Underneath

Jan 28 2020

The lake ice

is protected by snow,

a white reflective blanket

in this unseasonable warmth.

Underneath, still water,

where fish hunt and hover

spawn and grow.

Eat, and are eaten

in the repeating cycle

of birth and death.

Held

in the cold black depths

that are starved of air

and will not be replenished for months.

While on the steep slope

of the south-facing shore

a patch of earth has been exposed,

sandy brown soil

like a spreading stain.

I watch it expanding, day by day

as the sun incrementally strengthens

and the warmth of deep underground

radiates up.

Which is how change happens,

faster and faster

once the dam gives way.

Everything alive, down there

in spite of winter.

Roots and worms and burrowing creatures

snug in temperate earth.

Fungal hyphae

branching and spreading their intricate nets.

And microscopic life,

relentlessly feeding

on the decomposing matter

of duff and leaves and rotting trees,

dead animals

their disembowelled remains.

Waiting

for the next storm

to repair the surface.

For the world to return to virgin white,

snuggled-up under

its comforting warmth.

The muffled silence

of a mantle of snow.

Monochrome.

Blinding.

Lifeless.

Cubicle

Jan 29 2020

The walled cubicle

consists of a cluttered desk

a swivel chair

a company computer.

Its soft walls

are some sort of beige textured material.

Reminders are pinned to it,

along with an expired calendar

a few family photos

an inspirational poster

where a frizzled cat hangs tough.

Straightening up from the chair

you can see over the low partition;

a sea of heads,

some, hard at work

but most stifling a yawn,

waiting for the end of the day

the week

the month.

And dropping back down

you feel enclosed once again,

somewhere between

protected

and claustrophobic.

But sound still penetrates,

barely softened

by the low padded walls.

As well as bad office coffee

stale air

ozone's acrid scent

of electricity burning,

too much perfume

from the lady next door.

Most of the waking day

in this small fixed space

where you feel yourself safe

as well as confined.

Your cubicle, you say,

like a declaration of ownership

claiming this place for yourself.

Where the picture of your wife, the favourite mug

might be seen as acts of resistance.

The small personal touch

you will quickly box-up, one day

before security hustles you out.

I really have no idea where this poem came from. I was in the mood to write. I sat down at the keyboard, instead of with pen and paper. This image of a cubicle farm occurred to me, and I started to riff on it. Stream of consciousness did the rest. Even though I've never worked in a place like that, and have almost always been my own boss. I wonder if the identity police would call this cultural appropriation?!!

Receptionist

Jan 27 2020

The receptionist smiles

at all arrivals,

her perfect white teeth

greeting job hunters

clients

casual inquirers,
the man bearing packages
signed and received.

Her gossiping colleagues
incompetent boss.
And the poor souls 
who are are either lost, and looking for a way out,

or desperate for the rest room
before peeing themselves.

She expertly pilots her chair,

wheeling between computer screens, and telephones

a wall of forms and file-folders.

Does she go home each night

and slip into something casual?

Scrub the make-up from her face

and relax that rictus smile

before it becomes permanent,

before the laugh lines and dead eyes

of the professional greeter

are frozen in place?

I admire her fortitude.

Because almost everyone's a stranger

   --  the anxious and deranged

angry and complaining,

the garrulous and lonely

who could talk all day.

I am impressed
by her unruffled exterior

flawless efficiency.

Like the performer

who juggles chainsaws and flamethrowers

while keeping the patter going

without losing an arm.

Yet we see her like the furniture,

an interchangeable part, there to serve;

today a blonde

tomorrow a brunette.

I'm late for my appointment.

Still, she smiles at me warmly

and invites me to sit.

Offers coffee or tea

a bright “doctor is in”.

Concession Road

Jan 20 2020

Concession road

is what we locals call these rural routes.

A geometric grid

of ruled lines, strict right angles

overlaid on the land

as if to subdue it;

as if the rocks and trees and glacial til

would so easily concede

to their domestication.

The settlers, who ventured west

determined to reproduce

the pastoral landscape of home,

its arcadian fields, rolling hills,

tidy hedgerows

and dry stone walls.

Its country roads

and pleasant Sunday drives,

an ocean away

from this rock-ribbed wilderness.

But even the most determined of men

could not bulldoze perfect lines,

defeated by deep ravines, impervious rock

run-off rivers and bottomless bogs

dense stands of trees.

Roads with steep grades

and ever tightening turns;

as if the best laid plans

of man and machine

were forced to concede,

as if the colonists

who came armed with illusions of conquest

had in the end deferred to the land.

Wending our way home

along concession roads

through blind turns

hard climbs

and sharp descents,

dark impenetrable forest

looming on either side.

Travel to any jurisdiction other than Ontario or Quebec, and no one will understand what you mean. “Concession Road” is particular to here, an artifact of the original surveyors: imposing order on a lawless land.

I like the ambiguity of the term. I have no idea of its origin, but I can just see those early settlers tipping their hats to an unconquerable landscape, conceding that the best laid plans of engineers could not be translated from paper to the actual landscape. The powers that be could decree an easement here and a township line there; but topography gets the last word!

Coming In Out of the Cold

Jan 18 2020

In the warm months

walls become porous.

You pass seamlessly in and out,

the screen door

slapping shut behind you.

Birdsong

wafts through open windows.

Insects find their way in,

as well as the sprinkler's phhht-phhht-phhht

circling in the verdant grass.

And the hard black bodies

of bottlenose flies

hurtle against the glass

buzzing frantically.

Then briefly pause,

poised motionless

on hair-thin legs

as if confused by transparency

and stopping to think.

But now

windows are sealed, doors firmly closed.

And coming in out of the cold

into bright steamy warmth

it's as if you've been transported

to a parallel world.

You hustle quickly in

welcomed by a blast of heat,

cold astringent air

still clinging to your clothes.

You stamp your boots of snow

and feel your face flush,

fingertips tingling

with the slow return of blood.

There's the smell of home

contained within these walls.

The savoury aroma

of something roasting

pan-blackened fish.

The burnt sweetness

of caramelized onions

sizzled in rendered fat.

And garlic butter
mixed with mashed potatoes

a dash of pepper and chives.

From a distance

the windows cast a comforting glow,

soft incandescence

on cold hard snow.

And the house

seems to beckon you on,

a warm outpost

in the still dark of night.

This is the note (edited slightly) I included when I sent out the first draft of this poem to my first readers:

As in the previous poem, Remains, I'm trying to get more short and less linear. This one, as do most, failed. It's much more my traditional descriptive sort of thing. But I like that too:  that idea of close observation and microcosm. So instead of compressing big ideas, it's taking something small and fully exploring it. Instead of distilling language, it's taking pleasure in celebrating words and surrendering to them. That is, it is unapologetic in its richness of detail and sensation. 

Remains

Jan 17 2020

Fingernails do not keep growing.

The soft tissue shrivels

fingers stiffen

blood pools.

We fool ourselves, knowingly.

And the cooling had already begun

well before death.

Remember how cold the old man was?
The blanket clutched to his throat.

And the stifling room,

smelling of stale pee

and fetid breath.

No formaldehyde.

No casket or urn.

Consign me to earth

at the foot of a tree

in cool mineral soil,

deep enough

to discourage scavengers

and birds of prey.

The only afterlife

is worms.

As well as teeth, a rattle of bones.

And if no thief pries them loose

my crowns of gold;

which, like all elements

are irreducible.

Formed in the core

of the exploding stars

that seeded the universe.

Perhaps some final words.

Which, if energy is conserved

still resonate

somewhere in the world.

Weaker and weaker

until only heat remains.

Terry Gross (of NPR's Fresh Air) was interviewing the great filmmaker Martin Scorsese, and in recalling a childhood memory of an embalmed body, he referred to hair and fingernails that continued to grow. Which is, of course, untrue: the cells are dead, the blood supply arrested. Growth is impossible. This struck me as a good opening line. https://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2020/01/15/796590006/fresh-air-for-jan-15-2020-martin-scorsese?showDate=2020-01-15

So once again, I find myself writing about death. Yes, of course I give a lot of thought to death. Don't we all? But I'm not morbidly preoccupied with it. Which is why I think it's important to explain the origin story of this poem. Because it was really in whimsy that it began, not blackness.

Although the poem does express my philosophy of death. Its finality. And how, if there is any posterity and any consolation, it's the continuity of things in a universe that is closed and constant. And also, that while consciousness does not persist, perhaps – if we're any part of lucky, virtuous, talented, or notoriously bad – our actions and words might.

The gold crowns came to mind not only because I just broke a tooth and have an imminent appointment for one, but also because of something I just heard on the podcast Criminal: a story about a funeral home that was not only pretending to cremate bodies when it was actually selling them, but was also pulling their teeth for the gold. https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-131-sunset-mesa-1-10-2020

Fresh Strawberries on my Cereal

Jan 15 2020

In the damp chill

of a January thaw

I am tromping through a parking lot

of sloppy dirty slush,

crisscrossed with tire tracks

discarded coffee cups.

But on entering in

to the warm bright interior

I'm shocked to see fresh strawberries

on refrigerated shelves,

neatly stacked tiers

of luscious red fruit

crammed in plastic clamshells,

redolent of summer

and marked-down to sell.

How odd,

fresh strawberries on my cereal

in the very heart of winter

in this northern hinterland.

Every day, in the early morning dark

large trucks

are disgorging their abundance

at back-door loading docks,

where the stench of idling diesel

combines with sweet exotic fruit

in the cold still air.

We never imagine they won't come

if even give it any thought.

Employees stacking shelves

as fast as they empty out;

as if strawberries

were inexhaustible

and there will always be more,

a conveyor belt

of imported fruit and vegetables

that seems to happen of itself.

A cornucopia, overflowing

with colour, choice, and smell.

Like a tenuous lifeline

there's a ribbon of highway

that's running day and night,

over 2,000 miles

through black ice and blizzards

and fighting back sleep,

accidents, and traffic jams

a grinding mountain pass.

All the way from California

and its sun-dappled coast,

strawberries appear

in our land-locked winter

like a dazzling shock of red

in a white expanse of snow.

The abundance of the modern supermarket would strike any previous generation as near miraculous. Yet we – privileged, entitled, jaded – take it all for granted.

Despite how unsustainable this industrial food system is.

Unsustainable because of its environmental cost; a debt that is steadily accumulating, but remains conveniently out of sight and mind.

And also unsustainable because our consumer culture is a prime example of a complex interdependent system; the sort of system that may be a triumph of social organization, but is notoriously vulnerable to disruption – the usual contingency and bad luck that, in the fullness of time, seem almost inevitable.

So this poem is about the unlikeliness of the way we live. We take it for granted. It seems eternal and fixed. But it's actually very recent, as well as very different from the way our predecessors have always lived.

I often wonder if this is the last time I will be able to buy strawberries in winter. Or perhaps anything other than root vegetables stored for months! I've noticed, too, that the supermarket offerings are getting continuously more exotic and abundant. Have I ever seen so many strawberries and blueberries this time of year? Which reminds me of a dying tree: how it musters the last of its strength in a great final efflorescence; a final spasm of defiance before its imminent death.

And there may not be much point to this indulgence, anyway. Because I took some poetic licence with my description of these strawberries. They may be red enough, but are hardly luscious, or redolent, or tasty. Mostly, they're cardboard. And, unless they're genuinely organic, full of pesticides and chemicals. Disproportionately so, compared to other fruit.

12 Items or Less

Jan 14 2020

In line at the check-out

12 items or less

    —     my inner pedant

        reflexively correcting

     to fewer from less   —

the lives of strangers

briefly intersect.

We avert eyes, calibrate distances,

a couple chats quietly

kids wheedle and whine.

I scrutinize each transaction

with my usual impatience,

judging junk food and impulse buys

the cashier's indifferent dawdling.

The line eases ahead

a single step

before pausing again,

like the gently bumping cars

when a slow train stops.

And I wait, jaw set

for a price check

personal cheque

hunt for a credit card.

Give an inward sigh

as the coupon lady sorts her slips,

fanning them out on the conveyor

like a magician shuffling decks.

But there is one woman who smiles,

engaging her neighbour

in an amused observation

some idle talk.

While the rest of us

in our small sovereign principalities

discreetly watch,

feeling our own boundaries soften

borders ease.

Still on guard

against foreigners and aliens,

but a little more amenable

to a temporary visa.

Not to mention appreciative

how much discomfort shared

is easier to bear

than autonomy.

Meanwhile, the woman's credit card

has been rejected

a second time.

Yet no one seems to mind

when she rifles though her purse

searching for cash;

some crumpled bills

loose change, covered in lint.

An apologetic smile

that even I return.

Bristlecone Pine

Jan 13 2020

Just imagine living

as long as these ancient trees.

To witness history unfold.

To accumulate the wisdom

of sages and elders.

Like the old woman

in the chair by the window

lit by low winter sun.

If only she could speak

what stories she'd tell.

And they do look old,

wizened, craggy, convoluted.

A passer-by would think them dead,

some petrified forest

that had somehow persisted

in this cold alpine refuge

on a remote mountain slope.

Barely growing.

As if life were zero-sum;

the heart of a mouse

flitting quickly, but dying young,

and the elephant

long-lived, but slow.

As if the heart can contract

only so many times

before it gives-out.

So if this tree was sentient

its four thousand years

would feel like a man at mid-life.

As if a mere half-century had passed,

while all our dynasties and genocides

flashed-by far away,

standing oblivious

rooted in place.

Am I wrong to imagine

that wisdom accrues over time?

Because according to our fleeting lives, they are old

yet their clocks run slow.

The gods may claim eternity,

but ancient trees

are just as mortal as we are.

And neither are they as pretty

as the familiar trees

we have bred and pruned and propagated.

But to the discerning eye, they're beautiful;

the way great age

imparts dignity and grace,

hard experience

leaves its mark.

Like her thin delicate skin

almost translucent.

Her fine-boned face

and bird-like hands.

The kind eyes

that are nearly blind

but seem, somehow, all-seeing.

The tree, dense as ironwood.

And she, perched on that chair beside the window

like some ethereal other

about to depart.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/01/20/the-past-and-the-future-of-the-earths-oldest-trees