Month: January 2021

Bottle House, PEI

Light through glass, darkly: bottles set in one of the bottle house walls in PEI. The gardens are wonderful and well-worth a visit.

Bottle House, PEI
            The day begins with flowers: at the entrance, beneath the windows, flowers everywhere, a delicacy of scent. Beyond these flowers, even more flowers, then playthings in the garden: a child’s paradise, these sculptured faces, this glass among the trees, sun and shade, the fountain’s water, this dream of an old man, kept alive now by his children, a dream of health and sanity and peace out by the bay, where the mud red waters roll and the tide’s hand grasps at the land and pulls it down with watery fingers.
            Everywhere: faces and elements of faces: a nose, eyes, a mouth, open in surprise. Carved wooden faces, glass faces, pottery faces, flesh and blood faces, grandma’s face, grandpa’s face, then the grandchildren.
            Tourists travelling, old islanders returning to see family and friends, young islanders returning to visit the almost forgotten farms which their families worked a generation or three ago, before their exodus from the land.
            “This was grampy’s house!” they say or “that was my grandmother’s farm!” as if a life could be reborn in that pointed finger, those casual words. How many memories are snapped in each picture? How many lives are caught in this snapping of the fingers as the past is instantly summoned and perfection is bottled for a second or two in the magic of this house, this garden where the builder’s spirit roams. Sit still awhile. Be silent: you may hear him breathe, glimpse him, for a second, staking out the flowers, extracting a weed, checking the set of the concrete foundations, polishing a bottle, resting on a wooden seat, avoiding the slow snail on the path bejewelled by rain-drops from the trees or spray from the fountain. For where there are flowers, there must be water and rain and peace and happiness and all good things, glimpsed darkly through smoked glass yet grasped so smoothly in the sun’s bright light.
            This is the house of bottles, the glass house, where rough winds are shunned and the bottles are set in concrete. It is a museum of light and dark, the creation of sun and shadow as sunshine fails and the lighthouse’s flashlight beam reverberates from glass to stone and back again. Shapes, shadows, memories curved and carved in glass, set in glass, this shimmering beacon this glass house, this light house built as a heaven-haven for harboured ships and the soul’s refreshment, here, in these gardens, among these bottles, and at the chapel door, an angel-in-waiting.

Angel or fairy? It doesn’t matter. She was a gift one morning, when we visited. In this photo you can see how the bottles are set in the wall.

Three links to the Bottle House, PEI.

https://moore.lib.unb.ca/poet/Bottle_House.html

https://moore.lib.unb.ca/poet/Bottle_House_2.html

https://moore.lib.unb.ca/poet/BH3_Gardens.html

R.I.P.

Tigger blowing his coat in Spring and waiting on the picnic table for his daily grooming. Some days I am convinced he is still out there, waiting for me.

What’s in a name?
            At the Farmer’s Market there are fourteen puppies in a cardboard box. One of the puppies, still blind, clambers whimpering over the side of the box and totters toward me. An elderly lady picks him up, thrusts him towards me and says:
            “Here: he’s your dog. He wants to be with you!”
            “No way, Lady!” I say and turn away.
            When I exit the market, I walk past the dog box. There are five dogs left but the one that wandered in my direction has gone. The salesman calls out to me: “Hey you!” He walks towards me. “That woman said you’d be back for your dog. Here: take him!” He unzips his coat, and there’s the dog, snuggled against his chest.
            “When was he born?” I ask.
            “January 16!” comes the reply.
            January 16 is my birthday. Today is March 8, the anniversary of my mother’s death. The dog is 53 days old, much too young to leave his mother.
            When I get home, my wife tells me to take the dog straight back to the market.
            “I can’t do that!” I say. “The man will be gone by now.”
            “But we don’t know anything about the dog!”
            “I’ll clean up after it.” I say. “I’ll feed it and train it.”
            “You’ll have to put it in a cage.” She tells me. “I’m not having it peeing and pooping all over the floor. You know why they’re called poopies.”
            Later that evening, I force the little puppy into the old dog’s crate, and I retire to bed. No sooner have I gone upstairs than there’s an unholy noise from the kitchen.
            “Help me!” I say to my wife.
            She laughs. “Not a chance! You know the rules!”
            Down in the kitchen the puppy is in distress. I take him out of his cage and he waddles and wags and promptly pees. I clean up after him and wonder what to do. The cage isn’t a solution. There’s no box in which to put him and any form of captivity, like a board across the door or a baby’s gate, sets him howling again. I gather my sleeping bag and a couple of cushions and I lie down on the kitchen floor. He immediately snuggles up to me, finds my finger, and sucks on it.
            I get up off the floor, make my way to the fridge, open the door, and pour a glass of milk; for the rest of the night, every time the dog gets restless, I stick my finger into the milk and the dog sucks my finger. I spend the next week doing this.
            While I’m lying on the floor, I study the dog.
            “What is your name?” I ask him constantly.
            Then, one night, as I watch him bounce across the room towards my milky finger, I know what to call him.
            “Tigger!”
            If I had waited another week, I might have called him Pooh!
            Tigger never leaves me. He is like an orphaned duck who follows the first human being who feeds it. Tigger follows me around the house with his nose behind my knee and if I stop suddenly, he bumps into me. My wife has started to call me Dada Duck. I now call her Mother Duck and our daughter has been renamed Baby Duck. Tigger has a second name: Dada Duck Dog.
            We have a little corner piece on our lot where the roads join and all the dogs stop, including mine. I went out there one day and put up a large sign with “Pooh Corner!” written on it. Beside it I placed an arrow which points “To the house!”
            All the children on the block love Tigger. When he came home, he weighed 6 pound and covered six tiles. Full grown, he weighs 110 pound and covers 108 tiles! He is gentle and well-behaved and everyone adores him. Some of the children want to buy a little saddle and ride on him, he is certainly big enough, but I won’t let them do that. The children on the block now call me Christopher Robin. At Christmas, they bring me pots of honey.
            As eleven years went by, Tigger grew old and slow. He developed cancer and had arthritis. On fine days he was fine, but on damp days he could hardly place one foot in front of the other. He had difficulty climbing the stairs and would sleep for hours rising only for his morning and evening walks and his food.
            Yesterday, el cinco de mayo, at 12 noon, Tigger passed away.
            Today, there is a little white cross at the corner of our lot. The children have laid a circle of flowers around the cross. On it somebody has painted: R.I.P. Tigger.

The Red Room

I looked for a picture of music, but could find nothing. No Carlos, no flute, no nothing. So, I invite you to use your imagination: just pretend these are the notes of an Andean flute, floating in the early morning air. Now close your eyes and listen carefully. Can you hear the music?

The Red Room

Carlos makes music on his flute.
He lives in the Green Room,
with its door just opposite mine

He creates the highest note of all
and it floats before me in the air,
a trapeze artist caught in a sunbeam
and suspended between the hands
that fling and those that catch.

His musical rhythms are different.
I try to follow his fingering.

In the space between notes,
tropical birds flash jungle colors
as they flit between flowers.

With a whirring of wings,
all music stops,
save for the robin’s trill
refreshing the early summer
with his eternal song.

Comment:

I finally found a photo of Carlos.
Here he is, in Kingsbrae Gardens,
playing Beethoven’s Ode to Joy
on ‘half-filled’ water bottles
tuned to play a perfect scale.
Like an Andean bird, the man
could pluck notes from the air
and fill the world with music.

Light

Early morning light in the Red Room at KIRA. Such a splendid invitation for the enlightened mind to write poetry about the splendors of light.

Light

This fragile light
filtering through
the early-morning mind
filled as it still is
with night’s dark
shadowy dreams
their dance demonic
or perchance angelic
as light rises and falls
in time to the chest’s
frail tidal change
the ins and outs
of life-giving breath

Bright motes these birds
at my morning window
feathered friends
who visit daily
known by their song
their plumage
their ups and downs

they dazzle and sparkle
cracking the day open
with their joyous songs

Daybreak in the Red Room, KIRA

Dawn from the window of The Red Room, KIRA, June 2017.

Daybreak

… early morning sunshine
creepy-crawly spider leg rays
climbing over window and wall
my bed-nest alive to light
not night’s star twinkle
but the sun’s egg breaking
its golden yolk
gilding sheet and pillow
billowing day dreams
through my still sleepy head …

… the word feast festering
gathering its inner glimpses
interior life of wind and wave
the elements laid out before me
my banquet of festivities
white the table cloth
golden the woodwork’s glow
mind and matter polished
and the sun show shimmering
its morning glory …

Comment: It seems like only yesterday, though three and a half years have slipped swiftly by. Each summer I am envious of those chosen to represent their artistic disciplines at KIRA. The joys of waking in the Red Room and of writing at the desk there will stay with me for ever. It was pleasure and a privilege. And still I live in hopes to see sunrise from the Red Room once more. This poem incidentally is from my poetry collection entitled One Small Corner. It was written at KIRA (Kingsbrae Gardens) in the month of June, 2017. One Small Corner is available on KDP and Amazon. Here is a link to the KIRA Video.

Dawn at KIRA

Dawn
at
KIRA

1

A fiery wedge, fierce beneath
black-capped clouds, alive
the firmament with light,
breaking its waves over woods,
waters, tranquil the bay, grey,
yellow-streaked, then blue,
the new day dawning,
driving night away,
false shadows fleeing.

2

To rock this new born babe,
to swaddle it in a cloak of cloud,
disguised for a moment its promise,
nature nurturing heart and mind,
filling the flesh with memory’s
instantaneous flash breaking its light
into the dark where no light shone,
fearful, the dream world,
gone now, dwindling, as day light
shafts its arrowed flight.

3

How thoughtful My Lady
 who placed me here,
at this desk,
at this window,
 at this moment of time.

Glorious, this day-break:
words no justice can do
to peace and light,
this early morning,
filtering sunlight
through the waking mind,
relighting the fires
within the heart,
and glory
a word’s throw away
outside this window.

Lighthouse

A lighthouse to light your way, shining to make the night as clear as day and to highlight any obstacles that might stand in your way.

Lighthouse

            Once upon a time that lighthouse on the quay was a young boy who sat within the shadow of his father’s tale. He sensed he would never feel the power of his own words because he didn’t seem to have any on account of the black hole inside him that swallowed everything up. He thought he would never know the joys of creating his own myths, telling his own story. He thought he would never come to grips with storm music, wind and rain, a lost path sought and found. He longed for someone to gift him a rainbow, with or without its pot of gold. He also thought that the fatal shadow, cast upon a child by a father, would always be there.
            One day, the early morning sun knocked on his bedroom window. He drew back the curtains and let in the light. That day, he emerged from the shadow and saw that the world was bright and filled with sunshine. Each morning, he breathed in the sunlight, felt it flow through his body. His heart pumped new blood and he was refreshed by the joy of living, of being himself, of being nobody but himself, unique and wonderful, subject to nobody’s wishes and whims. Gradually he grew into the person he was always destined to be.
            The sun’s rays lit up his face and eyes. Sunshine flourished within him and renewed not only him but all that he touched. Light flooded out like the beam from that other lighthouse, over there, on those rocks, that was put there to help and guide wayfarers and seafarers lest they become lost at sea.
            Lost, he found himself. Found, he centred himself. Joy and hope, belief and knowledge took root under the sun that each day nourished his body, soul, and spirit. Renewed, light flooded from him. He burned like a bonfire or a beacon and became one of those special lights that enlighten the world. He became that lighthouse.

Comment: One of the prose poems from Tales from Tara that slipped in here by accident. I have included it for, and dedicate it to, my good friend and fellow writer, Judy Wearing, to wish her well with health and strength in this new year that is now turning into something special.

Thin Ice

Thin ice, light snow, and the crows’ feet of age marking the earth face with graven beauty, scars like those made by time’s tick-tock arrows.

Thin Ice
Vulnerant omnia, ultima necat

I walk on thin ice
at the frayed edge
of my life.

I search for the key
that will rewind me,
but I fail to find it.

Who will winch up
the pendulums on
my grandfather clock,
resetting it
in spring and fall?

Who will watch
time’s sharp black arrows
as they point the path
of moon change
and the fleeting hours?

Each hour wounds me.
Who will tend me
when that last one kills?

To be a writer ….

Photo by my good friend, Geoff Slater. Books by yours truly, who stayed on the bus and believed.

To be a writer ….

He who would true valor see,
let him come hither.
One here will constant be,
come bad or fair weather.
No line length can him fright,
he’ll with a paragraph fight,
and he will have a right,
to be a writer.

Those who beset him round
with dismal stories,
do but themselves confound:
his strength the more is.
There’s no discouragement
will make him once relent
his first avowed intent,
to be a writer.

Rejections nor bad critics
can daunt his spirit.
He knows he at the end
will a book inherit.
So critics fly away,
he’ll fear not what they say,
he’ll labor night and day
to be a writer.

Comment: John Bunyan tempted me and I fell into temptation. In fact, as my good friend Oscar Wilde once said: “I can resist anything except temptation.” So, ladies and gentlemen, change the he to a she or the pronoun of your choice, turn the writer to a sculptor, stoneist, poet, playwright, painter, novelist, dramatist, comedian, song-writer, singer. Breathe deep. Believe in your own artistic talent and remember: “Genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration.” Remember this too: “You’ll never get to Vancouver by bus, if you get off the bus at Montreal or Toronto.”

Collateral Damage

And that’s not all they checked: a regular Spanish Inquisition. Post Covid-19 it has all fallen silent. Those doctors don’t call anymore.

Collateral Damage

Once a month, they used to stick
a needle in my arm and check my PSA,
cholesterol, and testosterone:
blood pressure rising, cholesterol high.

The doctors kept telling me
it was a level playing field
but every week they changed the rules
and twice a year they moved the goal-posts.

Monday Night Football:
a man in a black-and-white zebra shirt
held a whistle to his lips while another
threw a penalty flag. It came out of the tv
and fell flapping at my feet.
Someone on the field called a time out.

I haven’t seen my doctor for three years.
My urologist has been silent
for more than eighteen months.
It’s been two years since I last spoke
with my oncologist.

I have become collateral damage.
My body clock is ticking down.
I know I’m running out of time.

Comment: I know I am not the only one to have fallen between the cracks in the medical service. Nor will I be the last. I don’t want to cry ‘wolf!’ and yet I feel as though I have been completely rejected. A year after I recovered from my cancer, I received a survey asking me to assess my post-cancer treatment and services. I read it and cried. I did not even know that the services I was being asked to assess were even being offered. I had certainly received none of the follow-up services. “A law for the rich and a law for the poor” indeed. And so many cracks between so many floorboards with so many people falling through. This is not a rant: it is a warning that all of us must look out for ourselves. I can assure you that if you don’t care for yourself, nobody, but nobody, except for your nearest and dearest, will give a damn for you either.