Pseudacris Crucifer

May 24 2019

The peepers

must have some long taxonomic name

that would make me sound learned

but would convey nothing of the sound

that inaugurates spring

as reliably

as trails turning to mud

the smell of earth.

The mating urge of males

that even pools of ice-cold water

cannot suppress.

Who somehow survived winter,

and in their tiny frog minds

grasp the need to procreate,

the imperative

that animates nature

with its drive

desire

haste.

Despite the precarious weather

that can see-saw overnight

from freeze to thaw and back.

Such a loud piercing call

from so small a creature.

Who fall silent

as the dogs and I approach

resume as we pass,

uncannily alert

in their hidden amphibious world.

I have never seen a peeper

know no one who has.

But their chorus fills the nights

and seems to shout

longing

toughness

rebirth.

The promise of spring,

when a young man feels his blood

and wants to make some noise

and goes searching for love;

or at least something 
that feels close enough.

In a few weeks, we will hear just the single peep

of the the pond's last inhabitant,

who couldn't hit the high notes

or sang too soft

or was awkward with the girls.

A lonely bachelor frog,

singing out another spring

like every spring before.

Somewhere Not Here

May 22 2019

It is strawberry season

somewhere not here,

because it is always spring

somewhere in the world.

So the supermarket shelves

are spilling over

with luscious red fruit,

tiers of clear plastic clamshells

like some neat cornucopia

of only one sort.

Looking forbidden

libidinous

ripe.

And filling the aisles

with an intoxicating smell

that draws us in like fruit flies,

that cloying scent

with its elusive notes

of rain-rinsed freshness.

The boom and bust of fruit;

a glut of cheap strawberries

that look like they're on steroids,

as red as sex

and ornamented

with crowns of bright green leaves.

Primary colours

that shock the eye.

They grow wild, here

in clement patches

in sheltered scrub

in our short intense summer,

that one fecund month

of long hot days.

A place we keep to ourselves;

like a precious secret

among intimate friends.

A modest fruit

that rarely fully ripens

before forest creatures strip them clean.

While supermarket fruit

is almost obscene

in its excess;

so succulent, voluptuous

luridly red,

turgid

with sweet and sticky juice.

And the cardboard taste

that disappoints

beneath the gloss.

As will most of our desires.

The seductive promise

of the things we chased

we learn too late

was false.

I sat down to write a poem about religion, and the human impulse for surrender, security, belonging: the comfort of fatalism, the delusion of certainty, the longing for community that religion can fill. How we seek this out. And how even I, with my skepticism, Vulcan rationality, and preference for solitude am also susceptible. But I wasn't really comfortable with this: too philosophical to do justice in poetry, and probably too confessional for my comfort if I was to write the way I wanted, which is to be both personal and particular.

So inspiration came instead from a quick glance at the small plate beside me, as I sat with pen in hand, nibbling on strawberries: an unseasonably cold wet day, toward the end of May, when the last sheltered remnant of snow still persisted in the shade of a row of cedars. How odd, then, to find the supermarket shelves suddenly overflowing with this delicate fruit, and at such unreasonably low prices. It struck me how out of season this seemed. And then how immaterial seasonality has become, in a globalized society of industrial agriculture.

So I wrote this poem instead. Poems always work better, it seems, the smaller they are. How much better to focus in a single piece of fruit than on the great existential and metaphysical conundrums that can never really be solved, and hurt your head to think about.

(The fruit, btw, was both organic and delicious. I would recommend never buying the non-organic type, because strawberries in particular require heavy doses of pesticides and herbicides. And, as the poem says, they almost always have no taste or texture; even the beautifully red ones can be cardboard. I should also note that a recent New Yorker had a fascinating piece about the stoop labour involved in harvesting strawberries, as well as the search for a machine that can replace this shrinking work force. Here's a link:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/15/the-age-of-robot-farmers )

Never Content to Rest

May 26 2019

For those who think about death,

and wonder

if there is a bus, picking up speed

and heading in our direction

and how, for us, it will end

there are never certain answers.

My old friend

who recently died

was 72 years young.

I try not

to contemplate his final moments,

pinned against a rock

in a rushing torrent

on a cold spring day.

But who else, at such an age

would be running rapids,

like a kid

in a colourful boat

of smoothly sculpted plastic

that looks like it's in motion

even when still?

And he, too, a man in motion

who was never content to rest.

While I will die in bed, I imagine,

fearful, frail, old;

the act of dying

so much worse than death.

I once rescued him

in the same river

when we both were young.

But have let myself go, while he did not,

doing something he loved

until that unstoppable bus

lined him squarely up

and in the intersection of time and place and fate

held him under the waves

beneath a muffled roar.

Then carried him downstream

to the final destination

even the poets and preachers and healers

cannot explain.

So in the place of answers

offer consolation.

And in the simple act

of our communal presence

commemorate a life.

The picture is a stock photo, but it reminds me of our days on the rivers, doing what we called “play-boating”, and what is often called “rodeo” in competitive white-water sport.

I wrote this just prior to a small gathering of friends and acquaintances who came together to reminisce. In the end, I missed this get-together, and so perhaps failed to honour, in a personal sense, the simple act ...of presence. But the concept still stands: we seek community in mourning; we recognize death in formal ritual as well as simple togetherness.

The poem may seem unduly solipsistic in the way it dwells on my personal angst. But I felt it necessary to write with the intimacy of the first person; and I think, in these circumstances, we all can't help but reflect on our own mortality, as well as how we are doing at life. The title, though, was all Robin: a doer and adventurer; a deep thinker; a restless spirit.

Here is Robin Sare's obituary, as it appeared in the Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal. (He was christened “Robert”, but his friends all knew him as “Robin”.)

At 72 Robin did not have time for getting old - Peter Pan with a dental practice. He could debate healthcare reform, discuss ancient Persian politics, ski the glades and beat his 30 year-old nephew in a sprint down the beach. Our beloved Robin died May 18, 2019 while living the life he loved - at full speed. Growing up in Montreal, Guelph and Lac Ouimet, Robin was especially adventurous, always leading with true purpose, a song at the ready, or reciting a poem. As a young man, his days were filled with sock-hops and malts, a summer spent lifeguarding at the Banff Springs Hotel scavenging leftover lobster to afford rides by horseback through the Alberta wilderness. He put everything into fuelling his adventures - writing home for money because he had saved none; having second or third helpings from friends on camping trips because he believed in travelling light. After university in Toronto, he began his dental career with C.U.S.O in Uganda until forced to leave by the politics of the region. He was drawn to Thunder Bay by its rugged wilderness and vibrant culture. There he married, raised a family and immersed himself in local activities. His life was one of searching - for everything: truth, the meaning of life and how much of it could be experienced. Old man of the river, he outlasted generations of his paddling partners and still kept a characteristic spring in his step. Together, and over decades, they constantly defied the river's grasp, with heroics to the end. The bravery and endurance of his last paddling partner and the recovery team cannot be overstated and will always be remembered. A celebration of Robin's life is planned with his loving family on Tuesday, May 28th in the Valhalla ballroom from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. with words of tribute beginning at 12 p.m. In lieu of flowers or donations in Robin's memory, please help out someone in need.

He is the moss on the hills, the rushing water, the loon's cry echoing in the bay. He will be with us always.

The Potholed Road

May 18 2019

The potholed road.

Buckled

by freeze and thaw

and hard run-off

and latent frost

beneath the snow-free surface.

Broken

by dump-truck loads

of newly quarried rock.

The schoolbus, coming and going,

starting, stopping

hugging the shoulder

under blinking caution lights.

Battered

by the big yellow plow,

mammoth blade clattering

and mighty diesel throbbing

as it strains against its wheels.

The road, flexing under their weight;

man-sized rims

digging-in

with deeply ribbed treads

of hard-edged rubber.

The potholed road

winds into town

like a rambling conversation,

meandering, digressing

heading in this direction

and that,

steadily downhill

until its distance has been run

and there's nothing left to say.

The potholed road,

where the right-of-way

ignores the lay of the land,

reminding me

of water's unstoppable course.

The naturally flowing rivers

we blithely pave over,

the small subterranean lakes

where water still pools

and culverts overflow,

the gurgling run-off

that gains volume and strength

as the sun ascends

and heat soaks into the soil.

The potholed road

wasn't much to begin with,

rough and ready

and poorly paved

and repaired over and over

But is now an obstacle course,

its gravel washing away

its thin surface collapsing.

Where even the hasty patches

of quick-dry tar

are breaking apart,

savaging tie-rods and struts

and bushings and joints

and grease-packed bearings,

soft winter tires

and pinions and racks

and the backs of unwary drivers,

jarred

by the sudden heavy impact

of its bumps and hollows and pits.

Just a few years of neglect

and this country road would be no more,

its asphalt chipped away

as grasses and weeds took root

and saplings unfurled

and stands of trees flourished.

Until the forest returned,

an unbroken canopy

obliterating any residue

of man, and his handiwork.

Which is just what you'd expect

when nothing truly lasts.

Conversations petering-out

as the pauses lengthen

and there is less and less to say.

Water, taking the shortest route

to the lowest point possible;

unstoppable

until it does.

And the end of the road

that's sure to come

as pavement crumbles

and rights-of-way are overrun.

Or when the slow meandering route

becomes abandoned

in favour of speed;

a straight cut

of reinforced concrete,

bulldozing through the trees

as if a ruler had been laid

across the barren soil.

Walking

May 10 2019

One step follows another.

As if on auto-pilot

one shuffles, trudges, grumbles along.

The muscle memory

of the forebears who walked to the ends of the earth

a toddler's first stumbling steps.

The inherent drive

that impels us doggedly on

with a kind of viscerally felt urgency.

Even the flaneur

the wanderer

the idly strolling plodder,

putting one foot after the other

in steadily measured steps,

next

            ... next

                             ... next.

They say it's a marvel of engineering,

the loaded arch, the shock absorbing joints,

19 muscles

26 bones

a deeply callused sole.

Bed-bound

I dream of walking

in both wakefulness and sleep,

pacing

like a restless animal

in glass-walled confinement.

Paralyzed

I envy movement's freedom,

the agency

to walk away

choose my path

feel my body strain.

Again and again

I learn how to walk

as disability hobbles me.

Feel I will die, if forced to be still.

Like a shark, perpetually stalking

even before it's been born

life begins and ends in motion.

Seeks completion

in the closed circle

of a life fully lived,

as erratic as it is

unknowable its goal.

The satisfying arc of an old man

looking back on himself.

The void

of untimely death

and so many steps unfilled.

This is what we are, as humans: the world's champion endurance animals. Once they descended from the trees, our nomadic ancestors walked. Long enough and far enough to populate the ends of the earth. In running to exhaustion, heat is almost always the limiting factor. Why lions give up the chase; why wolves eventually run down their large-bodied prey. And why we became hairless (or relatively so!), less robust than our primate cousins, and acquired the capacity to sweat. Perhaps even why we assumed an upright posture, sacrificing the speed of 4 legs, while coming up with such a brilliantly engineered foot. So evolution fashioned us into the ultimate walking animals: it is in our nature, and it emerges as a kind of urgent restlessness. And why, when we are bed-bound, confined, or intentionally inactive, we quickly dwindle and sicken.

And yes, fetal sharks do swim in the womb. Not only that, but they hunt and cannibalize their weaker siblings. I wasn't sure if it was fact or myth that sharks must swim continuously. Consulting Google, it turns out that while some must, other types of sharks are perfectly able to rest and still pass water through their gills. So true enough, at least for poetry!

I've been struggling with this persistent achilles peritendinitis. But I still try to walk daily: not just for the dogs, but for my own well-being. So I've had to adjust my terrain and distance, as well as my footwear and gait. Yes, as in the poem: actually re-learned how to walk, my advanced age notwithstanding!

In the poem, though, walking becomes a metaphor for moving through the trajectory of a life: in which one persists, not knowing the destination, or even purpose; and where the urgency to walk represents the life force.

Rich Black Mulch

May 8 2019

On a cold spring day

I can feel the heat

rising up from the compost

like some living breathing creature.

In this unchanging container, fixed in place,

such multitudes

of tiny invisible beings

seething with life.

Just as a plump caterpillar

     —   all pulpy gut and stinging bristles   —

is furiously at work

inside its plain brown pupa,

moving molecules

combining atoms

reverting to some elemental form.

Until it emerges

from its unassuming nest

as a delicately poised beauty;

balanced

on long thin legs,

iridescent wings

spread-out to dry.

Because nothing in nature is wasted.

Energy conserved

matter transformed

the living and dead reborn;

as kitchen scraps

are reduced to soil,

tomatoes

conjured from light.

I bury my hands

in rich black mulch,

its penetrating heat

in the weak spring sun.

Squeeze it through my fingers,

mix it

with sweet April air.

It's been a long hard winter,

and in sheltered patches

remnants of snow persist.

But the compost is warm

and the garden soil lives.

Because tucked against the embankment

the first green tips

are breaking through the earth.

Early crocuses, tough and tapered and stiff

that are built to resist the cold,

the nightly frost, unseasonable snow

we expect this time of year.

The life force

of this blue and green planet

on its predetermined path,

tilting towards the sun

as it slowly steadily warms.