Past Lives - July 15 2024

 

Past Lives

July 15 2024

I think back

to all the ambition

uncertainty

and self-delusion,

the weight of expectation

that worked both ways.

Classes were big back then,

and all 38 of us

despite our anxious excitement

imagined great things

on graduation.

Celebrity and glamour

hefty bank accounts.

The class brain

with her Nobel Prize,

the big-man-on-campus

glad-handing his way

to high office.

Or the kid who was good at drawing

becoming the next Picasso,

the noble tragedy

of the suffering artist

rewarded with posthumous fame.

Just as we imagine past lives,

when we were all either royalty

or historical,

but never feudal serfs

or scullery maids.

Although the athletes

who peak early

and had plenty of chances to test themselves

were more down to earth;

they pretty much knew

beer league and coaching their kids

would be about it.

None of which

were file clerk

used cars

appliance repair.

Filling out forms or sweeping floors,

irate customers

cussing at you.

And certainly not

telemarketing.

Back when we were all above average,

and the fullness of time

would serve us well.

No thought

that time runs out

and inertia overwhelms.

That the biggest class

is just a small pond.

That the high point

had already passed.

That we would look back

years hence

at such youthful exuberance

and wryly shake our heads,

wondering “what if”

we could do it all again?

The Maid's Room - July 13 2024

 

The Maid’s Room

July 13 2024

In the back-split

my basement bedroom

opened onto the backyard.

Its own private entrance

and the sense of being apart:

the separation I craved

long before

I even knew the word introvert.

My childhood home

from well before

the end of the last century.

In an age

of middle class aspiration

they called it the maid’s room

before it was mine.

At least in the realtor’s reckoning.

As if my hard-working parents

children of the Depression

would have ever considered help.

Let alone a live-in.

A domestic servant

with a place of her own

downstairs,

a low-ceilinged room

with a queen sized bed,

small closet,

and tall-boy bureau

with sticky drawers

and one tippy leg.

Across a narrow hall

there was a 3-piece bathroom

with a locking door

she could call her own,

even though

it was open to all.

     . . . It was always a “she”, of course;

because as everyone knows

domesticity

is woman’s work.

The ceiling was low,

the tile floor cold.

And a strong stink of mildew

leaked from the closet

and got into everything.

Which probably stuck to me as well,

but as with all smells

it doesn’t take long

to stop noticing.

Still, as spartan as it was

I loved having that place

all to myself.

A secluded little haven

away from everyone else.

How I slept so well

on sultry nights

when the basement kept its cool.

And its one big window

looking out

on a lush green lawn

that smelled of fresh cut grass.

A blizzard of snow,

back when winters

were actually cold.

A bucolic autumn scene

in crimson and gold.

Where I could walk directly out

into the stillness of night

when the moon was full,

my slippered feet

snug in knitted fleece

crunching through the leaves.

An Orphaned Patch - July 10 2024

 

An Orphaned Patch

July 10 2024

A small wedge of green.

Walled off

by an on-ramp,

an overpass,

a controlled access lane.

An orphaned patch

the civil engineers

omitted from their plans;

was somehow left unpaved

unimproved.

And at a hundred k

who would even notice?

So it sits, littered with junk,

lost hubcaps

fast food wrappers

empty cups,

chucked out passing windows

and dropped by fitful winds.

Spindly city trees

grow haphazardly,

while overgrown weeds

compete for space;

dandelions, and bittersweet

and that prickly leafy stuff

that loves open ground

and grows no matter what.

But despite its disorder,

unobstructed sun

has left it green and lush.

Not to mention teeming

with butterflies

buzzing bugs

spiders standing guard;

8 delicate legs,

poised stock-still

on gossamer strands of silk,

exquisitely tuned

to every slight vibration.

There are even small mammals

living out their lives

in this small contained world,

scurrying through the underbrush

burrowing into the soil.

A blight

of urban decay

and bureaucratic neglect

a man of any sense

would shun.

Would domesticate the wild,

bombarding it with herbicide

taming it with grass;

a green beachhead

of civilization,

kept at regulation length

free of feral weeds.

Or, if you care to see it that way

a garden of delight

in its perfectly natural state.

An Orphaned Patch - July 10 2024

 

An Orphaned Patch

July 10 2024

A small wedge of green.

Walled off

by an on-ramp,

an overpass,

a controlled access lane.

An orphaned patch

the civil engineers

omitted from their plans;

was somehow left unpaved

unimproved.

And at a hundred k

who would even notice?

So it sits, littered with junk,

lost hubcaps

fast food wrappers

empty cups,

chucked out passing windows

and dropped by fitful winds.

Spindly city trees

grow haphazardly,

while overgrown weeds

compete for space;

dandelions, and bittersweet

and that prickly leafy stuff

that loves open ground

and grows no matter what.

But despite its disorder,

unobstructed sun

has left it green and lush.

Not to mention teeming

with butterflies

buzzing bugs

spiders standing guard;

8 delicate legs,

poised stock-still

on gossamer strands of silk,

exquisitely tuned

to every slight vibration.

There are even small mammals

living out their lives

in this small contained world,

scurrying through the underbrush

burrowing into the soil.

A blight

of urban decay

and bureaucratic neglect

a man of any sense

would shun.

Would domesticate the wild,

bombarding it with herbicide

taming it with grass;

a green beachhead

of civilization,

kept at regulation length

free of feral weeds.

Or, if you care to see it that way

a garden of delight

in its perfectly natural state.

Hurricane Season - July 2 2024

 

Hurricane Season

July 2 2024



Is coming earlier

lasting longer.

And all you can do

is hope a butterfly’s wings

flapping lazily

in the Indonesian littoral

or off the Florida Keys

will make the wind veer a few degrees

and cause someone else the grief

of landfall.

Cause and effect

confound us all,

because there is no telling how

no proportionality.

So despite illusions of agency,

we are, in the end, all fatalists,

who cannot control events

let alone the weather.

And on a warming planet

there will surely be more of them.

Hurricanes

that will be longer, and more intense,

will be assigned anodyne names

like Sally, Flossy, Floyd

that only make them seem

comprehensible.

And if not a hurricane

then some other existential threat

even harder to predict.

So even here

on this small knuckle of land

walled-in by the sea

we thought would be protected

by its insignificance,

there is no such thing as a refuge

exempt from fate.

Because as the poet once said

no man is an island, entire of itself.

And because we are all butterflies,

flitting through air

on gossamer wings

at the mercy of the elements,

the whim

of blind contingency.

An indifferent sea

and winds too strong to measure.

Catching Fire - June 29 2024

 

Catching Fire

June 29 2024

The flame sputtered, wavered, shrunk.

Emitted thick black smoke

before it died,

leaving behind

a pile of melted wax

and a cinder wick curling up,

too brittle

to carry a flame.

What made me imagine

I could rekindle the candle

revive the romance?

A failed affair,

abandoned

long after we should have

even back when it was fresh.

Nostalgia

is a badly focused lens

that softens the past

selectively forgets.

But desire smoulders

longing glows,

so even in darkness

I can't help but imagine

the gutted candle

hotly ablaze.

A match may be struck

sparks might fly,

but there is nothing to catch

no flame to light.

Birdsong - June 22 2024

 

Birdsong

June 22 2024

Lately, I’ve been awakening

well before dawn.

Some days, I’m unable to sleep at all,

and sit in the silence

of a world at rest

as the sky begins to soften.

Too gradually

to actually see.

Until I notice

that the shadows have slurred

trees sharpened,

and only the brightest stars persist.

When it will still be some time

before the horizon even takes shape.

Yet songbirds

are already calling out

in the predawn murk.

Insistent trills

as if competing to be heard,

short repeated refrains

like clockwork

that carry through the woods.

Either born knowing,

or learned

while listening through the shell.

Early birds,

who, on the longest day of the year

can't wait for the sun,

greedy for even more

in our short precarious summers.

While I have confused my days and nights,

corrupted

by artificial light,

drawb blinds,

the impervious brick

that walls me in.

I may resent

how their cacophony

disturbs the morning calm,

but also envy the purity

of their industrious lives,

the birds

living as nature intended

and their kind have always done.

Up with the sun

and asleep with it.

Like the tides.

Like the earth’s rotation

from day to day.

And like its precession

as the seasons change

and it steadily circles the sun,

they are creatures of light

in sync with the universe.

Songs of Summer - June 20 2024

 

Songs of Summer

June 20 2024



The song of the summer

comes and goes

in a few short months.

Like fireworks on the 4th of July

it burns hot and bright

then soon burns up.

Or like the temporary high

of illicit drugs;

addictive

the first time you hear it

but prone to overdose;

until soon

you need something new

to get you off.

Pop music

bubblegum

ear worms

that burrow in all the way.

Singable songs

with catchy beats

and happy themes

of sun and surf,

puppy love

and the primal urge

sultry weather is perfect for.

Songs that work

according to some formula.

But while the music snobs may disagree,

being popular

requires no apology.

And who forgets

the songs of summer

from when they were young?

Like that first love

an old man gets nostalgic for,

they seem even better

in retrospect.

Something to revel in

for as long as it lasts,

which should be more than enough.

Because nothing is forever.

Because simple pleasures

are the best kind.

And because what more did you expect?

The song of the summer

that gets stuck in your head

and seems to be everywhere

all at once.

Until just like that it’s not.

Mounted - June 19 2024

 

Mounted

June 19 2024

I don’t remember it exactly.

Except that it had the power of revelation

and defied belief;

the moment I realized

the bike won’t fall.

That once in motion

a spinning wheel is stable.

That you can point yourself in any direction

and the bike will track itself;

you're just along for the ride.

It would be years

before words like angular momentum

sort of made sense.

Before you moved

from 2 wheels to 4,

and cared more about speed

style

the girl beside you.

But back then

mounted on our battered bikes

we were pirates

fighter pilots

rally drivers.

Mostly, we were free

to go wherever roads lead;

free range kids

with parents safely at home

who were content to let us roam.

Who knew

everyday physics

would liberate us.

Who knew

what adventures we’d get up to.

And who knew how far;

that if it weren’t for back in time for dinner

perhaps to the ends of the world

before the pot roast and peas.

A Taste for Blood - June 18 2024

 

A Taste for Blood

June 18 2024

I watch how, eyeless

my plants turn toward the light;

rooted,

yet not only capable of movement

but so exquisitely adept.

And how they were here

long before we appeared,

and will continue to thrive

long after we’re gone.

When we’re as extinct as the dinosaurs;

but our ignominious tenure

having been so much shorter than theirs,

the magnificent lizards

who once bestrode the earth.

So why are they “mine”?

What presumption

entitles me to ownership?

Especially now that I wonder

at the inner life of plants

and the ethic that should govern this.

How to navigate a world

where only light is eaten,

and how a nocturnal creature like me

who scrounges to eat

is entitled to survive.

And then those carnivorous plants,

Frankenstein monsters

that blur the lines of difference

by which we make sense of the world.

What to make of those

who, like us, have a taste for blood?

Who can only survive

by the grace of another;

the taking of life

with nothing given in return?

How Smart Are Plants?

https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/a-new-book-about-plant-intelligence-highlights-the-messiness-of-scientific-change

A Crumpled 20 - June 17 2024

 

A Crumpled 20

June 17 2024

I extract the soiled clothes

from the basket

one-by-one;

pulling the sleeves right side out,

unravelling the cuffs

they’ll soon grow out of,

and checking pants pockets

before they’re put in the wash,

well-taught, as I’ve been

by bad experience.

Used tissues

and little balls of lint.

Hidden treasures

and old shopping lists.

A random collection

of ticket stubs

store receipts

bent paperclips.

It feels archeological.

Excavating layers,

accumulating evidence,

reconstructing past lives.

So there are no secrets

on wash day.

But with transparency

comes equality;

the democracy of laundry

in the machine,

where stripes and solids mix,

parents and kids

are treated no differently,

and colours and whites

get tossed in

indiscriminately.

As well as an understanding head of state

who thanklessly serves

but also forgives.

Who gets to look back

at the recent past

and smile indulgently.

Gets to keep the crumpled 20

and whatever loose change,

the small secrets

strategically filed away.