A Hush Descends - Nov 29 2021

 

A Hush Descends

Nov 29 2021

I walk through the woods

in the cold of winter

in the low November light.

I feel chilled,

but the trees, stripped of leaves, must be shivering

naked and exposed.

Yet there they silently stand

in stoic stillness,

the wind

passing cleanly between

their bare skeletal branches.

The snow is piled thick

and more is drifting down,

wet fluffy flakes

that soak up sound

and muffle the world.

No insects buzz, chirp, rasp.

The spring peepers sleep

inanimate 'til spring.

While the birds have largely fled

their songs conspicuously absent.

And the rest of the animals

have either hunkered down

or frozen to death.

So there are no squirrels chattering,

and only a sharp-eared fox

could hear the high-pitched squeak

of frantic mice

scurrying beneath the snow.

The magnificent silence of winter.

That slow interregnum,

when a hush descends

and a depleted world rests,

taking time

to replenish itself.

Where the clump of my boots

is unexpectedly loud;

that creaking crunchy sound

that can't be helped

in cold well-packed snow,

no matter how mincingly

I pick my way.

Where I'm an unwelcome intruder

barging rudely in,

defiling

the silent sanctuary

I'd hoped would offer shelter.

A fugitive fleeing the world

while it still seems possible.

I stop, and listen closely.

Nothing to hear

but my frozen breath.

Fire and Ice - Nov 26 2021

 

Fire and Ice

Nov 26 2021

I'm not sure about this sensation,

cool on the tongue

fire up my spine

hands lightly touching.

So bright I'm blinded,

and the rush of blood

and racing heart

and ice beginning to thaw,

flooding me

with the sweetest water

imaginable.

Even the scent

of sinful flesh

that threatens to overwhelm.

Am I intoxicated

or simply short of air,

my breath quickening

when I'd rather breathe deep and slow?

Sleep, says a voice

through the pulsing blood,

as a warm hand

strokes my head

and another gently cradles it.

Have my eyes drifted shut

or am I simply content not to look?

When my ears burn hot

and the sweat pours off

and I am caught by a thrill of surprise,

her soft wet lips

brushing lightly against

my hot flushed skin.

I came close to death

but now I live,

greedy and giving and full.

Berakhah - Nov 24 2021

 

Berakhah

Nov 24 2021

We never said Grace.

Never joined hands and bowed our heads

and with closed eyes

gave thanks.

Someone reciting,

the rest mumbling or mouthing

a little behind.

A practice that proclaims

we are not animals

not ruled by appetite.

A prayer, of sorts;

but with which even an atheist

could get on board.

Nor ever scheduled chores,

laundry day and shopping

coffee-klatch with friends.

Never set aside

a regular night

for family time.

Never observed

a day of rest.

Ignored

the small daily rituals

that confer a sense of order,

that reassure us

the world will continue to unfold, more or less

at it has before.

But now my brother, with a family of his own

takes one day a week

and steps away from the world.

Takes stock,

living slow and quiet

instead of fast and loud.

I observe no such ritual.

I have no time for gods.

But why not

an intentional pause

an expression of gratitude?

Because there is much be said

for stillness and quiet.

To quarantine off some part of one's life

from the daily bustle

and hectic rush.

Or if not a day, then a silent moment

to acknowledge advantage

the blessings of luck

the bounty of earth,

even the accident of birth

that landed us here.

Head down and eyes shut,

not as an act of submission

but humility,

when more has been given

and less been asked.

Not Grace, exactly

but good enough for an atheist.

And with a hand to hold, even better;

a moment of rest

around the table together

alone with your thoughts.

It's Thanksgiving south of the border tomorrow, so this poem is timely. Here's its origin.

In Garrison Keillor's weekly column, he reproduced a short piece he recently had published at RealSimple.com. The following bit is what inspired this poem.

My prayers sound pompous to me ("O Thou Who didst create the growth hormones that produced this enormous bird ... ",) and I feel odd saying them in front of Jews, agnostics, atheists, "spiritual" people, Uncertains, Rosicrucians, ophthalmologists, and the tired old Anglicans at our table.

But I also feel odd if the food is hauled into the dining room and we simply dig in and feed like jackals at the carcass of a fallen gazelle. There should be a graceful pause, a meaningful look around the table, an appropriate word or two. To that end, I had a table grace painted on the dining-room wall above the mantel.

The only time I ever said Grace was at my old YMCA camp. It was more a reflexive formality than heartfelt. I've always felt uncomfortable with Grace: the overt religiosity, of course; but also the feeling that it was either overly earnest, or performative and insincere.

On the other hand, I can see a role for ritual in life, for some sort of daily practice: something often missing from our fast-paced, consumerist, secular culture. Even, as Keillor says, simply a graceful pause that makes what follows a little more meaningful than the rest of the day. And it doesn't require belief in a higher being to take time out to practice gratitude.

My brother is religious, and quite observant. So he follows the Jewish sabbath. My parents would raise their eyebrows at this. Why impose such unnecessary and arbitrary restrictions on oneself? Why make life more difficult? I think what they missed was the value of withdrawing from the world, of slowing down, experiencing quiet, and creating rituals that elevate this brief time into something special. Especially now, when life moves quickly, the noise is incessant, and technology is endlessly distracting. The reliable structure and repetitiveness of this makes those 24 hours a sanctuary: a needed time out and something to look forward to. It's not something I'm going to do (I have a lot of quiet unstructured time in my life anyway). But I can see its value.

Grace before a meal is a small thing. An entire day something bigger. But in that they are both recurring rituals, they are the same. They both keep one grounded.

The intentional practice of gratitude has been shown to have great benefits for mental health. So combining this with ritual can only be a good thing. As for me, however, I feel self-conscious saying Grace. And it doesn't work so well without a belief in God. But I do work on gratitude, even if it isn't quite so structured as reciting a small prayer of thanks before dinner every night.

Blessed Warmth - Nov 22 2021

 

Blessed Warmth

Nov 22 2021

The door opens stiffly,

emitting a strangled squeak

as if to protest.

Visible breath

condenses on the windshield.

The vinyl seat

is hard as a board.

The engine starts grudgingly,

whining and sputtering

and catching reluctantly,

then shudders and grinds

as if starved for fuel.

The tank is full

but the flow miserly,

as if gas turns sluggish in cold.

The glass has iced over,

a solid sheet of white

after sitting overnight

while the mercury plunged.

So I also sit,

hunkering down

blowing on my hands,

sullenly impatient

for the car to heat up

the defroster defog.

But only cold air comes.

So I wait

in the limbo of winter,

my mouth grimly set

both shoulders tense

bum still numb,

the frozen vinyl

refusing to thaw.

The radio is on, undaunted by cold,

a heart-warming song

of hot toddies and blazing hearths.

Almost Christmas, and sentiment is rampant,

saccharine nostalgia

manufactured to sell.

But I'm in no mood for religion

  —   unless it's the inferno of hell.

Not here in limbo

where dead infants dwell.

Or would purgatory

be more appropriate,

a repentant sinner

waiting for heaven

to open its doors?

Except I'm still down here on earth,

where winter's eternal

and I'm chilled to the bone.

Imploring the devil

to deliver me from cold;

please, sir, some blessed warmth

and my impure soul

is yours evermore.

The River Runs - Nov 21 2021

 

The River Runs

Nov 21 2021

I slip seamlessly by

like water around a rock.

A smooth parting upstream,

but perfectly in sync

when I rejoin myself,

barely a ripple

fanning out

across my silky surface

shimmering with sun.

The river runs,

enveloping boulders

immersing small rocks,

hugging each contour

no matter how rough

or unexpected.

The river runs

as we watch,

almost hypnotic in its constancy.

The river runs

inexhaustibly,

from a trickle to a torrent

to its ocean home.

Like energy, which doesn't extinguish

but simply changes form,

water goes

from turbulent to calm

vapour to ice.

While rocks erode

molecule by molecule.

The power of water

the fullness of time.

I hold one in my hand

and feel its heft.

Run my fingers

over its polished surface

and revel in its coolness.

Egg-shaped, and reddish grey

and as old as the earth.

But I am water

and older still,

leaving beautiful rocks

glistening in my wake.

I came across this analogy in my reading – “like water around a rock” – and found it very affecting.

I thought it spoke to perseverance: the formidably slow process of erosion. And integrity: how the water seamlessly finds itself, rejoins. But also the deception of appearances: because while rocks seem permanent and immutable, it's actually water that ultimately persists.

There was also something very aesthetically pleasing about the image: the silky smoothness of moving water; the almost hypnotic constancy of the river's flow.

So the poem is more impressionistic than anything, as opposed to the more linear and narrative pieces I much more commonly write.

Strange Birds - Nov 20 2021

 

Strange Birds

Nov 20 2021

Birds go south in winter.

But some stay,

either hardy and resourceful

or just plain stubborn,

homebodies, like me

who are leery of change.

And some go astray,

poorly raised

blown off course

fooled by weather.

The outliers,

who fly their own idiosyncratic path

until eventually coming to land

in some unimagined place.

Humans, the same.

The snowbirds fleeing winter.

The curmudgeons, staying home.

And the oddballs and eccentrics

who break new ground.

Who seem oblivious to raised eyebrows

and knowing smirks

and the likelihood they'll fail.

And who, inexplicably, seem happier than the rest of us,

project this ingenuous integrity

we can only envy.

Yet it's the strange birds

who will ensure their species' survival

evade catastrophe,

from climate change

to a devastation of plague.

And the mavericks among us

who will also lead us out.

Who think outside the box.

Whose fertile minds

and outlandish thoughts

most often go nowhere,

but sometimes take your breath away.

For them

no simple inertia 

or mindless conforming.

No sun-soaked idle.

No complacent hibernation

in the comfort of home.

You can tell who they are.

Their sweetly scattered style

heedless of fashion.

Their racing minds

ranging far and wide.

And just get them started

to see the sparkle in their eyes

as they share their latest ideas,

travelling solo

as they pull us along in their wake.

A celebration of eccentricity. Of non-conformists, odd balls, original thinkers. Not only are they the ones who think outside the box, and ultimately lead us not to innovation as well as whole new fields of thought, they appear to do well by it. A study of that strangely appealing stereotype, the English eccentric, revealed them to be on average much happier than the rest of us.

I'm hardly leading my fellow humans anywhere, and would never claim to be a brave new innovator. And I may be less happy than average, not more. But I am eccentric. I once came up with the nickname of “long tail”, by which I meant the long tail of the normal distribution curve. This is where I repeatedly find myself, in so many categories of personality and temperament and preference. So it was nice to be able to come up with a poem about eccentricity.

If it seems odd, then, that I categorized myself as among the complacent rather than the free thinkers, it's more a comment on my extreme homebody tendencies than anything else. A kind of eccentricity of its own, I suppose.

I couldn't resist those two highly topical examples of environmental change. After all, when you are living through unprecedented climate change and a once in a century pandemic all at once, the idea of resilience is certainly top of mind!

Although the poem didn't begin with eccentricity. Rather, I glanced at a piece about Snowbirds (Canadians who travel south for the winter) and for some reason thought I'd noodle around with the idea. My mind quickly turned to a literal take on the word, and then to those rare sightings of off-course migrators: exotic birds seen in improbable places. My knowledge of natural history tells me that these kinds of mistakes are essential: that they represent the biological diversity that is nature's strength, that provides her with resilience. Because when the environment changes, it's this rich depository of genetic variation that permits quick adaptation.

Which means that conformity is death. Purity is unnatural. And mistakes are the engine of evolution. If DNA always transcribed perfectly, life would have been stuck as primitive single cells. We need outliers. So don't stigmatize and ostracize your local eccentric. Don't just tolerate. Celebrate her instead!

First Kiss - Nov 19 2021

 

First Kiss

Nov 19 2021

We were not touchy-feely.

No one mentioned love,

and certainly never coupled it 

with the pronoun you.

Words were not meant to clarify

but evade.

Silence was even better,

denial, a perfect refuge.

So you learn to project

defend

withdraw.

Intimacy is threatening,

a distressingly alien terrain.

Instead, you're always on high alert;

hyper-vigilant, and armoured well,

elbows sharpened

shoulders tense.

So the first time she said I love you

and you somehow said it back

the sensation was thrilling.

As if by mouthing the words

you had violated some taboo,

transgressed

your own impervious shell.

As if you'd surrendered to danger,

then found it was all an illusion

and there was really nothing to fear.

Your soft underbelly exposed

and there had been no death blow,

no hidden dagger

slipped deftly under your ribs.

Then you managed to say it again,

tongue thick

lips dry with anxiety.

Which she soothed with her own,

rising up on her toes

like a brightly mischievous sprite

as if a warm wet kiss

was the most natural thing in the world.

And for the first time

you felt something electric

light up every synapse

send heat up your spine.

And now for something completely different.

This started out as an uncomfortably confessional poem, and it seems as if, very predictably, I quickly deflected any possible inference that it might be personal: not only turning it into something innocuous and romanticized, but also by reverting -- not even getting past the 2nd stanza! -- to the 2nd person. Which as the poem progresses, gains ever more distance from the intimacy with which it began. Nevertheless, I would feel both dishonest and cowardly if I were to eliminate that single tell-tale We from the opening stanza.

Making Time Material - Nov 17 2021

 

Making Time Material

Nov 17 2021

When, after such a long absence

I returned to the old neighbourhood

it won't surprise you to hear

how everything looked smaller.

But despite some incremental changes

it was still much the same.

Even though the children had largely vanished,

and the street that was their playground

had been abandoned to cars.

Even though the house that once was ours

smelled of exotic food

instead of plain cooking

and packaged soup.

And even though years had passed

and new people displaced the old.

Although some diehards had stayed,

incrementally aging

in the graceful decay

of their family homes.

Time goes fast

and gets even faster,

its passage compressed

as we get older;

as we settle into sameness,

and entire years

fade from human memory.

So it took the sapling

I planted half a century ago

to give substance to time,

its wood

incorporating each year

year after year.

Making time material,

a physical object

that occupies space

and can be seen and felt.

I looked up into its canopy

of overarching branches

and sheltering leaves.

Touched the bark,

taking comfort in its warmth

and pleasing roughness.

And with all my weight

leaned against its trunk,

which was immovable

and thicker than a grown man.

A basic thing, a tree.

But sobering.

How change is relentless, no matter what.

How age has crept up on me.

And also, by my simple act, how I'd left a legacy

in the relay of life,

a baton

handed-off

in the next generation

and whoever will follow.

A living thing, that is certain to outlast me,

rooted in the ground

where life began

for me as well.

Snapshot - Nov 14 2021

 

Snapshot

Nov 14 2021

There aren't many family photos.

When there wasn't a camera in every pocket.

When pictures were actual objects,

one-of-a-kind

and not easily shared.

And when people were more private

and perhaps more modest, as well,

so we never saw the point

of documenting our lives

as exhaustively as now.

But there we all are

in shades of black and white,

in a battered cookie tin

of brittle strips of negatives

and uncatalogued prints;

faces that will remain anonymous

because those who would know

are now gone for good.

The more recent ones are Kodachrome.

But to me, these lack the gravitas

of black and white,

because those old photos seem eternal

archetypal

larger than life,

while colour is disposable

as mundane as everyday.

The pictures are beginning to fade;

which is disappointing

but only to be expected.

Because nothing is forever

not even us.

There we all are, that is

except for my father.

Who, as the privileged male, the head of the house

naturally took charge,

delegating himself

family photographer.

So, in a sense, he appears in every shot,

invisible

but present nevertheless.

Because we're seeing through his eyes.

Because we can't help but sense him there

the object of our gaze.

Because we remember how he fretted,

urging us to smile

squeeze-in closer,

to keep our eyes open

and look candid, not posed.

As if he hasn't gone anywhere

and is still fussily adjusting the lens

fiddling with light,

positioning us

to get the background just right.

So while the man behind the camera

is never caught

he's also never absent.

His shadow

in every snapshot he took.

And in some

a blurry thumb

obscuring the lens

as he fumbled for perfection.

Because he may have taken charge,

but was never very adept

or good with technology.

An abiding ineptitude

I can't help but find charming.

Which is why, for me

it's these flawed but earnest pictures

that truly capture him.

The perfect candid moment.

The ones I love the most.

There really are hardly any pictures of my family growing up. This may be hard to understand for young people today, when technology makes it easy, social media make it almost obligatory, and there is a culture that is much more narcissistic than modest.

If anything, it was actually my mother who took pictures. She was the one who often had her finger on the lens. But I think the stereotypical fumbling dad (the sitcom dad?) works better in the poem. And the technical ineptitude was very much him. Yes, charming in its way. But also frustrating to see him puzzle over stuff that, to me, was obvious!

Yet while both my parents are kind of present in this poem, it did not start out with any autobiographical intent. Rather, the idea came from this line, which appeared near the end of article by Caitlin Flanagan in today's Atlantic (https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/11/caitlin-flanagan-aging-60/620679/):

In this light, that old snapshot looks different. There’s my big sister standing next to me, casting a worried, watchful eye over me as she has for 60 years; there’s a little bit of my mother—my mother! It’s been so long since I’ve heard her voice—and there’s my father, present in his absence, recording the moment with his camera.

Present in his absence. I was struck by that phrase and that idea. Reading it I could immediately see the dutiful father, proudly recording his family while feeling that his own presence was immaterial. And how, more generally, the one behind the camera may be invisible, but somehow can't help but be in every picture.

No Man-to-Man -- Nov 13 2021

 

No Man-to-Man

Nov 13 2021

Their indifference is humbling.

But they have their own lives,

are preoccupied with getting on with it.

And the young

whose eyes are fixed ahead, not back

imagine

that whatever happens

it must surely be a first

in the history of the world.

That the past began

the moment of their birth.

So how old was I

when I learned what my father did

when he went to work each day?

And even then

would I have cared?

Because kids

are the ultimate solipsists,

incandescent suns

whose gravitational fields

attract their own circle of planets,

enough self-referential light

to block out the stars.

Because even famous fathers

do not impress their kids;

there are no celebrities

putting you to bed

or laying down the law.

But still, fame will dog them.

Because the child of a famous father

can't help but bear the burden

of his failure and accomplishment

the shadow and the glare.

Mine, of course, was not.

But I still regret

taking him for granted.

His hard work

the roof over our heads,

his love for my mother

and zest for his friends.

His basic goodness

fame notwithstanding.

So how old was I

when I would come to know the man

understand him whole?

A man

who for all the time I lived at home

was not nearly as old

as I am now.

Or have I never known him this way

and now it's too late to start?

To know the person, not the role.

To express my gratitude

for the industrious man

and the good example he set,

a steadfast presence

you knew had your back

should you stumble and fall.

For the determined man

of surprising vision

whose ambition was quiet but fierce.

And for the family man,

who did not easily proclaim his love

but had no trouble showing it.

Yet it's uncanny

how I've grown to resemble him.

So when I look in the mirror

I can't help but remember;

not just the larger-than-life

all dads are

when their children are little,

but the gentle man

who looked so small

in the vastness of his deathbed.

Can't help but wonder

how much of him

I must contain.

Wonder, because I cannot answer;

no man-to-man

no heartfelt talk

when someone's gone for good.

I think this theme will resonate widely. That it's hard to know our parents as people in their own right, with past lives as well as complex inner ones. When we're young they are simply instrumental presences, naturally there to take care of us. And when we're older, there is all the baggage that accumulates. And, of course, parents of past generations did not communicate nearly as openly as modern parents are inclined to do. So even though as grown-ups our relationship should become more equal,  they remain as opaque and unknowable as ever.