Old Friends

Oct 29 2019

Old friends

you haven't seen in years

surprise you, how fast they've aged.

But still, there is no mistaking them.

The human brain is uncanny at this,

the flash of recognition

that maps the space between the eyes

those sternly narrowed lips

that nose you couldn't miss.

The trajectory of life

once set in motion

propels you further and further apart,

but just a minute's reminiscing

and you are rocketed swiftly back

to the youthful shenanigans

the two of you once shared.

Odd, though, how memories diverge.

How the past

is neither singular, nor fixed

but repeatedly transformed,

the alchemy of forgetting

selective recall,

those convenient truths

our unconscious concocts.

In a few more minutes

the two old friends will part.

You, shaking your head

at how the years have aged him,

at the thing that seemed so meaningful

he somehow completely forgot.

Wondering

did it really happen that way

even happen at all?

How slippery is the past

how pointless rumination.

The rose-coloured glow of nostalgia,

the long accustomed weight

that persists in dragging you down.

You look in a mirror

and a familiar face looks back,

the younger man

you can still discern

in its fleshiness and jowls

that see-saw keloid scar.

Because you never forget

a face

even if you can't quite place him,

or wonder just how well

you really knew the man.

This poem started with a vague notion to write about facial recognition: that brilliant unconscious process that is one of the great triumphs of the human brain. Not just the brain's facility at processing complicated information, but what the resources it devotes to facial recognition tell us about ourselves as social animals. I'm terrible at names, embarrassingly so; but I seem to always remember a face.

But from that starting point, my approach was very different. First, writing directly on the keyboard, instead of my usual cheap Bic pen on blank white paper. And second, writing in an almost stream of consciousness fashion that felt even more than usual like automatic writing, or taking dictation. That is, not thinking ahead, not planning. And, to lead me to the next line, not so much following the train of thought as surrendering to the sound and cadence of the language. So I'm very pleased not only that it came out so coherently, but at the relatively prosaic conversational tone of the piece: which, oddly, is something I always strive for, but very rarely achieve.

So it ended up being a poem about imperfect remembering, the toxic impulse of nostalgia, the angst of growing old, and the complexity of who we become with age; that is, the interplay and superposition of all our past selves.

Ice

Oct 28 2019

I will take diamond over gold.

Both are dense, treasured, pure.

But diamonds are carbon, compressed,

like poetry, condensed and distilled.

Black sooty coal

made transparent,

its sheer faceted faces

expressing the essence of light.

Which I imagine

endlessly refracting

and then reflecting back,

pure light

contained within the precious stone,

even when it's locked away

in its pitch black vault.

The Narcissism of Small Difference  (with apologies to H.L. Mencken)

Oct 27 2019

When I see animal friends

of different species,

or the cat who mothered ducklings

when they should have been a meal,

I feel a poignant sense of commonality.

That we are all warm-blooded creatures.

That we are blank slates

who imprint easily.

That we thrive through play

and attachment,

needing to be touched

and longing to be loved

and who cannot navigate life alone.

And yet how preoccupied we are

by difference;

between Christian and humanist

the hierarchies of pigment,

the exotic smells

seeping out from under the door

of the apartment down the hall.

Evolution might explain this,

that potential threat

requires attention

while the familiar can wait.

But we know better

and H.L. Mencken said it best

that “the narcissism of small difference”

will be the death of us.

I watch the donkey and the pig

frolicking in a field,

the dolphin and the Labrador

swim together at sea.

Its water, the same salt as the blood

in all of us,

our mammalian bodies

variations on a theme.

Too bad our intelligence

isolates us,

living in our heads

over-thinking things.

So much so that scientists once decreed

dogs are instrumental

and do not feel,

which, of course, none of us believes.

And not only this

but that elephants grieve

and pilgrimage to bone-yards,

while even hyenas can die

from loneliness.

We privilege ourselves

and feel closer to God,

yet as stewards of His creation

are laying it waste.

Such mastery of facts

yet so lacking in humility.

So knowing and smart

yet so stubbornly blind

to our essential sameness,

to the destiny

we're all fated to share.

I've wanted for a long time to write this poem, this tendency to focus on difference rather than our commonality. Waited to write, because I knew it would be so much harder to write in poetry than in prose. And wanted to write for a few reasons. Partly because it really will be the death of us! But also because I find myself recalling that quote more often than any other. And also because I've always wondered why I am so emotionally affected by a silly show about inter-species friendships I often watch on one of the many “nature” channels I get, called Unlikely Animal Friends.

Within our own species, of course, the differences become even smaller and even more inconsequential. I understand how evolutionary biology neatly explains their salience. But that doesn't mean we have no choice in our thinking and feeling. One can learn to process difference, and then discount it. Or to focus on the commonalities: the half full glass, as it were.

Another implication of this is “speciesism”: our tendency to privilege our own, to privilege our version of intelligence, and to submit to a worldview that is very anthropocentric. Religion, especially, does this: that we are favoured by God, created in His image, and given dominion; that is, the world bestowed on us by Him. (The capitals out of respect, even though it offends this fundamentalist atheist's basic non-belief!) Which I find particularly odd, since isn't humility one of the prime tenets of most religions? And what could be less humble than humanity elevating itself in this way?

There is, as there often inevitably is in anything I write these days, a message of environmental despair in the final two stanzas: “ ...laying it waste”, which is about as distilled down as I could get! At the risk of bashing religion once again, I am alluding here to the fundamentalists' equanimity about climate change (when they're not denying it, that is), anchored in their belief that salvation imminently awaits; that God is orchestrating everything, so we can afford to be fatalistic, to demur and defer; and that anyway, a rational God would never permit his creation to be destroyed. So why worry?

(Which I maintain is a terrible misnomer, btw. Because the last thing they are is “fundamentalists”. They're literalists, not fundamentalists.; oblivious to the spirit of allegory and myth, not to mention the specific historical context, in which scripture is written. Because aren't the fundamental tenets of the Bible things like justice, peace, tolerance, charity, and love? While it appears to me these Bible-thumpers and advocates of the “prosperity gospel” are far more about social judgment than social justice, far more about self-justification than self-awareness and humility. ...And which may be one reason I so enjoy appropriating the term, calling myself a “fundamentalist atheist”: I think the cognitive dissonance of hearing those two terms together, taken from opposing magisteriums of thought, renders that self-description all the more evocative.)

Pool, Drop, Pool

Oct 26 2019

You learn humility, running rivers.

Because the rapids are indifferent

and you, insignificant

in this vast boreal wilderness.

The water flowing, boiling, breaking

as it always has done,

the rocks fixed

as if anchored to earth's core.

Their polished surface

is a calendar of permanence,

the incomprehensible time

it took to burnish them smooth.

Like practised climbers

we do not come to conquer,

checking off mountaintops

as if we're keeping score.

Rather, we are here in a spirit of respect;

to experience our smallness,

to feel the privilege

of being in nature

instead of bettering her.

And to get a measure of our steel,

the way young men

have always tested themselves.

It was pool, drop, pool,

and drifting steadily down

in a flatwater stretch

I would lean back, paddle at rest,

and gaze out at the dark green forest

rising up on either side,

feeling content

to be in the moment

and wanting nothing more.

Because I was a middling paddler,

no first descents

through canyon walls,

no waterfalls

that turn to mist 
before they bottom out.

No quest

for the adrenaline junkie's heart-thumping thrill.

And while the river was oblivious

all I felt

was grateful to be there,

a flotilla of small plastic boats

in bright primary colours

going as the current goes.

Hot sun, and cool spray,

and how the sound of running water

seems to comfort the soul.

Yes, people have been lost

to the river gods,

kayak pinned

some gnarly drop.

Like Robin, my old friend

who lived mindfully and well

and never let age stop him,

but in the end

pushed his luck too long.

So now I am content

to sit on shore and watch,

leaning back, legs dangling

on this great sun-bathed rock

far

from any sign of man.

There are fewer rivers to run, these days,

fewer rapids

in which to play.

But the young still seek them out

and water still falls;

descending, as it must

in all its unstoppable power.

The Square Root of 2

Oct 24 2019

An irrational number

has no end.

Digits, to the right of the decimal point

on and on

ad infinitum.

A computer, set to calculate

would be spitting out lines of print

to the ends of the universe,

reams of paper clattering out

until every tree was felled.

Like the paradox

of the arrow to its target,

halving the distance, then halving what's left

so it never quite arrives.

Perpetually in transit,

suspended mid-air

just short of the end

of its clean ballistic arc.

But I believe in rationality.

That problems can be solved.

That a train of thought

can be brought

to its infallible conclusion.

That a society

run by technocrats

would be better than politicians.

Because when emotions contaminate

our Vulcan brains

every bullseye is missed.

Except how to explain

that without that feeling in your gut

you become paralyzed,

hemming and hawing and unsure of yourself

unable to decide.

Just like those numbers

that go on and on,

swamping you

without reaching a conclusion.

Numbers

that define an ever shrinking band

just short

of the next rational number,

an immovable pillar

looming up from the quicksand

of infinite digits

beckoning you on.

But you can only divide the world

so far

until it becomes irreducible.

Down

to the fundamental particle

that, by definition

can no longer be halved.

Which is like trying to find infinity

in a single grain of sand.

Or calculating pi

knowing that you can't.

Or ruminating endlessly

until it drives you mad;

irrational thoughts

spiralling in on themselves,

circling and circling

in your own private hell.

Empire of Cold

Oct 23 2019

We were taught that cold

was not a thing

but rather the absence of heat.

But how, then

when the guests crowd in

to the foyer's welcoming glow,

stamping the snow

off salt-stained boots,

and with a momentary shiver
slipping arms
from heavy winter coats,

to explain the crisp clean cold

pouring off their clothes?

The astringency and weight

of arctic air,

its slightly menacing feel

in the bright interior warmth?

I feel a momentary chill

greeting them there,

grateful for the fire

blazing in its hearth.

Outside, on a moonless night

my chimney is puffing exhaust,

black smoke and ash

with gusts of firefly sparks

and clouds of swirling cinders,

working hard

to hold winter at bay;

the empire of cold

that has overtaken the world

no matter how certainly the physicists declaim

there is no such thing.

Fugitive Time

Oct 14 2019

When it took weeks

for a letter to arrive.

And they were kept

in a locked box

of dark exotic wood,

tucked in the envelopes

that had carried then over the sea.

In elegant hand, on yellowing pages

in slowly fading ink

held for posterity.

While our modern lives, it seems

are disposable,

coded in ones and zeros

and zipping around the world

at the speed of light.

Electrons

in furious motion

and circuits opening like floodgates;

so fugitive time

seems relentless,

and desperate lives accelerate

like superconducting wires.

We swim

in an invisible ocean

of electromagnetic waves,

a cacophony of voices

passing through our bodies

totally unaware.

We are water in water,

our density the same

boundaries transparent

molecules undisplaced.

Voices

that if only we could listen in

would drive us mad with sound.

And when the electrons stop

will be lost for good.

The most intimate thoughts we've shared.

Our lust, and lies, and loneliness,

poems and letters of love.

All utterly gone

before even we are.

Yet, like TV signals from the 1950s

that are now approaching the nearest star,

our most frivolous conversation

is swiftly winging its way

out to the galaxy's edge,

despite having weakened

to the merest whisper

drowned out by the cosmic noise.

We document our lives

obsessively;

as if to tempt immortality,

or like a talisman

warding off death.

But like the tree that falls

and no one ever hears;

like the silent waves

that flood out into space

but diminish by the inverse square,

when we are gone, we're gone

and might well have never existed.

Impervious

Oct 21 2019

The sound of rain

so steady, I forget it's there

is white noise

on a dark day.

And then

when it comes hammering down,

patters on the roof

drums on the awnings

raps against the glass.

Or wind-driven, slants-in,

as if small rubber pellets

had been sprayed along the wall.

When there is no forgetting,

and I straighten in my chair

acutely aware

of the force of nature

just beyond the door.

The comforting sound of rain

snug and warm inside.

Yet to be exposed

in this unseasonable fall

in all our naked human frailty

would be death,

no fossil fuel

no roof overhead.

Like a kid

I love a big yellow slicker

wide-brim hat to match.

And plunging into puddles, mucking through bogs

in thick rubber gumboots

with heavy woollen socks

feeling impervious.

Not yet snow,

but until it rains itself out

the earth overflows

and rivers run like spring,

boiling over rocks

clawing at their banks.

Yes, it will eventually end

it always does.

Because there are no Biblical floods

in this age of skeptics

and rational thought.

No subsistence

huddled in caves

or praying for sun.

We are modern men

and listen for the rain

to tuck us into bed

lull us sound asleep.

Except for the drip-drip-drip

on the bare kitchen floor

beneath some leaky shingles,

dry rot in the ceiling

gutters blocked by leaves.

Because water finds its level,

inexorable

and incompressible

and insinuating itself

until nowhere is spared,

pouring down from heaven

without judgment or pause

no matter what.

And in the calm after the storm,

when the silence seems loud

and the world is cleanly washed,

there will be no rainbow

when darkness falls.