Peripheral Vision

Dec 6 2017

It scurries along the baseboard,

as if lost in a maze

and feeling its way out.

I don't so much see the mouse, as sense it;

the distant rim of my retina

on continuous high-alert.

While my conscious mind

is distracted by the obvious;

the direct line of sight

spot-lit,

like jangling keys

before a giggling grasping infant.

So I wonder how much of the world

I've been missing.

Even more, how much of myself.

Of my body,

performing all its complex tasks

with such marvellous skill

unseen, unheard,

as if I were merely a passenger

along for the ride.

And even more, of my mind,

flattering itself I'm in control

when most of my brain does perfectly well,

unencumbered

by awareness

memory

sense of self.

A brief thaw

in a merciless winter

and the mice find their way in.

A new arrival, I think

as he pauses, eyes darting, looking completely lost,

then bolts, start/stop, across the living room floor

into open danger.

I can read his confusion, and fear.

His desperation

for a small dark place

the smell of kin

the calming touch of fur;

a cozy nest

hidden behind the sheet-rock.

Where a mother is grooming her pups;

tiny hearts fluttering,

pink

          ...and warm

                                 ...and sightless.

I experience a real sense of violation when I find mice inside. But I'm getting used to it. Even though they threaten the comforting division between in, and out; between the predictably domestic, and the contingently wild. My house no longer feels like my impregnable castle.

I'm impressed by how infallible my peripheral vision is. How I don't see, but experience the same absolute certainty of sight. I'm almost thrilled by the survival skill of both my unconscious mind and my primitive faculties.

I think the poem does three things.

It recalls a true experience.

It flirts with a philosophical discourse on the nature of consciousness. I say “flirts”, because anything more would be better suited to essay than poem.

And it alludes to the commonality of all living things – reading his state of mind as automatically as I read his furtive movement. And among all living things, mostly mammals. And especially those to whom we're closely related; which, unlikely as it seems, very much includes mice.

Happy Feet

Dec 4 2017

Stiff, used sweat socks

tossed upon the floor.

Hand-knit wool

soft, and fleece, and warm.

Supple cotton slippers, that seamlessly conform

to cold callused feet

pleading for relief.

So it's through the door

and oxfords, brogues, and mary-janes

are instantly kicked-off,

cool athletic high-tops

chucked, or doffed, or dropped.

Along with heels, slip-ons, winter togs

chukkas, derbies, clogs,

patent leather, all-weather

made-to-measure

lost.

Galoshes, gumboots, steel-toes

and orthopaedic walkers,

the posh, and hip, and stylish

tacky, frumpish, awkward.

Tube sock, formal sock

shrunken, stretched, and torn,

new sock, used sock

hand-me-down and worn.

Ankle sock, knee sock, single size fits all,

darned sock, orphaned sock

on the door-knob in the hall.

Happy feet, and toasty toes

and nicely padded bottoms,

whimsical creations

with Santa Clauses on 'em.

The gift of socks

you hated as a kid,

but all a man could want

who has acquired the wisdom

of cold feet

and warm hearts

and hefty thermal socks.

Who is comfortable

in his own skin;

kicking-off his shoes,

and slipping-in

to thick cozy softness.

Ice Fog

Dec 2 2017

Ice fog, as evening descends,

turning the sky

a grey gauzy wash.

Water condensing, as the air cools,

and the full moon, a pale disc

in its softly lit corona.

I walk surrounded;

a dome of lunar light

enclosing me,

while the rest of the world

is lost to sight.

White snow, like a cat's retina

still brightly reflecting

despite the fog;

while the shadows are softly smudged,

a chiaroscuro painting

giving depth to the path.

I move through this space

of gentle contrast, watery shadow

with no need of artificial light.

The moon is enough,

nature provides.

Tonight, no stars.

Even the earth

has contracted around me;

an enchanted glow

like a winter cloak

I gather tight to my chest.

The Painless Death of a Deer

Nov 30 3017

The painless death of a deer,

all skin and bones

on a bed of snow

in a cold impassive wood.

Wolves patiently circling

content to wait.

A faded blade of grass,

sapped of nutrients, and chlorophyll

beneath the shroud of snow.

Its dormant root

in the resting soil

where small mammals have burrowed,

waiting for that first warm day

to feed a fresh green shoot

and send it seeking light.

The frugality of winter;

too famished for waste

too long to wait for spring.

A matter of faith, the return of the sun;

even though

we feel so certain.

When all I know is hunger

for heavy food

and sweet indulgence.

In the world of abundance

modernity affords,

I contend with appetite, greed, and gluttony;

as if consumption could somehow make up

for the wearing absence of sun.

The season of subtraction;

each day

the incremental loss of light,

each night

a small simulation of death.

When the dogs are ravenous.

When squirrels stir

from semi-hibernation,

chirping and chattering

and raiding their secret caches.

When birds somehow survive,

clutching their feathers tight

and turning their backs to the wind.

At most, a day from starvation,

when hearts will race

and eyes will glaze

and hunger mercifully give.

The frozen bodies

of small animals

we never see, or think about

must be hiding in plain sight,

in the crooks and crannies of cities

in deep impenetrable woods.

Partially gnawed,

they will be reclaimed by earth

in the headlong thaw of spring,

returning to the soil

as grass quickly greens.

While the lucky among us emerge

sleek, and fat, and somnolent.

Like overstuffed cats

who have never chased a mouse,

lolling in front of the fire

eyes drifting shut.

I normally don't have much of a sweet tooth. But in winter, I find myself craving sweet starchy food, guilty carbohydrates. (Bananas, mostly. A perfect food, in a way: satisfying, nutritionally virtuous, and with a (surprisingly) low glycemic index; not to mention that it comes complete with its own handle and storage system!)

I find it ironic, our conceit of abundance in this frugal season. And it is a conceit, because so little separates us from desperate need. I say this because our economy is unsustainable: the current mass-consumption growth-dependent version of market capitalism is like a vampire, feeding on the prosperity of our descendants by greedily consuming the world's resources now, for ourselves. And because our economy is so complex and interdependent, the abundance of the supermarket is illusory: a couple days of interrupted power or obstructed roads, and those shelves full of colourful fruits and imported vegetables will empty, leaving us with whatever few tins of sardines we find in the back of a cupboard, a wilted lettuce in the back of the quickly warming fridge.

The difference between appetite and hunger can be explored metaphorically, as well: not just in terms of food, but in the broader sense of want vs need, desire vs necessity.

Animal imagery runs through the poem. Its spine is the contrast between the domestic and the wild.

Winter is hard, out in nature. But merciful, too. There is the painless death by cold: the paradoxical sensation of warmth experienced in hypothermia. And there is the absence of actual hunger, once a certain threshold of starvation is crossed.

Fish House

Nov 26 2017

Four inches of ice,

and already the bay

has sprouted its village of shacks.

Like a jigsaw of children's blocks,

a colourful jumble

of sturdy boxes

in roughly finished wood.

Some, crudely hammered.

Others trim, and snug, and measured exactly;

a democracy of huts 
   –  untitled, untaxed   –

squatting on communal ice.

A study in still life.

The small ritual hole

enclosing calm black water.

Bearded men, planted around it.

A tumble-down shack

on its customary patch of lake.

When an auger sparks, and catches.

The grumbling throb

of an idling machine,

the protesting whine

of pulverized ice;

pitch dropping, as carbon steel bites,

winding higher

as the screw breaks free.

Smoke rising

from the thin corroded pipe

that punctuates each roof,

a frugal stove

glowing warmly below.

I imagine the stale air inside,

a blend of men's bodies, wet socks

cheap tobacco

and strong drink.

While outside

pale-bellied fish, scales glinting

lie in sunlit snow,

immaculate white

stained with bright red blood.

Gulls circling, crows squabbling

excited dogs

scrounging for guts.

And anglers, ever hopeful

the fish will bite, the lake stay frozen,

the rustic hut

cozy and warm.

Men, mostly

who come to get away.

And the prize they will bring back home,

steady providers

presenting their catch

to understanding wives.

Triumphant hunters,

doing as ever

men have done.

The lake has frozen, and after drilling a few holes, my neighbour told me it's safe to walk on: he measured 8 inches, and apparently all it needs is 4. (Both of us, apparently, too old to bother with metric!)

A couple of days later, I finally began catching up on my Prairie Home Companion recordings, hours and hours of which I've been saving from the last couple of seasons before Garrison Keillor retired. Keillor has some tried-and true-tropes, and the familiarity of these is one of the great pleasures of his Lake Wobegon stories. And, true to form, the first monologue of my first episode evoked the usual romanticized image of fishing shacks in a northern winter on a Minnesota lake; an image that stuck with me, and for whatever unknowable reason, demanded a poem.

So the 4 inches was a natural starting point. The rest of it: stream of consciousness, as usual. Especially since I've never spent a second in a fish-shack, or run an auger, or hardly fished at all. So I can't vouch for accuracy. And I'm not sure if there's any point to a poem like this. Except that it's fun to write (and, I hope, to read). And maybe gets at a version of manliness that has a certain appeal, despite its essential shallowness; and that has a modicum of truth, despite verging on caricature. But mostly, as the poem says, it's a still life; and since I have absolutely no talent with a brush, affords me the great pleasure of trying to paint with words.

Jellyfish and Aqua-Men

Nov 24 2017

The mid-winter thaw

is becoming predictable

in this age of extremes.

The atmosphere thickening,

the world on thinning ice.

Like an old couple, re-breathing stale air,

sunk

into over-stuffed chairs

in their over-heated home.

The smell of mildew, boiled cabbage,

the pulpy must of books.

And oceans, like an acid Coke

without the fizz or can.

Or stewing in a tepid bath

so long you wish you hadn't,

a scum of soap, and bits of skin

a ring of grunge and lather.

So I listen to the dripping eaves

as if counting down the seconds,

clomp along in gumboots

through sloppy sucking slush.

Wet snow

gloppy as cold oatmeal

in the dull grey light,

and that wet penetrating cold

that chills to-the-bone

despite the mild weather.

They say a high pressure system is on its way,

a brisk west wind

and clear blue sky.

When the ground will freeze

into beaten metal

that could use some fresh white camouflage.

But still

the water-planet warms, its trackless oceans rise.

Is this

where our feckless journey ends,

webbed and finned submariners

as our ancient forbears began?

Jellyfish and aqua-men

and not much else,

drifting through the fabulous city

at the bottom of the sea;

skyscrapers, thrusting up

from still black depths,

dark abandoned streets
choked with rust, and silt, and weeds.

As the comments that introduce this blog say – and which still hold, even though they were written 10 or so years ago – I assiduously avoid writing poems about politics and advocacy and issues of public policy. Because that's exactly what the essay, which is so much more suited to argument and debate, was made for. And because poetry – which should show instead of say; should allude, instead of comprehensively cover; and should feel, instead of analyze – can hardly do justice to complicated issues. Preachy poetry sounds heavy-handed and pretentious. No one wants to sound sanctimonious, self-righteous, and pious. And when poetry gets didactic and argumentative, it just doesn't work.

But sometimes, a poem grabs me by the nose, and I can't help but follow. So when I looked out the window, and thought a poem about the predictable mid-winter thaw – even if more unpredictably frequent and intense – might be something to play around with, it was pretty inevitable that climate change would shoulder its way in. And anyway, it seems about time: since climate change is something I feel so strongly about, my persistent avoidance of the issue has come to seem insincere, as if I'm betraying a fundamental principle.

I hope I've succeeded in making this a poem, and not a polemic. That I resisted arguing, stating, and laying out all the science and culture and politics that plague this issue, and instead simply focused on imagery and simile and surprise, on word-play and sound and musicality. That I managed to say something big; but say it in a small way. Which, paradoxically, can be much more powerful: by sneaking up on the reader; by making a more personal connection.

My original title was Re-Breathe. I thought it captured the nub of the issue, but in a way that's small, relatable, and emotionally affecting: distilling the complicated issue of pollution down to re-breathing our own stale air, swimming in our own tepid bathwater. But then, I ultimately couldn't resist Jellyfish and Aqua-Men. It's the kind of intriguing title you see in a table of contents, and have to turn to immediately just to see what it's about.

Children Safe in Bed

Nov 19 2017

On a still winter day

on a solitary walk

into dark brooding forest

I stop,

contemplating silence.

But even here

the squeak of cold dry snow

crunching underfoot.

The rush

of my own hot blood

pulsing in my ears.

Frigid air

funnelling through

my dripsniffling nose.

Or pause, chopping wood

sweating in the cold.

The crack of an axe

on seasoned wood

that splits clean and true;

the hollow ring

as pieces land

on a solid concrete pad.

And anarchic thoughts

that ricochet and multiply

despite me,

making their own insistent noise.

A cacophony of voices

out here in the wilderness

as loud as city streets;

demanding attention

yet desperate for rest.

The succession of stars

as darkness deepens

in the silent vacuum of space.

Wood-smoke, curling-up
a roof groaning with snow,

a crackling fire, shedding sparks

and children safe in bed.

But still, the sounds in my head

I am helpless against.

As the body in which I live

does its unseeable work.

As my mind rambles on

its desultory walk

through a still and darkened woods.

As the axe drops

of its own weight

and my hands come up again.

Only the rhythm

of a steady gait

to ground me.

The regular thunk of the axe

keeping body and soul in step.

An Atheist Prays

Nov 16 2017

Can an atheist pray?

Perhaps the secret to his prayers

is the certainty

they have no effect.

So the non-believer

has no hope of intercession.

Is not asking for the grace

to do the right thing

or have His will revealed.

Is not bargaining for love

justice

strength.

No, an atheist's prayer

is an intentional act

of gratitude

and wonder

and praise.

For the accident of birth.

For improbable life

on this unlikely planet.

For the sweetness of fruit

plucked from its stem

on a hot summer day,

warm juice

sticking to his fingers

dribbling down his chin.

An expression

not intended

for omniscient eyes and ears,

but simply to be said

for its own sake.

To intensify the wonder.

To clarify

those moments of transcendence

he feels his boundaries soften

attachments fray.

I cannot reconcile

the virtue of humility

with the personal God

who accompanies the faithful.

Because I am insignificant,

unworthy of such attention.

And also because

I do not believe in justice

when evil so often prevails,

cannot abide myths

of mercy and love

when the good too often suffer.

I do not kneel, clasp hands, close my eyes.

Do not repeat

the prescribed incantations

or speak from the heart

or cry-out in extremis.

But I still do right,

if only because

I choose to be the kind of man who does.

Still give thanks,

if only because

the countless contingencies, and accidents

and blind intersections of fate

that led to this

are so much more marvellous

than any man-made god

who simply waved it into being.

The consolation of prayer is seductive

and I, too, feel its allure.

And I also know that faith is hard

and how the faithful struggle.

How its constant companion is doubt,

and how the space between the two

is filled by prayer.

So many voices

rising up, all at once

in a symphony of longing,

new ones chiming in

as weary ones decay.

Who ask for nothing.

Who sing their praise.

Who give thanks

for the sweetness of days,

the warm touch

of night's embrace.