Northern People

Dec 13 2019

The damp air

of a midwinter thaw,

and in the dismal dark

of late afternoon

the chill cuts to the marrow.

How unlike

the recent cold snap,

when the sky was high and dry

and such a luminous blue

it made your eyes water.

When the snow had that clean bright squeak

and reassuring grip

of real winter

beneath our heavy treads.

Now, sloppy and slick

the thawing snow is treacherous;

the forest trails impassable,

floors soiled with grit

from tracked-in salt and sand.

Yes, the living is easy

in such relative warmth,

but in this flat grey light

under leaden cloud

the spirit feels dull

and claustrophobic.

In Siberia

the permafrost, too, is melting,

exposing the bones of ancient animals

the long-dead bodies of men.

Even hair and skin,

saved

from decomposition

and hidden from sight.

And just as the ancient snows

of millennial winter

preserve and conceal,

we northern people

are as unrevealing

of our cryptic inner lives.

Taciturn, and introvert

we are quiet and shy,

keeping our secrets

from even ourselves.

So, will this unseasonable weather

loosen our tongues?

Will we become

like our warm-blooded cousins

in the tropical south,

who laugh and dance and touch

express so freely their love?

I suspect not.

It will take more heat and sun than this

to turn us soft,

to sufficiently thaw

our reserve and repression.

Because we still refrain from talk.

Still balk

at opening up.

Still walk with our heads down

and eyes averted

in this admittedly treacherous slush,

jackets undone

but still holding our tongues

and keeping our hands to ourselves.

As in all stereotypes, there is a kernel of truth that accompanies the reductive generalization. So I think there is some validity to this idea of a northern temperament: taciturn, restrained, even repressed.

(But then, there is an equally disparaging stereotype that attaches itself to southerners: that the heat makes them soft in the head, not quite as sharp or ambitious as we are. And there is a connotation of moral turpitude, as well: that the carnal heat and humidity are conducive to sins of the flesh. So, are we really more moral? ...Or perhaps it's just that we do it inside, behind closed doors!)

I wasn't at all enthusiastic when I started writing this poem. As often happens, I was in the mood to write – after enough coffee and some good intensive reading, it feels as the words are all dammed-up in me and demanding to be released – but with no idea what. So I halfheartedly started-in on another mundane weather poem: hardly of interest to readers, not really worthy of another poem, and probably something I've already written. But, as often also happens, stream of consciousness took over and this poem ended up writing itself. As it turns out, not at all a poem about weather, but rather one about the temperament of northern people: how our inner ice reflects the cold environment we inhabit.

Morning Grind

Dec 12 2019

The smell of fresh ground coffee

intoxicated me

when I was a boy.

Not the bitter brew

forbidden to one so young,

but the heady aroma

that wholly took over

the old A&P.

Which was more a corner store

than today's vast emporia,

with bag boys

and wooden floors

and a mechanical horse

that ran on dimes and quarters.

With the big red grinder

in the coffee aisle

that was fed with Eight O' Clock.

Whole beans, dark and glistening

in the soft overhead light,

redolent

of tropical flowers

fertile soil

mountain air.

The machine was powerful, and loud

and irresistible to boys

who are not big at all,

but small

and ineffectual,

and told not to speak

unless spoken to.

The same smell

I now inhale every morning

in my warm snug kitchen.

Still taking joy

in the small pleasures of daily life.

Still powerless

in a relentless world

that grinds men down.

Hot black coffee, simply made,

unadulterated

with sugar, milk, flavourings;

no sprinkles

no pretentious names.

So, like the child who separates

the peas from the mashed potatoes

so there's no chance they'll touch

I am still a purist.

And the smell is just as addictive.

But the taste is no longer bitter

to my jaded tongue.

Replaced, somehow

by this smooth earthy elixir,

fit for an Aztec god.

A bit of a departure. 2 poems, on a roughly similar theme.

I began the first one with a simple physiological fact; one I thought had some metaphorical possibilities, and would be fun to noodle around with.

It was written on the computer – a keyboard, not pen on paper – and these tend to be less linear, more stream of consciousness. So there was one stanza which didn't really fit, and which I couldn't massage into a form that worked. Instead of discarding it, I used it as the opening of a new poem. It completely disappeared in the re-writing, but the bones are still there (even if I'm the only one who could possibly disinter them!)

Anyway, both poems have something to do with perceptions of reality and the unreliability of vision, so I thought it interesting to present them together.

Aperture

Dec 12 2019

The human lens

yellows as we age.

So after the blinding light of emergence.

After focus has been learned.

After mastering motion

and resolving close from far,

our first view of the world

is the clearest we will ever see.

The infant's immaculate eye

is a a wide-open aperture

admitting frictionless light;

every wavelength, at equal speed

every photon seen.

But softens to sepia

with the steady accretion of years,

like looking through frosted glass

or plastic fogged by sun.

We have gotten older

without noticing that high-beams have a hazy glow

lamps, ghostly halos,

how dim light flatters faces
bold colours have bled.

Because the eye is not a camera.

As neither is reality,

replicating exactly

like a photographic plate.

Rather, it is perceived second-hand,

passing first to the brain

then the mind's simulacrum.

Is framed

by memory and setting

what we've come to expect,

acted upon

by our prejudice and flaws

and blinkered self-regard.

So as we get closer to death

reality

becomes more and more virtual.

When the infirmities of sight

and beliefs that have hardened

create their own version of the world,

and cynical old men

no longer entertain

any illusion of clarity

or that truth is possible.

Who long forget

how the world looks.

And who can never see again

as purely, or naively

through as immaculate a lens.

Detachment

Dec 11 2019

We say seeing is believing

and faith is merely faith.

Yet who doesn't know

that sight deceives?

That the higher the light

the darker the shadow?

Or hasn't been seduced by faith?

Its surrender

and heart-felt certainty,

the tremors of doubt

that only harden our denial.

And what, then, for apostates like me,

whose darkness only deepens?

Who are incapable of surrendering

to the magical thinking

that helps us bear our pain

and carry on?

Yet who sometimes succumb

in a moment of weakness

to the blandishment of belief;

longing to be immersed

in its amniotic warmth,

to feel our boundaries soften

and weight dissolve.

And who also find solace in darkness;

how it conceals and protects

how peaceful it is.

Nevertheless, I am amused

that nothing can be trusted,

the evidence of our eyes

the certainty in our gut.

So am I a cynic

who has run out of hope?

A skeptic

nihilist

provocateur?

Or a materialist

who wonders how real things really are?

Who knows, like the tectonic plates of earth

there is no sure thing,

even the ground you're standing on.

Lava, sulphur, caustic ash.

Will burn you alive

no matter how hard you pray

how wilfully blind.

River

Dec 6 2019

So few colours we have named.

As if the rest

were consequential.

As if the world

was all primary colours;

no hues or pastels,

no dappled, palette, watered-down.

Yet every day, a different shade of blue,

according to the alchemy

of overcast and sun,

how fast and deep

the wild river runs.

All the subtleties of green

in the cool dark forest

it reflects and absorbs,

the muddy silty browns

of its downriver course.

Now, congealed

there is black ice.

And white, where it's egg-shell thin,

as if flash-frozen froth

had been caught in the moment.

And where it's lightly smoked glass

swept clear of snow

I can see the water gurgle

beneath the glazed surface,

a neutral grey

that uncannily conveys

its surging swirling motion.

All winter it flows,

liquid, somehow

and inexhaustible.

An infinity of shades, yet colourless,

reflective

transparent

immersive.

But still, so unimaginably blue;

in a hot dry summer's

limpid light

a still azure pool.

The Distance One Keeps

Dec 5 2019

The line shuffles along

in starts and stops,

small spurts of progress, lurching ahead

then an inexplicable pause.

People drift-in out of nowhere

attaching to its tail end

and wordlessly assembling,

the line rapidly lengthening

as if summoned into being.

Like a proto-planet

under its own gravity,

spontaneously coalescing

from cosmic debris.

So I soon find myself

roughly in the middle

being shuffled along,

unreasonably smug

to have locked-down this spot.

There are the rules of etiquette

that are clearly understood.

The distance one keeps.

No cutting-in

or getting pushy.

And when holding a spot

for late arrivals

that cold penetrating glare

from those standing behind,

the stink-eye

of polite company.

You might strike up a conversation

with the people nearby;

something anodyne, like the weather,

or how unexpected the wait.

The familiarity

of forced proximity,

the fellow feeling

of shared misery

anticipation

our need to connect.

How gracious we are

with strangers

we will never see again,

taking our place

keeping pace

giving each other their space,

the personal boundaries

that remain sacrosanct.

What a perfect metaphor

for fitting in.

And even for belonging,

serving the greater good

instead of ourselves.

So how odd, then

that atomized feeling

when the line eventually ends

and we disperse.

On our own

instead of part of something greater,

however transient

unnatural

mundane it was

to take our place and wait.

If manners are the small change of an ethical life, then I suppose waiting in line is similarly a microcosm of civilization. Especially in our culture, with its unprecedented emphasis on individualism. Because taking one's place and waiting patiently in line is a perfect example of deferring immediate personal gratification for the greater good; and of adhering to a code of conduct instead of a war of the strong against the weak.

There is this odd transient camaraderie that develops with those near you in line.

There is this reassuring sense of order and place.

And there is also a kind of relief: a fatalism in acceding to things beyond one's control; so that you have a kind of permission to do nothing but pass the time, permission to accomplish nothing without feeling guilty or unproductive.

Although these days, of course, pretty much everyone turns to their phone; so we still resist unstructured time and free-flowing thought, and we still have a convenient way to wall ourselves off instead of interacting with the strangers nearby. So, like much else in modern life, even lines are no longer what they used to be!

November

Nov 30 2019

It is November,

and we are marooned

in that orphaned month

of crusted snow and brooding cloud,

when darkness rules

and the dead are buried in frozen ground.

Lost between

autumn's crimson glory

and December's tinselled trees,

the festive season

when we mercifully forget

November's barren bleakness.

Like fly-over country,

the month is a flat featureless expanse

between the glittering cities of the coastal strips

where ambitions are big

and people live large.

Where every day

must surely be Christmas.

All month, it has hovered near freezing,

a wet cold

that penetrates bone.

The snow is as soiled and sparse as a mangy hound,

low sun

exposing the bare brown of dormant grass.

The thin-blooded birds have fled

leaving mostly chickadees and crows,

whose sarcastic cawing

torments the dogs

who futilely bark

at the wily black corvids.

The month when mice invade the house

through impossibly small openings,

a Malthusian army of rodents

seeking shelter and food.

Darkness falls too soon

and the days keep shortening,

while baseball's long gone

but not the withdrawal.

And once again, we're on storm-watch

with freezing rain possible.

Maudlin Christmas movies

appear sooner and sooner,

as we graze, with guilty pleasure

on empty comfort food.

It's as if time has almost stopped,

the calendar unfolding

with glacial slowness,

a retreating mountain of ice

grinding us down

like stranded rock.

And now, as Thanksgiving approaches

all I can be grateful for

is the end of the month,

counting down the days

as the gloom ratchets up.

My apologies for invoking American Thanksgiving. But media make it so omnipresent in our lives, even north of the border, it's hard to talk about November without including that holiday: the one point of interest, anticipation, ritualistic pleasure that stands out this month. (Or, conversely, that nightmare of travel, conflicted family reunion, and the official beginning of the orgy of consumption and shameless waste that will mercifully end only when Christmas ends.)

November, along with March, represent those in-between “shoulder” seasons that feel more like place-holders or biding our time than destinations. A friend recently commented on this – her least favourite month – and as it comes to an ignominious conclusion, I can't help but agree.

I never watch Christmas movies, by the way. Too sentimental. Or graze mindlessly, for that matter. And my dogs don't really interact with crows. In fact, I've noticed that dogs almost never look up. Unless they're looking at me, it's either straight ahead or down their noses at the ground. They never take in a starry sky, a full moon, the flights of geese. And I do not envy the coastal metropolitans. I prefer a quiet private life, and happily live without status or striving. I do miss baseball, though. And the mice are indeed here. I hate trapping them. But, as the poem says, where there is one mice there are many, and if allowed to reproduce unchecked they would quickly overwhelm the place.

Doubt

Nov 29 2019

Above the Arctic Circle

in the months of perpetual night

they have plans to celebrate

the return of the sun.

The ancients

were never so sure

it would ever come again,

contending with fickle gods

their own inconsequence

the mysteries of the cosmos.

But we understand its clockwork

down to the second.

And even though we are Copernicans

still believe ourselves

to occupy the centre,

that the sun

will be there for us.

A thin line of light.

Then the curve

of that great eternal sphere,

like some sleek marine mammal

just breaking the surface

of some calm water-world.

Not quite enough for shadows,

but a softening of the murk

before it seamlessly slips under.

While atheists

surely do not doubt,

do the God-fearing tremble

before His stern judgment?

Concerned

that this hard winter may never end,

the dark infernal reckoning

of the apocalypse begin?

Meanwhile, the ground squirrels and foxes

are well-prepared.

They need no metaphysics

no telescope or dogma

to carry on.

They will celebrate

by living one more day,

scavenging the dead

or in deep hibernation.

As they did the day before

as they will do the next.

Unaware

of their slowly turning coats,

the first stirrings

of wakefulness.

How, like small children

animals dumbly accept,

grateful for the warmth

of the newly risen sun;

however brief

however unexpected.

I was surfing the TV late last night, and stopped for a couple of minutes on a replay of an old Rick Mercer Report, in which he visited Inuvik for their celebration of the return of the sun (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqbk13yiQV8). There were kids in brightly coloured parkas on parents' shoulders, as at any downtown parade. But there was also a great bonfire, reminiscent of some pagan festival. I almost expected to see a human offering consigned to the flames. So what struck me was the intersection of science with superstition and ritual: the astronomical certainty of sunrise, contrasted with the slight unease implied by watchful waiting, as if – just in case – there might arise some atavistic need to appease the gods and the fates.

I think this poem is about over-thinking things, which is what we humans do: searching for meaning; suffering with existential angst; constructing belief systems in order to both comfort and explain. And, with our characteristic lack of humility, insisting on putting ourselves at the centre of an indifferent universe.

I guess I'm the atheist and confirmed Copernican of this poem. No religion or metaphysics for me. I'm content with science as explanation for everything, and humble enough to admit my insignificance.

I think this is the 3^rd poem in a row I wrote directly on the computer. Previously, I had always felt more comfortable composing by hand, pen on paper; then editing by means of the keyboard. I have no idea if my style has changed with the change in process. However, I know this poem and the last one seemed more compressed and distilled from the start, with fewer words and therefore closer to the final version. And seemed to come more quickly, as well.