Birds

Clepsydra 22

22

… winds kiss words from lips
      sand creaks
           squeaks underfoot
                    creeps between dry toes

the sand cleanses
     purges
          brings closure
               each magnificent moment
                    lighting a candle

is this beach an altar
     under the rocks’
         shadow church
              it doesn’t matter

mindfulness
     holding each memory
          each piece of colored glass

wave after wave
     climbing ashore
          washing footprints
               memories away
                    closing
                         door after door …

Commentary:

“Wave after wave climbing ashore, washing footprints, memories away, closing door after door.” Everything turns out in black-and-white – here a crow, there a seagull. What does each say to each, when they meet upon the beach? Silence and stillness. No sound of wind or wave, no sign of the tide rising or falling, and what do the birds say to each other, when they meet like this? Two solitudes, mine and thine, and somehow the silence must be broken, or in our separate solitudes we will remain. What if I open my solitude and show it to you? Will you then open yours and spread it willingly before me? Or will you turn away, crow spurning seagull and there’s no going back.

And did my feet, in ancient time, walk upon the beach in Santander? Did they wander over the cliffs at Cabo Mayor? What did I say to the sands in Swansea Bay when, sitting on the steps by the railway station, I dusted the sand from between my toes, placed socks upon my feet, and did up my sandals? Private places, private memories, private conversations live on in the privacy of my head.

A dozen heads, all crowded onto the computer screen, zoomed in so they can be together for an hour or two, repeating their memories to each other – how much did they really share? How much can we know, your life of mine, my life of yours? At what point do those twin railway lines meet at the edge of time? Or are they doomed to a parallel universe where mind and mind, rail and rail, neither meet nor understand? Tell me, if you can, what the crow thought of the gull when they met, that morning on the sand.

Clepsydra 18-20

18

… as free as the birds
     a sky full at North Cape
          where shores retreat
               year after year
 
the big red mud diminishes
     under advancing waters
          sea-threatened cliffs
               undermined roads
                    houses
                         the lighthouse

gulls follow the fishing boats
     herring gulls
          blotting out
               sun and sky
                    above the reef

with its seals
     basking in sunshine
          knowing themselves
               being themselves
                    thinking themselves safe

kings and queens
     of their sealdom
          never questioning …

19

… an osprey
     sudden the swoop
          turned into a stoop

water shattered
     total immersion
          then emerging
               with lusty thrusts of wings

claws clasping
     imprisoned prey
          prised from the sea
               raised to the skies
                    up and away
                         murderer and victim

oblivious below
     the black horse
          with cart and farmer
               gathering seaweed

all of them
     having no doubts
          safe in the security
               of their roles …

20

… while lost in the labyrinth
      I searched for a thread
               on life’s loom

a thread woven
     by an unknown
          unseen hand
               a hand and thread
                    I could never control

yet one day
     that thread
          will lead me out
               from the dark

then shall I see
     the sun’s great candle
          beneath which red rocks
               wave and water battered
                    crumble

here at North Cape
     in a way that nobody
          can understand …

Commentary:

The osprey “emerging with lusty thrusts of wings, claws clasping, imprisoned prey prised from the sea, raised to the skies, up and away, murderer and victim.” The words are based on the photograph. A quiet day, somebody shouted, and pointed, and clickety-click, I was lucky enough to capture the whole thing on my digital camera. This one shot summarizes it all.

The stanzas (16 & 17) that precede this moment are available here. Clepsydra, the book, is one single poem, one single sentence, that rambles on and on. Each stanza stands alone, each poem (numbered) stands alone, and the whole book stands alone as a single sentence summarizing what I have seen and where I have been. Bakhtinian Chronotopos – my dialog with my time and my place. In this case, my many dialogs with my multiple times and multitudinous places.

Albert Camus lent me the phrase ‘murderer and victim’. ‘Nous sommes, ou meurtrier ou victime‘. Quoted from memory. I hope I am not too far wrong. My memory fades as I age. Louis Aragon suggested I borrow his line “rois tombés de leurs chariots” – that I found in his collection Il ne m’est Paris sans Elsa. Here, I have applied it to the seals at North Cape, PEI – “seals – basking in sunshine – kings and queens of their sealdom.” Intertextuality – texts talking to texts and recalling segments of texts within other texts.” Wonderful. Alas, I fear the coming days when the memory may no longer be so clear. ‘What will be, will be’ said the Osprey as he pulled the flounder from the sea and carried him too his nest in a nearby tree.

Sweet Dreams

Sweet Dreams

Amnesia survives in these amniotic waters,
moving in time to the water pump’s heart beat.
I close my eyes and dream. Nothing is the same.

Do I drift dreamily or dreamily drift?
The bath-tub’s rose-petals bring memories –
primroses, bluebells, cowslips, daffodils dancing

beneath the trees in Blackweir Gardens,
or beside Roath Lake, where I biked
on gravel paths so many years ago.

Photos float before me, pictures of moments
I alone recall. Spring in Paris, the trees
breaking into bud along the Champs-Élysées.

Santander in summer, walking the Piquío
as it slumbers beneath the jacarandas.
One winter in Wales, up in Snowdonia,

I ran down a valley between high hills,
on a freezing night, with only the stars
to keep me company, so cold, I nearly froze.

Autumn at the Peace Park in Mactaquac,
with leaves reflected in the head pond.
Or the Beaver Pond with its fall orgy

of gaudily painted trees, leaves drifting down
on this first chill wind, to settle like tiny,
colorful birds in my beloved’s hair.

I remember the look in her eyes when
I caught a falling leaf and put it in
her pocket, telling her to save it,
like a falling star, for a rainy day.

Bird

Bird

The bird came to me
   on the wings of Hurricane Lee.

Carried along by stronger wings
   he perched in my tree.

A new species, he was unknown to me.
   Our own power lost, the usual ways
               of searching were denied me.

He moved from the tree
   to the window feeder and gazed at me,
               eye to eye, as the hurricane’s eye
                           passed overhead.

Free. To come and go at his will,
   but there is little free will
               when the hurricane blows.

A sudden, strong gust
   whisked him away.

Unknown, and a stranger still,
   he soon was lost to me.

Comment:

All my good will and new resolutions went down the proverbial plughole when Hurricane Lee swept in, washed away one of the roads near to me, and left us without power for 52 hours. We lit candles, as much for warmth as for light, and, when dark descended outside, gathered in their flickering glow. The time has come, the Walrus said, to indulge in simpler things. Water saved in the bath upstairs and in an assortment of pots, pans, and buckets, served for the washing of hands, the flushing of toilets, washing the dishes. Food was served cold – but we indulged ourselves with perishables that needed to be finished quickly. The morning face wash and shave, in cold water, no shower, was a throwback to old times. The experience brought us closer together. Neighbors with generators dropped round with hot food and drinks, and all went well. After two days of picnics, we got a bit bored. I managed to write lots of poems though. The creativity of that experience will live on in words.

Pilgrim

Pilgrim

“We think in eternity
but we move slowly through time.”

My daily duties nibble and gnaw.
I slowly shrink beneath their onslaught.
I feel myself diminishing, gradually,
hour by hour, disappearing into myself.

Even sunshine and silver-lined clouds
weigh heavily upon me, some days, when
my legs grow weak, my strength fails,
and my frail and feeble mind seeks out
a simpler way to continue my journey.

I favor those paths that gently slope,
downhill, preferably, and I avoid
rough, stony ground. Pilgrim through
this barren land, close to my journey’s
end, where footsteps are perilous,
stumbles lead to tumbles, I cannot risk
 a fall, for if I fall, like many who have gone
before, I may fall to rise no more.

Flight

Flight

Such a miracle: those first steps to flight
taken by the cormorant over water.
That first one heavy, creating ripples,
the second one lighter, and the third one
scarcely touching the water.

The need to take flight lies deep within me.
Fleeing from what? Flying towards what?
Who knows? All I know is that the future
lies ahead where my bird’s beak points and
the past, a rippling wake, lies behind me.

That white water, trailing its kite’s tail,
tells me where I have been. Machado’s
voice calls out from the past: “Traveler,
there is no road, just a wake across life’s sea.”

Comment: The photo is a golden oldie, one of the first I ever posted on this blog. The poem is part old, part new. In reality, it is a revision, completed today, of the earlier poem associated with that old blog post. It is interesting to compare the two visions – with those seven extra years of creative experience between them. Let me know what you think!

A special thank you to my long-time friend, Dale Estey, for commenting and suggesting an improvement for the fourth line. Spot if if you can!

Fall Migration

Fall Migration

Standing in the sun, watching the leaves
scuttling, skittering over the grass,
listening to the trees, their dry tongues,
chittering autumnal rumors of geese
preparing to fly, their movements,
as they gather, in accord with patterns
hard-wired genetically into their minds.

Animate, they are, and more than that
they are animated by ancestral spirits
that grace grass and water, walking,
delicate, between stark trees, calling,
always calling ‘away, away’.

We too are called, called to follow
the geese on their sky-way high-ways,
where their arrow-heads point us all
along the star paths
of their migrant nocturnal ways.

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
Fall Migration

Grey Dawns

Grey Dawns

Was it just a partial eclipse,
that morning when ash-grey horses
pulled a dustbin sun
across a drab and dirty sky?

Contorted clouds
fell from distorted horizons,
light filtered fine filaments
through to a sedimentary world.

Early morning birds,
startled by this grimness,
ceased their celebrations,
their dawn chorus choked

in doubting throats
so that strange, false notes
would not flit grit music
over garden and lawn.

Sat at my grey dawn window,
in the lull before the storm,
I watched and wondered
when my world would end.

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
Grey Dawns

Loss

Loss

By the time I remembered your name
I had forgotten your face,
and then I couldn’t recall
why I wanted to talk to you
in the first place.

Words and phrases bounce,
water off a duck’s back.
They sparkle like a high tide
rejected by the retriever
as he shakes his coat dry
on emerging from the sea.

This book I read is a word parcel,
a clepsydra of droplets,
a rainbow strung with colored beads,
each scouring a bull’s eye
on the world’s taut literary hide.

Mapa mundi of forgotten lands,
I trace dark landmarks
on the back of scarred hands
and wonder why I have never visited
faraway places with strange-sounding names.

Tourist guide to a failing memory,
I track the trails of drifting ships
as their white sails vanish,
blank butterflies from a distant summer,
floating over a darkening horizon.

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
Loss

A Grouse

A Grouse

It hurts. She is so far away.
I can barely hear her voice on the phone.
It hurts. I can only comfort her with words,
useless words, clichés that will never
take her cares away, how could they?

Ghosts of a nearby past drift silently by.
I wonder what can say to each other,
whether we should chat about the weather,
or whether to let silence hold sway.
I don’t want her to put down the phone
even though we’ll talk again today.

My body hurts with her hurt. I know my pain
will soon go away, but hers – I hope it doesn’t stay.
Outside the window, two red squirrels play.
Words break the silence: I’ll call
you later. Make the most of your day.

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
Grouse.




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