime novels and pulp fiction!), and this dichotomy struck me. There is the reverence with which the expression is intoned. And then there is my literal take on the word “remains”. This is, not just what’s left behind, but the idea of refuse to be disposed of: as in the remains of a meal on a dirty plate, the last little bit that needs tidying up. And so the idea emerged of a poem that followed the journey of a human body from birth to death. (In view of its origins, the title Human Remains would have made the most sense. But I didn’t want to tip my hand, since in the beginning it’s not clear where the poem is headed. Departed, because it’s less clear, works better. And that word also reinforces the question implied by the end of the poem: this hypothetical idea of a soul, departing.)
I leave it to the reader to decide of something actually “departs”. Theologians once weighed dead bodies in order to prove the existence of the departing soul. (If they can confidently proclaim how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, then I what’s to stop them from telling how much a God-fearing soul weighs?!!) And the unnatural stillness of a dead body does strike one that way: as if some animating essence has left it. Except I think it seems to take on more weight, not less. (Perhaps because, in a very real sense, the dead weight of a corpse actually is so much harder to lift than it was alive. Although the reason is more bio-mechanical than metaphysical: a living person stiffens and shifts to assist, even if the adjustment is unconscious; while a dead body sags and tips, and so is a lot harder to manage.)
The original ending was something like “dispersed/ to earth, and air, and water.” I’m glad I expanded on it. Because I like this idea of the body reduced down to its elements -- whether by burial or cremation -- and through serial dilution eventually spread around the planet. There is a kind of humility as well as a commonality in this: that we are all mere ashes-to-ashes and dust-to-dust. And there is also a kind of consolation: that life regenerates; and that -- even though consciousness ends and ego is rendered meaningless -- we are part of this continuum.
To conclude, a few technical notes.
I’m not a gardener, but I’ve heard that asparagus grows so fast you can actually see the spears shooting up. I’ve never had a baby, but my new puppy has followed the same mammalian scheme: first all head ...then all stomach ...then all legs. For the first 3 months, I would wake up beside her every morning and could tell that overnight she had visibly grown!
The sickly sweet scent is an allusion to fetor hepaticus. In liver failure, the breath goes from musty/sweet to rotten eggs. And in general, there is something indefinably unpleasant about the smell that hovers over a terminally ill body, bed-bound and confined to its small airless space. I heard a story about a cat who resided in a nursing home. She perched infallibly -- either a purring grim reaper, or an angel of comfort -- on the lap of each resident shortly before death. Presumably, it was an animal’s sense of smell that let her know.
I’d prefer to have said “ ...the sickly scent of death” instead of “ ...death’s sickly scent”: that is, using the privileged place at the end of a line (and in this case, stanza) for the word that has the most impact. Line breaks are one of the major differences -- if not the only one -- between prose and poetry. In prose, you can’t end a line wherever you want. In poetry, this choice is key. Because the final word lingers in the air and resonates for a few beats, its sound hovering in the still pause. But here, the small addition of “the” and “of” cluttered the line with too many words, and I had to shuffle things around.
I wasn’t sure whether to use “is” or “are” with “human remains”. I think either would be correct: the term can be either plural, or a collective singular. In the end, “is” sounded better.
The idea of this diffusion of molecules came to me from something I heard years ago. If I remember correctly, someone had calculated that every breath we take contains at least a molecule that Napoleon breathed out. So nothing is destroyed. Everything is reduced to its elements and infinitely diluted, just as the iron-clad law of entropy dictates.
Colorado Low
Dec 25 2016
Like a summer squall, on cat’s paws
flitting over the lake
the winter storm begins.
With a light touch,
scattered snow, swirling
a few desultory gusts.
The tense calm
before the blizzard breaks;
as a tiger
crouching for hours
stalks her prey.
They’re calling for freezing rain, high winds, a big dump.
And we will be snow-stayed, curled-up inside
fat, and contented;
Siamese, Tonkinese, purring Sphynx,
Burmese, Balinese, Bengal,
Russian Blue, Cornish Rex
Ragdoll.
In another season
it would be thunder, lightning, flash flood.
Coddled felines, who detest water
stranded here, at the bottom
of the atmospheric ocean,
rudely awakened
to the conceit of safety
the illusion of control.
While the tiger, in all her lithe concentrated power
would be appalled;
our forbear
who swam expertly
shook-off the cold.
Snow, whiting-out the world
and barring the door
as it piles up-and-up
above the window sills.
Just so long as the roof holds, the hearth glows
on soft pampered fur.
This is my first “cat” poem. Lots and lots of dogs; but no cats.
Although it started out as another of my dreaded “weather poems”. Which I desperately did not want to write, but which nevertheless had me doodling around with the first couple of lines -- just to see where it went. And so it was “cat’s paws” that set me off, inviting the cat metaphors (in this poem, we are the soft pampered tabbies, the tiger our rugged ancestors), the delectable sound of the various breeds. Lists like that, with their detail and specificity, should be the death of poetry. But I’m a sucker for them: the juxtaposition of sound and the mouth-feel of the words; the novel and evocative language; the shameless piling on.
This also puts me in mind of a favourite Margaret Atwood poem. Of course, she does it so much better. Here it is, by way of comparison:
February
Winter. Time to eat fat
and watch hockey. In the pewter mornings, the cat,
a black fur sausage with yellow
Houdini eyes, jumps up on the bed and tries
to get onto my head. It’s his
way of telling whether or not I’m dead.
If I’m not, he wants to be scratched; if I am
He’ll think of something. He settles
on my chest, breathing his breath
of burped-up meat and musty sofas,
purring like a washboard. Some other tomcat,
not yet a capon, has been spraying our front door,
declaring war. It’s all about sex and territory,
which are what will finish us off
in the long run. Some cat owners around here
should snip a few testicles. If we wise
hominids were sensible, we’d do that too,
or eat our young, like sharks.
But it’s love that does us in. Over and over
Again, He shoots, he scores! and famine
crouches in the bedsheets, ambushing the pulsing
eiderdown, and the windchill factor hits
thirty below, and the pollution pours
out of our chimneys to keep us warm.
February, month of despair,
with a skewered heart in the centre.
I think dire thoughts, and lust for French fries
with a splash of vinegar.
Cat, enough of your greedy whining
and your small pink bumhole.
Off my face! You’re the life principle,
more or less, so get going
on a little optimism around here.
Get rid of death. Celebrate increase. Make it be spring.
Dec 25 2016
Like a summer squall, on cat’s paws
flitting over the lake
the winter storm begins.
With a light touch,
scattered snow, swirling
a few desultory gusts.
The tense calm
before the blizzard breaks;
as a tiger
crouching for hours
stalks her prey.
They’re calling for freezing rain, high winds, a big dump.
And we will be snow-stayed, curled-up inside
fat, and contented;
Siamese, Tonkinese, purring Sphynx,
Burmese, Balinese, Bengal,
Russian Blue, Cornish Rex
Ragdoll.
In another season
it would be thunder, lightning, flash flood.
Coddled felines, who detest water
stranded here, at the bottom
of the atmospheric ocean,
rudely awakened
to the conceit of safety
the illusion of control.
While the tiger, in all her lithe concentrated power
would be appalled;
our forbear
who swam expertly
shook-off the cold.
Snow, whiting-out the world
and barring the door
as it piles up-and-up
above the window sills.
Just so long as the roof holds, the hearth glows
on soft pampered fur.
This is my first “cat” poem. Lots and lots of dogs; but no cats.
Although it started out as another of my dreaded “weather poems”. Which I desperately did not want to write, but which nevertheless had me doodling around with the first couple of lines -- just to see where it went. And so it was “cat’s paws” that set me off, inviting the cat metaphors (in this poem, we are the soft pampered tabbies, the tiger our rugged ancestors), the delectable sound of the various breeds. Lists like that, with their detail and specificity, should be the death of poetry. But I’m a sucker for them: the juxtaposition of sound and the mouth-feel of the words; the novel and evocative language; the shameless piling on.
This also puts me in mind of a favourite Margaret Atwood poem. Of course, she does it so much better. Here it is, by way of comparison:
February
Winter. Time to eat fat
and watch hockey. In the pewter mornings, the cat,
a black fur sausage with yellow
Houdini eyes, jumps up on the bed and tries
to get onto my head. It’s his
way of telling whether or not I’m dead.
If I’m not, he wants to be scratched; if I am
He’ll think of something. He settles
on my chest, breathing his breath
of burped-up meat and musty sofas,
purring like a washboard. Some other tomcat,
not yet a capon, has been spraying our front door,
declaring war. It’s all about sex and territory,
which are what will finish us off
in the long run. Some cat owners around here
should snip a few testicles. If we wise
hominids were sensible, we’d do that too,
or eat our young, like sharks.
But it’s love that does us in. Over and over
Again, He shoots, he scores! and famine
crouches in the bedsheets, ambushing the pulsing
eiderdown, and the windchill factor hits
thirty below, and the pollution pours
out of our chimneys to keep us warm.
February, month of despair,
with a skewered heart in the centre.
I think dire thoughts, and lust for French fries
with a splash of vinegar.
Cat, enough of your greedy whining
and your small pink bumhole.
Off my face! You’re the life principle,
more or less, so get going
on a little optimism around here.
Get rid of death. Celebrate increase. Make it be spring.
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