Coming to Earth - July 24 2023

 

Coming to Earth

July 24 2023

A morning mist,

and the low sun

rises through the trees

lighting up the lawn,

blades of grass

a verdant green

and jewelled drops of dew.

A short summer night

before another scorcher.

But now, this cool interregnum.

It's a still life,

a watercolour painting

by a French impressionist

from a bygone century.

Small songbirds

have taken over the lawn,

pecking for worms, grubs

who knows what.

Early risers

just as they say.

Creatures of flight

who are flirting with danger

by coming to earth.

They flit about

on thin bird legs

tippy as stilts,

heads down, intent on their search.

Is it safety in numbers

or the time of day?

I stand still,

gazing on

unobtrusive as possible;

a peaceful pause

before the mist burns off

and the sun becomes unbearable.

A cool dawn

an emerald lawn

industrious birds.

A rare moment

when time has stopped

and all seems well with the world.

Sensible Dogs - July 23 2023

 

Sensible Dogs

July 23 2023

The dogs have a 6th sense

about weather,

hunkering down

on this dull day

of cold blustery rain.

Without a weather report

or even a look outside

they sleep hours more.

Could it be barometric pressure

infra-sound

a sensitive nose?

Because somehow

they know in their bones

and are content to stay.

I watch as they paw the blankets,

excavating a cozy space

to nest in.

Then with great seriousness

circle again-and-again

before curling up

in a tight ball

at the foot of my bed.

I urge them off;

but they simply look up

with puppy eyes,

wagging their tails

and cocking their heads.

I try to hustle them out,

but they pointedly balk

and refuse to budge.

As I said,

sensible creatures

who know enough

to come in out of the rain.

No longer the puppies

they once were,

venturing out in every weather

keen to play.

Like the wild creatures from whom they've come

their default state

is sleep,

circumspect

conserving energy

staying safe.

And domesticated as they've become

are comfort queens,

who know a good thing

when they see one.

But I have no 6th sense

and head out into the downpour,

because there's much to be done

and so little time.

And in our odd family of 3

   —  1 human, 2 dogs  —

it's up to me;

if I don't

no one will.

Procrastination - July 21 2023

 

Procrastination

July 21 2023

No shilly-shally, dilly-dally

lolligag.

No dawdling, lingering

goofing off.

And by all means

do not defer, postpone, prolong.

But still, I procrastinate.

Wait

for the fullness of time,

afraid

I'll fall short of perfection.

So dishes pile up

beds remain rumpled

taxes aren't done.

No thank you notes

clean clothes

unexpired milk.

And half-finished poems

willy-nilly

scattered about.

Is it laziness, or indecision?

Perhaps

I'm too distracted

or wary of critics.

All those brilliant words

that might have been written;

but even worse

the beginning of words

left in the mid . . .

I'm actually the opposite! Almost obsessive about getting started, completing lists, tying up all the loose ends. I suffered from procrastination when I was young, and realized I was allowing perfectionism to paralyze me. Now, I just dive in and get started.

So this poem didn't start as autobiography. It simply began with the fun word-play of the opening lines: noodling around, and seeing where it took me. The ending, too, is the result of the sound of words: once I'd written “unfinished”, the rhymes led me to the only logical conclusion!

One final note: does anyone actually send thank you notes anymore?

Terroir - July 19 2023

 

Terroir

July 19 2023

The olive trees

stand on a gentle slope

in the dry summer heat.

They look stately, timeless, serene,

not so much in service to men

as belonging here.

They are not beautiful trees,

at least not in the supple sense

of youthful pulchritude;

not with their densely tangled canopies

convoluted trunks

small dusty leaves.

But having occupied this land

for hundreds of years

   —   firmly rooted here

    and still as sentinels   —

they have a beauty all their own.

Like a wise old matriarch

have the gravitas of age.

Know their place.

Seem eternal.

The terroir

of extra virgin, cold pressed

comprised of place, soil, weather.

And here, or so they claim, the best.

Along with the generations

who have tended them

they've impassively outlived.

A chainsaw

can take one down

in a few heedless minutes,

the orchard

a week or so.

But this is progress, they say

and there's no stopping it,

as the harsh rattling rev

of the infernal machine

shatters the calm.

Leaving the smell

of faintly singed wood

mixed with 2-stroke exhaust.

The sweet scent

of fruit heavy with fat

crushed in the fall.

And the cleared slope

which will no longer hold.

Aromatic oil

bleeds into the ground,

a bright mix

of ripe olives 

and sandy soil

this land is known for.

But which will soon sour

in the unforgiving heat;

going rancid

in the darkly stained earth.

Because of climate change, ancient olive trees are dying. I heard that in Spain, some orchards are being cut down for wind farms (how ironic!) This is the price of modernity: traditional ways of life disrespected; irreplaceable things treated as disposable. Especially the olive tree, with its Biblical resonance; olive oil, used to anoint and reward (for example, Olympic athletes in ancient Greece); the olive branch, symbol of peace. And even though I personally quite dislike olive oil, I still feel a deep sense of loss.

Rainbows and Unicorns - July 18 2023

 

Rainbows and Unicorns

July 18 2023

I envy the optimists.

They beam, bright-eyed

and hold their heads high,

striding heedlessly

over uneven ground.

Yet while I make my way

peering down

for potholes and stumbling blocks

they never seem to fall,

or if they do

pick themselves up

and carry on, undaunted.

But vigilance

exacts its price.

Worry

is hardly worth it,

when so much can go wrong

but more often does not.

Me, a hard-headed realist,

practical, sensible

prudently defensive,

who is wary of bad endings

and has no faith

heaven will favour me.

Up against the blessed,

those dreamy believers

who must imagine the gods

smile down on them

from candy floss clouds.

Who are irrepressibly drawn

to a brightly lit horizon

at the end of a yellow brick road,

where rainbows and unicorns

invitingly beckon,

and everything ends

well.

Envy, as unbecoming an emotion as it is. Yet the poem concludes (and, considering the title, I guess begins!) with a tone of passive-aggressive derision. So I clearly have mixed feelings. Yes, it must be easier sailing through life as a bright-eyed optimist. But then, I'm proud of the hard-headed realism of my harsh worldview: no sugar-coating; no believing in something just because it feels better.

Are we born like this? If I wanted, could I choose to be an optimist? I think not. I think I was a pessimist from birth; hard-wired that way. Evolution might explain this. Because those tribes in which some members are thinking ahead and considering all the pitfalls would have a survival advantage, and therefore it's more likely these genes would be passed on. So there is a selection pressure that favours pessimism. But this sees pessimism as a positive attribute: defensive pessimism (as the poem says, prudently defensive), which allows one to be prepared for any and all eventualities.

The Recently Bereaved - July 15 2023

 

The Recently Bereaved

July 15 2023

Sit still

with it.

Resist the urge

to fill the empty space.

Words are superfluous;

she doesn't care to listen

nothing will be heard.

Content yourself

with simply being present.

Inhabit the silence,

respect her space,

practice the patience you lack,

because in the fullness of time

she will welcome your thoughts,

a receptive ear

sought out.

In the meantime, grief;

which is slow

and goes unevenly

and may never fully heal.

There is no fixing this.

Simply sit

and allow her to feel.

Anthropocene - July 12 2023

 

Anthropocene

July 12 2023

I know the earth is changing.

That the climate will worsen

and scarcity rule.

That desperate men

will claw at each other

like crabs in a bucket

clambering up the sides.

That the strong

will hoard the spoils

and loot the plunder

as our great cities crumble

and billions starve.

I was raised

in an era of prosperity,

an age of abundance

we took for granted

assumed would last.

So why not believe in the future,

expect that life

will keep getting better

for all of time?

After all

no one goes to war

who's fat and satisfied.

But now

the middle of the 20th century

is where they've drawn the line;

our imperceptible decline

from bigger, faster, shinier

to fighting over the crumbs.

I feel guilty about this;

that the beginning of the end

would coincide

with the year of my birth.

That while I was the beneficiary

of industry,

I was also the instrument

of this runaway train,

the calamity

the climate became

as we partied on.

My entire life

lived in a golden age

and no one even noticed;

the less than a century

when civilization peaked

and mankind strode the earth

like some entitled colossus.

When anything, it seemed

was possible.

Yet here I am

gazing out at the lake

on a summer day

that seems like it always has,

a temperate sun

a riffle of breeze

and a world that's lush and green.

Which, I think, is what got us into trouble

in the first place.

How quickly

we move through time,

preoccupied

by the petty concerns

of daily life,

while the earth

moves too slowly to notice.

And now, after it's gone so far

as to become unstoppable

we will tear ourselves apart,

watching our monumental works

crumble and collapse,

fighting like hungry dogs

over the salvaged remains

and foraged scraps.

And in the unlikely event

anyone is left

and cares to look

this will be our legacy,

a single line of strata

in billions of years of rock.

From the front page of today’s Globe and Mail:

Ontario’s Crawford Lake offers clearest marker on Earth of moment humans began to change the planet, scientists say

“The Anthropocene has gained a Canadian starting line. On Tuesday, an international panel of scientists announced that Crawford Lake, a small body of water located 50 kilometres west of Toronto, has emerged from among a dozen candidates around the world as the place that best records the dawn of the human epoch.

That epoch, they say, began during the middle of the 20th century, when our species effectively became the main driver of global change.

Those who study Earth as an inter connected system maintain that this transition marks not only a turning point in history, but the beginning of a new interval in geologic time. And while the Anthropocene is unfolding everywhere around the world, its arrival was preserved with unusual precision at Crawford Lake. . . . “

Killing Time - July 10 2023

 

Killing Time

July 10 2023

Nothing to do

we complained

in the golden haze

of summer vacation

killing time.

Back when we made our own fun,

and long unstructured days

stretched out ahead

like a country road

that goes who-knows-where,

receding into the distance

and baking in the sun;

soft tar

too hot to touch,

waves of heat

boiling off

its black asphalt surface.

We hung out,

loitering on a dusty curb

and idly tossing stones

nowhere in particular,

riding our bikes

to the corner store

for a frozen treat

that melted in our hands.

Pick-up ball

on sunburnt diamonds

of hard-packed dirt

and weedy grass.

Matinees

in the cool dark,

a mildewed basement

playing cards.

So we managed to amuse ourselves,

until even school

was secretly looked forward to.

And I think now

about endless days

and killing time

and having nothing on my schedule.

Now

when time is so precious

it never weighs heavily.

And so short

I can feel the chill

as day turns to dusk

and night begins to fall.

Famous Last Words - July 8 2023

 

Famous Last Words

July 8 2023



They say hearing is the last to go.

Not sight or smell

and taste went long ago,

done in

by dry mouth

and the flat metallic nullity

of powerful drugs.

So you talk,

presuming someone in there

is listening in.

But what about touch

the most intimate sense?

Even though the delicate skin

punctured and bruised, and easily sloughed

feels cold

and paper-thin.

Was that a fluttering of eyes

and slight turn of the head

at the sound of my voice?

And did the clawed hand

grasp ever so slightly

when I slid in mine?

We all bent close

and cocked our ears,

but there was nothing to hear,

just the whirrr of the IV

and the usual hospital cacophony.

No great pronouncement

or whispered confidence,

no jewel of wisdom

passed on.

The last words

weren't his.

It was me, saying something frivolous

to put us all at ease.

What I should have said

and actually did,

before the feeble grip released

the hand slipped away.

How odd

for a man of words

who loved to talk, and think deep thoughts

that the final act of life

was not philosophy

or rhetoric

or something for posterity

but elemental touch.

In a quiet room

the simplest expression of love.

Head-First Dive - July 5 2023

 

Head-First Dive

July 5 2023

It turned cool today.

I felt an unexpected chill

in the wishy-washy breeze

coming off the lake.

As if this decadent weather

had left me soft

effete

thin-blooded.

What a change

from just a few months ago;

last winter

hatless and short sleeved

out in blowing snow.

In the purifying cold

proud of what I'd become,

hard

tough

thick-blooded.

Season to season

whipsawed between extremes.

And year after year

declining imperceptibly

until there is only hibernation,

cranking up the heat

and sinking in

to my thrift store recliner

under heaps of shabby comforters.

So I dive in

if only to feel alive;

the shock of cold

and catch in my lungs,

the thrill of blood

rising up,

my flushed and racing heart.

Apple-Headed Doll - July 4 2023

 

Apple Headed Doll

July 4 2023

The rotten-apple face

of advancing age.

The boggy features

deepened furrows

collapsing flesh,

inelastic skin

mottled complexion.

Who knows

how the ears and nose got bigger

while everything else shrank,

or why what little hair is left

went wispy and grey

and grows where you'd least expect it.

The turkey neck, of course

gave it all away

even before the rot set in.

But when you look into the eyes

there can be no doubt

the person peering out

is the same,

bright intelligent eyes

as curious and alive

as ever,

the sapphire blue

as vital and arresting.

And what you'll never realize

until you, too, are old

is that he's just as bewildered

by the passage of time

as were you when you discovered

that this aging octogenarian

was once actually young.

That the old

weren't always this way.

That, like you

they once felt like time was endless.

And that the young man

is still in there

despite outward appearances.

Just as an orphaned apple

abandoned in the gutter

still contains its seeds,

concealed

in the soft brown pulp

and shrivelled skin.

The beauty of the seed;

small, and self-contained

and so cleverly made,

with all the sustenance it needs

to begin life,

all the knowledge

needed to live well.

Harrison Ford is once again Indiana Jones in another iteration of the action movie franchise. Here he is at the Cannes premiere. I can easily see the handsome younger man in this, but there is no mistaking the characteristic features of the aging face on even this timeless leading man. My thoughts immediately went to folk art and the apple headed doll. The poem quickly followed.

One Step at a Time - July 3 2023

 

One Step at a Time

July 3 2023

Size and speed.

It seems progress demands both,

and after all

it's a big country

and time is money

and is there ever really enough

of that?

Still, I recite poetry.

Because when I read in my head

instead of out loud

it loses something;

skimming doesn't work.

Never mind

that the human voice is slow

and I'm impatient to know

how it all turns out.

And I still walk the dog

through virgin woods

on trails that seem eternal.

Sure, we could joy-ride or treadmill,

but how better to spend

precious time?

And the great cities of the world

are best explored on foot.

No private cars

through tinted glass

in idling traffic jams.

So not so much a tourist

trying to cram it all in,

as a bohemian flaneur

strolling through the boulevards

unburdened by the clock.

I may not be rich

but at least I'm comfortable.

Because, as any poet knows

less is always more

excess unbecoming,

while adverbs are trouble

and slow better than “suddenly”.

Keeping it small, one step at a time.

Just as it is

in real life.

This poem as a criticism of modernity: the ethos of consumerism, and growth at any cost. After all, conventional economics has nothing viable offer towards a steady state economy. Human nature seems programmed to want. Cars get bigger and roads wider; companies must grow or die; population is exponential' and even people are fatter. GNP rules, and under no circumstances must it shrink.

As I was writing about putting a higher value on small and slow, poetry became a convenient analogy. After all, two prime rules of poetry, as experience has taught me, are just these: that less is more (the small), and that one should never use the word “suddenly” (the slow). Here are further thoughts on each of these.

The first is hard for me. Ideas flood in; there so so many ways to say something, and it can be hard to resist. Not to mention that one falls in love with one's own cleverness. It can be hard to cut a good line, even if cutting makes the whole better.

The second is not so obvious. Adverbs in general are problematic. That's because they patronize the reader, as if she can't figure it out for herself. The context should be more than enough; no hand-holding necessary. And of all the adverbs, “suddenly” is the worst offender.