Winter

Nov 25 2018

On the frozen ground

in the dead of night

when the wind has exhausted itself,

the winter stillness

feels absolute.

Where even light has slowed

in the glacial cold,

arriving

with the diamond-cut clarity

you only see this time of year.

And where sound seems to last

for that extra beat,

hovering

on the densely cooled air

like perishables

preserved on ice.

Time is relative.

So while the heat of summer

makes the heartbeat quicken

and speeds our thinning blood,

we stay young, in winter;

ruddy-cheeked, and flushed

coming in from the cold.

Where the living is easy,

and the weather report

is always sunny and warm,

I suspect people age

as much from the boredom

as being simmered, slowly.

While here, we're kept on our toes.

Because with seasons to come

there's always something to look forward to.

And because where hypothermia beckons

just a few feet past our doors

the proximity of death

gives life its edge.

Separated only

by a key dropped in the snow

in the freezing dark,

a fall, all alone

in the fastness of ice.

As I sit inside

in a pool of yellow light

putting words on paper,

hunched

over this cluttered table

oblivious to time.

In the still of winter

in the fortress of night.

The Naming of Trees

Nov 17 2018

He knew the names of trees.

All of them, with authority.

Striding through the shade

of the softly rustling canopy

he spoke with great affection,

as if dropping in on old friends

who were thick-skinned

and taciturn

and in no rush.

Good listeners,

who were content to remain

where life had taken them.

While to me, tagging along

all I could see were generic trees,

groaning in the wind

towering over us.

The conceit of naming,

as if they serve at our pleasure

and we could truly know them.

Our neat taxonomies,

reassuring us

with the illusion of order.

Because there are no names

in the language of trees,

broadcast in pheromones

through freshly charged air,

and whispered through the web of roots

that signal, touch, and share.

Hiding in plain sight,

as deep beneath the soil

as weathered trunks reach up.

If knowledge is power

then ignorance is bliss,

strolling here

among these gentle giants

as they ponderously sway in the wind.

In the earthiness, the scent

the cool green wetness

of this old growth copse,

where I know nothing

and feel uncommonly humbled.

Our busy lives, flickering past

while they quietly stand.

Trees

who speak in alien tongues,

but welcome loud strangers

indulge our brash presumption.

And in their steady measured way,

breathing in as I breathe out

sharing every breath.

Blood Red

Nov 9 2018

Blood red

on freshly fallen snow.

Dense round drops,

so brilliant

in their essential redness.

That flatten and spread

as snow, like blotting paper

softens their edges.

Before they freeze in place, just as bright;

still alive

perhaps immortal.

In the thin dry air

no fading, browning, rust.

No pinching scab, no deepening bruise

the purple-blue of plum.

No dregs of wine

hardened to the glass.

I pinch my nose

and tip it sharply up,

eyes narrowed

at winter sun

struggling through the clouds.

Inured to the seasonal palette

of greys and beige and browns,

the tired greens

of dormant trees

bending to their load.

But against the immaculate whiteness

of this sweep of virgin snow

such a primal red

arrests the eye.

Like a freshly opened wound, so vital and bright,

it could signal distant planets

that earth is alive.

That we suffer and bleed

and bear our scars.

That the next fitful gust

will bury us under

its wind-whipped shroud.

That we find beauty, somehow

despite ourselves.

I was reading an article about optical illusions (http://nautil.us/blog/12-mind_bending-perceptual-illusions). My easy chairs looks out a picture window, and I glanced up to see an early winter snow, falling at dusk. Having been primed to think about perception, my mind turned to the absence of colour this time of year.

I was tempted to think about perception philosophically; about its slipperiness, and the illusion of reality.

I was tempted to think about perception politically; in that we all see the same facts somehow differently, read selectively, and live in a time where the phrase “alternative facts” is taken seriously by some people.

But poetry is a poor vehicle as much for philosophy as it is for politics. So what took over, instead, was vision itself, distilled down to basic sensation, unmediated and unprocessed: unambiguous colour, uninfluenced by the inscrutable workings of either the visual cortex, or the subconscious mind. (Although if you check out the link, “unmediated and unprocessed” is actually not possible, since our perception of colour is influenced by the background colour and the company it keeps. So colour is not absolute; it changes with context.)

And for some reason I immediately imagined a field of virgin snow, with drops of bright red blood, freshly bled, dripping down on its smooth white surface – the brilliance, the purity, the focus. There was something vital, primary, and quintessential about that red: both in its colour and its life, preserved in the freezing cold.

So I sat down at my desk, and let this poem write itself.