Blessings

Carved in Stone 12

12

A Ruffed Grouse sought refuge
among the berries
of the Mountain Ash.

I shot him,
not with a gun,
but with a camera.

Intertextuality –
a friend borrowed the photo,
turned it into elegant brush strokes,
and now the painting
hangs on my wall,
opposite the tree
where once he sat.


 
A still-life
face to face with its reality
as early morning dew
forms on spider webs,
hammock-strung
between grass-blades,
bending in the wind.

And what if the spell breaks
and I can no longer see the fine seeds
of the dandelion clock kissed away
by the lisping lips of time?

What is life?
Is it just an illusion?

Commentary:

I shot him, not with a gun, but with a camera. Interesting. I have never seen the need to take the life of living creatures, except in cases of absolute necessity. And no, I have never killed, let alone for fun or sport. Shooting with a camera, that’s my ideal, and when a friend and fellow KIRA artist likes the photo and offers to paint it … well, that leads us into the nature of intertextuality, where reality becomes photo, becomes painting, becomes a text, and you, dear reader, are contemplating all those moments that join us.

The fine seeds of the dandelion clock kissed away by the lisping lips of time. This image comes from my walks in the Welsh countryside around Brandy Cove, Gower, with my paternal grandmother. “What time is it Nana?” I can still see her, bending down, plucking a dandelion, and holding it out for me to blow the seeds away – one puff, one o’clock, two puffs, two o’clock. I recall the seeds, drifting away on the summer breeze. “The Good Lord loved those dandelions,” she once told me. “That’s why He planted them everywhere.”

What will happen when the wells run dry and water runs out and there are no more dandelion seeds? How long will it be before I can no longer see them? Vis brevis, ars longa. The answer to my questions – I care, but I really don’t know.

Angel

Angel

Oh yes, I have been with them, the lost folk, the tramps, the homeless, the bag-women, all the gente perduta. I have stepped on their fingers as they sprawled on the sidewalk. I have trodden on their toes, tripped over their legs, bumped into their stiff, stumbling bodies and stepped in their wasted body fluids. I have stayed out all night, shared a pack of cigarettes, producing another pack or a bottle from the pouch beneath my wings. Such stories they tell, and they tell them in that antiquated language that I first heard hundreds of years ago. They know me now. I won’t say they trust me, but they tolerate my presence, a Jacques Cousteau voyeur, looking into the sea-depths of their despair.
            Garbed in garbage bags, thin trickles of wine and vomit slipping over their lips and cheeks, bloody bandages wound around needle wounds, they have scars at elbow and foot. I hear the warmish blood whistling its snake song through their arteries and veins but death shall have no dominion, not while I am on watch.
            I enfold myself in my wings and weep as these people, my people now, pillow their heads on bloody bandages. Their world is a world of vomit and reek, yet the edges of their shattered lives rip chunks from my hands and fingers, pluck feathers from my wings, tear holes in my heart. Needles I have seen and touched, blunt, shared between three, five, and twenty-five. Round and round, they go, slipping the thin threads of drug-dreams and tainted blood from friend to friend while the blunt points stab at bruised flesh and leathery vein until the freed blood oozes through fingers and hands clenched tight to hold and staunch.
            Night after night I have watched them searching for something just beyond their fingertips. As the late-night diners emerge from their opulent restaurants, I have seen my people fortifying shop doorways with cardboard castles. I have watched them climb inside, shut down the portcullis, and enfold themselves in the plastic that will keep them free from wind and rain. They all crave the bottle’s warmth. They fight and scratch for that which will hold them together, body and soul, that spiritual glue that binds the spirit before setting it on its drunken dreams of freedom. Kings and Queens, tumbled from their earthly thrones, they dream of the paradise they lost, yet think they can find again at the sharp point of a needle or the bottom of a bottle.
            Oh bird-on-a-wire dreams held captive in a skull-bone cage, how you yearn to grow wings, like me, to soar, to fly, to be released from the body, to at last be free …

Commentary:

This book, All About Angels, is available online at Amazon.ca. Click on the link below to purchase the book.

All About Angels
Paperback edition

Last Dance

Last Dance

Ten years ago,
in the Hospice for patients,
the shy lady in the corner,
body withered by cancer,
stood up to dance.

She bowed to the band
then floated into movement,
dancing alone.

She clung to the empty air
as she once clung to her lover.

Nymphs and shepherds
played sweet music at midnight
in this room turned sacred grove,
where naiads and dryads
emerged from the shadows.

Her dance-steps
were a draught of joyous water
from the fount of eternal youth
and lasting love.

Commentary:

Moo offered me one of his paintings for this poem. He calls it Keep on the green side. Every Wednesday, in the hospice, a local band came in to play. Some patients danced, others sat and watched, some stood on the sidelines and listened to the music.

I had the fortune to be present at the singular performance recounted above. I never found out that lady’s name and I never saw her again afterwards. She remains a mystery, like the naiads and the dryads, and the hamadryads, who inhabited those mythological woods where so many of us dream our dreams of one last chance and one last dance.

An Allegory for Gaia

Sponge in Water
an allegory for Gaia

She is in me
as I am in her –
I the sponge,
she, the water.

Our essences blend
with the promise
of an ample life
full of movement.

Eau de vie:
the water of life.

It causes me
to blossom and flourish,
to wither and perish
when her waters fail.

How lonely would I be
if she abandoned me?

What would she be,
what would she do
without me?


Commentary:

A summer without rain led to an early autumn drought. Slowly, water grew in importance. Wells in our neighborhood ran dry. We were lucky and were not affected. But we took great care not to waste water. Eau de Vie – the water of life – the water that brings life and causes life to blossom and flourish.

Without water, we are nothing. We cannot live. Then, when the rains came down, we rejoiced. We walked out into the yard and stood with our faces to the rain, looking up at the sky, mouths open, letting the water renew our hope and faith.

I took the photo, incidentally, from the dining table in my kitchen during a heavy rainstorm. Looking out into the garden, I saw a rush of water, so thick and heavy. Incredible. The photo hardly does it justice.

Hallowe’en

Hallowe’en

1

Today is All Hallows Eve.
Tomorrow is Oaxaca’s
Day of the Dead.
The clocks change
the day after tomorrow.

Today, it’s raining,
and rain is a trick when
it forces celebrants off the streets
and town councils vote to change
the traditional date and send
young children out trick and treating
on a dry, warmer night.

But this rain, after drought,
is a Hallowe’en treat.

It brings a promise
that the aquifers will refill
that wells will not run dry,
and above all,
it brings us hope.

2

Around us, fall thrives
and watches and clocks
will soon fall back.

Trees weep for lost leaves.
Flowers that flourished
now wither and perish.

Hollyhocks topple and fall.
Bees’ Balm is abandoned
by butterflies and bees.

3

I expect time
to change with the clocks
and my body clock
will soon be out of sync
with the tick-tock chime
that denounces each hour.

Hours that used to wound
now threaten to kill.
They used to limp along,
but now they just rush by
and I, who used to run
from point to point,
now shuffle a step at a time.

But still I live in hopes to see
the clocks spring forward
once more.


Commentary:

A great poem for Hallowe’en, even if I say so myself, and I haven’t even mentioned the Blue Jays and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Oh, woe is me. Shame and scandal in my poetry.

Game Six of the World Series on Hallowe’en – wow! – well, one team will get a treat and the other will receive a very disappointing trick. I know which team I support, but I don’t know who will win this time around.

Having said that – with substantial rain after drought, everybody in my province is a winner. And who could wish for more than that?

Carved in Stone 3

3

Death is everywhere.
It rides a pale horse
in the lands
where Odin reigned.

Sleipnir, his eight-legged steed,
carried him round the world.

It also carried the god
to the underworld,
and brought him back,
one of the few to enjoy
a return ticket.

Purity, innocence, power,
the White Horse rules
these Wiltshire hills,
a symbol of hope and renewal.

Above the horses,
hill forts in high places,
lie hidden.

Wave after wave
of earth-wall and ditch
blend into the landscape
making the forts
invisible from below.

Commentary:

Odin > Wodin > Wednesday, in English, not Mercredi (French) or Miercoles (Spanish). English, via Anglo-Saxon, often goes back to the Nordic gods of the invaders. Not so in Welsh for Wednesday in Welsh is Dydd Mercher, the word breaking down into “Dydd” (day) and “Mercher” (which is named after the Roman god Mercury). Alas, it is all too easy to reduce language to its most basic level. But dig below the surface and the wonders of language, history and culture, adoption and rejection, complication and simplification, are all there to be seen.

Our language links us, binds us, holds us across our culture and history. And remember ‘to lose our language is to lose ourselves.’ While to learn another language is to grow another heart and soul.

 

Clepsydra 51 & 52

51

… and thus I sit in silence
     while unspoken words
          echo through
               my empty skull

I cannot produce
     the grit that oysters use
          to smoothly shape
               the pearl of great price
                    that radiates with light

the word
     once spoken
          can never be recalled

word magic
     water magic
          liquid trickling
               from cup to earthen cup

time slowly dripping away
     filtering through my fingers

flickering and dying,
      and the snuffed candle flame
          absent now
               and everywhere
                    the pain of its absence …

52

… and me like so many others
     caught up in time’s dance
          a shadow among other shadows
               moving on the cave wall
                    while the fire flickers

I try to hold them
     as they flit by
          but they vanish
               drifting like dreams
                    half-glimpsed
                         in early morning light

dancers and dance
     must fail and fade away
          when the music ends

I recall snippets of song
     that fan the unborn fires within

what am I
     but a tadpole
          swimming bravely
                into my next metamorphosis

the dancers hold hands
     and sing, oranges and lemons
          as they circle under the arch

“Here comes a candle
     to light you to bed

and here comes a chopper
     to chop off your head

 and when will that be
     ring the bells out at Battersea

I do not know
booms the great Bell of Bow” …

Commentary:

And here ends Clepsydra. One sentence, one poem, 52 sequences. Time, frozen in the writer’s mind, the passing of time, measuring time, internal time, external time, sidereal time, historical time … all linked through memories … personal, cultural, literary, family, events … all tied up with what Miguel de Unamuno called intra-historia, those deep, very personal little histories, that lead us away from great historical events into the minds of the observers, the witnesses, the readers, all with their interior monologue and their own mindfulness.

For those of you who have chosen to walk this road with me, I offer you my gratitude. I do hope you have enjoyed – if not the whole journey, then selected parts of it that may have touched you, or amused you, or aroused your interest. Pax amorque.

Clepsydra 47 & 48

47

… the baited fish-hook
     the tidbit swallowed
          by an eager young gull
 
then reeled in
     by the young boy
          who winds the bird down
              
I wish
     I could control the words
          that appear in my mind

but I cannot I tie them to a hook
     and use them as bait
          for anyone gullible
               that I can reel in


I must leave so many gulls
     to float on the wind
          to hover soar and fly
               in their element

the lonely sea
     and the sky …

48

… I listen to the heartbeat
     of this old house
          hearing an occasional creak

I inhale
     exhale
          listen to my body sounds


my heart rate slows
      the faint tick
          of a distant clock
               no footstep
                    on the stair

a dust mote dances
     on a moon beam

I swim in an amniotic silence
     broken only
          by the beating
               of my mother’s heart

and my own heart
     throbbing
          in response …

Commentary:

So little to say. The poem now says it all. “The lonely sea and the sky. My heart throbbing in response.”

Clepsydra 43 & 44

43

… a mouth stopped with silence
     a pen that can’t write

a river that won’t flow
     no safe place at night

when I lit that candle
     I turned out the light

and sat in the stillness
     all flickering with fright

to whom can I turn
     to make things right

silent in the darkness
     I yearn for a light

a moth in life’s flame
     I flare and burn bright
 
scorching a hole
     in the shade of the night …

44

… but to lose my language
     is to lose my butterfly soul
          as it flutters to reach
              life’s sweet-scented rose

does the soul leave
     the body at night

released from its prison
     of earthbound clay
          does it wander
               in dreams
                    among the stars

Commentary:

“Cette plume n’est pas une plume.” This pen is not a pen. A mere photo of a pen, and I won’t be able to write a word with it. Nor will you. Not that it matters, for we are nearly at the end of our journey. Only eight more sections remain, and then the poem will be done.

I thank all of you who are travelling this road with me. Not much longer. The poem is coming to its end.

Clepsydra 39 & 40

39

… all too soon I too shall move on
     leaving behind me
          fading memories and cloud shadows


yet I recall
     standing beneath the cathedral’s
          great rose window
               on a sunny day
                    my body dressed
                         in a harlequin suit
                              of glistening lights 

in such splendour
     mortal things like words
          cease to flow

I held my breath
     shocked by an enormous presence
          that filled me then
               as it does now
                    with the knowledge
                         that nothing happens in vain …

40


… illumination
     I must find it for myself
  were another to tell me
      where it dwells
            its light would be untrue

only I can strike the match
     ignite the flame
          and trap its warmth
              in my body’s bone cage

when it flowers within me
     I’ll need no candle
          not even in the darkest mine

in Alma, I have seen
     the tide lower
          Fundy fishing boats
               down into the mud

like those boats
     I lack the power
          to resist both time and tide …

Commentary:

I asked Moo for a painting of boats from Fundy, preferably from Alma, lying on their sides at low tide. “Let me see what I am meant to be illustrating,” he said. He read the above excerpt from Clepsydra and told me “You’re navel gazing again. I thought I told you not to do that. Now, have I got a painting for you.” I didn’t dare refuse to post it – he’s had a bad couple of days and it has sharpened his sense of humor – so it’s here it is. Moo calls is – now don’t laugh – Naval Gazing.

“Nothing happens in vain.” So maybe I was predestined to ask Moo for a painting he didn’t have and to end up with one that tickled his fancy. Now that set off a light bulb in my skull. Mr. Dimwitty came to his sense – I have been navel gazing. Naughty, naughty. How many of you remember Mr. Dimwitty, the not too bright schoolmaster on BBC radio? Hold up your hands, and I’ll count them.

Meanwhile, things happen to Moo and me, and like the boats on the Fundy, we lack the power to resist both time and tide. And that’s why we help each other, carry each other along. “We few, we few, we band of brothers.” That was Shakespeare. Nowadays we have to say “we band of siblings.” It pays to be inclusive. Speaking of bands, I saw a man walking down Main Street yesterday, blowing a rubber trumpet. I asked him what he was doing and he told me that he was looking for a rubber band. Joy to the world and help spread the joy. If you don’t like joy, spread Marmite. And if you don’t like Marmite I am sure you’ll love Vegemite. Ma might, but Pa won’t. That’s why it’s not called Pa-mite.