Blessings

Swans Swimming

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Swans Swimming

You swim so much better than I:
one length of the pool, then two
and your grace in the water is fluid,
like a swan’s. I think of white feathers,
dark feet paddling under water.

Swans follow the ferry as it crosses
the River Stour. Yellow bills, sharp
over the side of the boat, stretch
for the dry crusts the ferryman
keeps in a plastic bag by the engine.

When he smiles at you, my stomach
tightens. When he nods, you break
bread, pinch it tight in rigid fingers,
and offer it to the swans. Round, black
buttons of eyes judge the exact distance.
Can these sleek, folded wings really
break an arm or a leg? Serrated edges
on wicked bills make short work
of stale bread even if it is iron hard.

After a little while, the pool’s chlorine
stings our eyes. Swimming side by side,
our eye-lids tightly closed, we dream
our way across the pool. Ten lengths,
twenty: our world is a watery vision
of a weekend package deal: paradise
for two. Your body above me now,
locked together in an ancient dance,
Leda and the Swan performed to perfection.

 

Secret Garden 2

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Secret Garden 2

Five a.m.: The moon on the back porch
shines with  light as bright as day. It’s cold,
much too cold for August. Orion is back. To the left,
in the East, he has hoisted himself over the horizon.
Winter can’t be far behind.  Upstairs, in bed, I can
hear you twisting and turning, looking for me in your
sleep. I am not there. The garden is magic beneath
the moon-shadow playing on flower and plant. Withered,
it is all dried up from summer’s heat. A false light
casts moving shadows as whispers of clouds murmur
close to the moon’s ear. Orion heralds the bitterness
to come. The long bright winter nights, aurora borealis,
more than a dream, a vision dancing in brittle
air that crackles and snaps in changing sheets of color.
I know you are there, upstairs, waiting for me,
hoping I will sneak quietly back to bed,
waiting for my footstep on the stair.
What will you do when I am no longer there?

Predicting My Death 2

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Three Poems Predicting My Death before Yours

2

There never was anybody else but you. Too late now when
you’ve discovered this to tell you that there probably
never will be anyone else. Middle age: I look back on all
the things we’ve done together. Shall I count the ways?

No: I’ll make a list. So often we’ve sat together at the table
planning the next set of duties that will keep us occupied
by driving us apart. But of all the people in the world
you’re the only one who doesn’t need a list of what we’ve done

or haven’t done. Goodrich Castle, last year in England,
was your discovery. We went there together at your instigation.
A part of you that will always be me, that first discovery
of ruins, new to us, growing from red bed-rock. I thought I had

seen everything worth seeing till I looked on Goodrich,
explored its towers, its labyrinth of connecting rooms.
Civil War tore down the curtain walls, fired the stables,
driving the horses wild with fear. Sometimes, at night,

I can feel that fear pumping through my veins. Knowing
I will die before you, knowing I will leave you alone
to defend yourself between curtained walls, isolated,
besieged by the same memories that mill in my mind.

Secret Garden

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Secret Garden 1

Being the secret love poems
I write to Clare at midnight
while she is upstairs, asleep.
They make up for the things
I can no longer say because
I am uptight, or under pressure,
or working too hard. Or maybe
because we are quarreling over
something stupid. So these are
some of the seeds I wanted to plant
but never did because I was busy.
They are also the things
that I would like Clare and Becky
to remember me by if I should
suddenly pass away without being
able to say good-bye. My parents
left me nothing but bitterness.
I want my wife and child to have
a garden they can wander through
without my being there, knowing
I have cultivated these thoughts,
at night, sleepless, without them.

Catching Crickets

 

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Catching crickets, caging them, and making them sing

We track them through their courting ceremonies
hunt them down by the noise they make
clutch them tight between anxious fingers

We weave glass jails
sentence them one by one to green imprisonment

At day’s end we ferry them to city apartments
incarcerate them like canaries in their cages
and wait for them to sing

At first they are silent in this strange environment
we feed them with bread dipped in brandy and wine
and sooner or later they sing in their captivity

Now they will not eat
they await the liquor that burns them
into fiery tongues of song

 Our midnights are haunted by their spirituals

Commentary: This is a “Golden Oldie”going back to when we were living in Santander, Spain. When we visited the beach at Noja, we would lunch with our Spanish family and all their children on the grassy headland overlooking the sea. After lunch, the children would hunt for crickets. When they caught one, they would weave a grass jail from blades of grass and place the crickets in there, one by one. Then, when they went home, they would bring the crickets with them and cage them. The crickets usually ‘sang’, but if they didn’t then alcohol was used as a bribe and a persuasion. I told this story in class one day and one of my students, Sheree Fitch, herself an excellent poet and story teller said: “It’s a poem: quick, write it down.” And I did. And here it is. With many thanks to Sheree Fitch.

NB Our cricket, the one they caught for us, wouldn’t sing. Clare and I took it down to the local gardens and released it when nobody was looking.

Power Out-[R]-age

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Power Out-[R]-age

A tree fell across the wires.
Our power went ‘poof’!
No lights. No water. No heat.
We lit a log fire and strove to keep
sub-zero temperatures at bay.

It was as if God had stepped
away from the high altar
and gone out for a coffee
at the local Tim Horton’s
leaving a deserted church
to the mercy of the elements.

Guttering candles surrender
their skimpy lives but scarcely
warm us as more snow falls.

Shadow demons creep in
with the gathering night.
Shivering beneath piled blankets,
we cling together and hope
to keep out the growing cold.

 Warning: Raw Poem

Another raw poem. We lost power at 8:30 am on Wednesday, 30 November and it returned on Friday, 2 December at 2:00 am. 42 hours without power and the temperatures not rising above +2C and dropping to -3 / -5C. No light. No heat. No water. No phone. No internet. I thought of the victorious general who announced to the tune of the bombs bursting behind him on our tv screen that “We bombed them back to the Stone Age.”

Well, here we were sitting in our own miniature stone age and mentally unprepared for the shock of what it all means. What a struggle: to light the fire, to keep it alight (day and night), to keep warm, to prepare hot food over a log fire in an insert fireplace (and us so lucky to have one; some of our neighbors didn’t), and we won’t talk about going to the bathroom! At least, I now what it means to lose power at the start of winter. However, I really don’t understand what it means not only to lose power, but to know that an enemy deliberately and callously stripped that power away.

I tried to put those thoughts into the first version of the poem, but then I took them out as I didn’t want to politicize what is right now a nature poem, pure and simple. The out-[R]-age is there, with or without those other memories and that out-[R]-age comes partly from the knowledge that our civilization, if indeed we can truly claim to be civilized, is indeed skating on very thin ice.

First Snow

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First Snow

Lying in bed
on a snowy morning
with the first flakes
fast falling,
can you follow
the rag-tag-and-bobtail
drift of snow thoughts?

Filled with sparrow, siskin,
chickadee and finch,
the now leafless tree
stands outlined in the yard:
black skeleton,
white wind-drift.

A scarecrow
with many arms,
it braces against
these feathered weights
that settle
like colored snow.

Warning: raw poem.

I rarely let any of my writing out while it is still raw. These words will undoubtedly change, the snow will settle, the birds will fly away, a crow and a blue jay will startle the smaller species, the sun may come out, the wind may get up, and so may I. In addition, the poem, like the birds in the tree may or may not survive. The tree itself chose to surrender to a family of yellow-bellied sap-suckers and they changed into a chess board of small square holes that leaked the tree’s life blood throughout the summer. Perhaps the tree won’t survive. Well, I know it won’t survive for ever, but perhaps its life will be even shorter, curtailed by those ravenous little beaks.

Whatever: I have taken a risk by sharing early, and we will see how you, my readers and fellow bloggers, rise to the bait. Perhaps you will encourage me to place more early verse online. Perhaps not. Hopefully, you’ll click and make some comments: we’ll soon see.

Absence Makes the Heart: Flash Fiction

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Absence makes the heart …
Flash Fiction

 Time on my hands: so precious these moments alone, with my wife gone away to visit our daughter and our grand-daughter. I didn’t want her to leave me here alone. But I thought she needed the break, the space, and I also thought the women needed time together without the troublesome presence of a man. So many ideas flow back and forth when the man isn’t present, ideas that women share and debate, female anxieties that they will not discuss in front of the male, questions of children and development, teething and first words, actions and reactions, left-handedness and right-handedness, backwards and forwards skills that they will not discuss with the same comfort if the man is there.

I miss her. The sun filters through the kitchen and the autumn leaves store up sunlight like an old precious wine before they fall. Wine: I sip slowly at this bottle filled with life and sunshine, bottled sunshine they call it in Spain, sol embotellado, and I know that although I am alone, my friends are there, at the end of the telephone line. I can call them if I need them and anyway, they call me often or drop in once or twice a day to make sure I am okay. If I walk around the block or knock on their doors I know I will be greeted with warmth, an arm around the shoulder, the offer of a meal.

Thanksgiving is near. I already have two invitations for dinner and another lady, much lonelier than I am, has offered to buy the Thanksgiving food, bring it round, and cook it for me. She will also clean up after wards and leave the house cleaner than when she arrived. Can you believe it? I get company, companionship, and no, they are not the same thing, a cooked meal, and a house clean all together. It’s like winning the lottery.

But really, I prefer this solitude, my adventures with the cat, my slow stroll, not through the autumn woods, but through the leaves of this book. I like exploring my own mind, linking myself now to the self I was when I first read these pages and yes, there have been crises, and there will always be crises, and this is not a crisis, not yet anyway.

I remember when I was in boarding school. First day back from the holidays, I would draw a railway engine, and a train track, and I would number the days until the holidays came around again. For the first few days, I would cross off each day. Then, one day, as the new routine took control of my mind, I would forget to do so and the days would all blend into each other.

The new routine: get up earlier than usual. Go down and feed the cat. Make sure the cat had water. Change the kitty litter and make sure that her litter box is clean. Hoover around the litter box and pick up all the spilled litter. Place used litter in the garbage. Put the cat garbage on one side ready for Monday morning when the garbage men come around. Finish with the cat. Wash hands carefully. Then wash them again.

Downstairs I go. I put the kettle on and debate what I shall have for breakfast. Tea or coffee? Cereal or eggs? Muffins or toast? Breakfast for one is so simple. I take the easy route. Green tea with honey, no milk, no sugar. Some yogurt. Some grapes.

I sip my tea and thumb the pages of Carl Jung’s book, The Undiscovered Self.  I love her and miss her so much, but I am glad she has gone. Her absence allows me to re-discover my own presence. I learn about myself once more. I remember who I am and what I am and how I survive when I am on my own, abandoned, set adrift to fend for myself.

I get up from the breakfast table, look around the house, and find my Teddy Bear. The cat will not come near me, so Teddy it is. I set him on the table next to me and tell him all my news. Then I tell him what is happening on the news. Together, we sit and wait for the phone to ring. If she doesn’t call soon, I’ll call her myself. But not yet, not just yet: I’m still discovering my undiscovered self.

Maritormes

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Merry Tormes

Men of La Mancha

“Carters and peasants
found me soft to the touch.

I’ve had my fill of everything,
save money, youth, power, fame …
yet pleasure brings its own reward.

I never treasured money
more than the sweet caress,
flesh on treasured flesh.

Better a trellised bed
with horsehair blankets
than that bed of sour, dry earth
where I will one day lie.

Come:
let us strike a bargain,
for when midnight strikes
there’s no one prettier than I
for that is the hour of my greatest
power.

Lead me then to where
I can get your full attention.

But keep me far from madmen
who call me outlandish names:
virgin, maiden, sweet and chaste …

 … all foreign to my every intention.”

 

 

 

 

Gifts: Wednesday Workshop

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Gifts
Wednesday Workshop
16 November 2016

Gifts or blessings? I am never sure which is which for many a gift is a blessing and many blessings are gifts and sometimes the ones come disguised as the others.

So here I am, in retirement from a career in teaching. I miss my students. I miss the hurry and scurry of the classroom, the deadlines for essays and exams, the highs and lows, the setting of goals, the solving of problems, the light at the end of the tunnel when, after four years, the students, armed with their degrees, set out to face the world, their world, their  brave new world fit for brave new students.

Nowadays, I feel like the lost man, the forgotten man. The deadlines have gone. There is no more rush and tumble. Peace rules the office in my house and dust and spider webs gather in the corners of my mind. I am reminded of the words of Francisco de Aldana: “lo mejor es estar muerto en la memoria del mundo” / best of all is to lie dead and forgotten in the memory of the world. Then I look around me and see the gifts.

From Megan Strong:

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“Do I have to write an essay?” Megan asked me. “Couldn’t I do something else?”
“What would you like to do?”
“A painting. I’ll explain it in Spanish.”

And she did. There are no essays pinned to my walls, but this gift of a painting reminds me of something very precious: a student’s will to be creative, the presentation of knowledge in formats that are not necessarily the expected ones, the ability to be flexible, to understand, to open one’s eyes to the world around one, to see and encourage talent. These were the blessings, some of them anyway, that came with Megan’s gift and her ability to paint.

From Jane Tims:

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Clare and I visited Jane in her studio home. We drank tea and shared the afternoon sunshine together. Then, just before we left, Jane asked us to choose a painting. Clare chose this one: Apples. We went home and, after much thought, placed it on wall in our kitchen, just beside my chair. I see it everyday and so does Clare. It brings light and warmth to the room and reminds us of Jane’s gifts: her writing, her poetry, her research skills, her drawings, and her paintings. This one above all, for it is so meaningful to us and brings us light, peace, and stillness: such precious gifts.

From Jan Hull:

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I cannot say enough about this stone sculpture gifted to me by Jan Hull in Shediac, New Brunswick, on November 4, 2016. Jan Stoneist has taken one of the motifs from my book Stepping Stones and has placed it on the left hand side of the carving. On the right hand side she has taken one of the verses from the book and added my name. The result is both a gift and a blessing. Jan searched carefully for the right surface on which to carve her offering and finally found it: Welsh Red Sandstone. What better gift for a poet from Wales … and indeed, Jan makes me feel truly blessed.

From Ainsley Swift:

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In the days immediately after my retirement, when I found myself at the bottom of the well, looking up at the daylight through a long, dark tunnel, Ainsley appeared at my door and asked me if I would be willing to mentor her as she was having some difficulty with certain aspects of her studies.  Brightness descended upon me and Ainsley and I have worked together for some time now. One day, she turned up with a brown paper parcel and announced that “This is for you.” I didn’t even know that she painted, let alone that she was a talented artist. Another gift, another blessing, light breaking where no light shone, and that brightness still surrounding me.

From Juanra Sánchez:

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What does one say about the man who persuades the retired stone-cutter in Avila to make one last carving in the style of the verracos that were carved by the Celt Iberians thousands of years ago? Here it is, my own verraco, gifted to me by the best of friends who, every Sunday for four consecutive summers, drove me around the Province of Avila and showed me the love he held for his land. Thanks to Juanra, I saw places and things, too many to enumerate,  that no tourist will ever see. A weighty gift indeed, and a true blessing that will last as long as granite bulls stand firm beneath wind, rain, and snow.

This verraco comes with a story. It is very heavy and very solid. I placed it in my carry-on bag and hoped that nobody would think to weight it. Tired of carrying it on my shoulder at the airport in Madrid, I stood in line, then placed the bag upon the ground. The line wasn’t moving, so I walked a few paces to the wall and leaned up against it. Lines shuffle and flex, as we all know, and that’s what happened. Gradually a small space opened up between my bag and the man in front of me. The man behind me was impatient to close that gap. He looked at me as I leaned against the wall. I half-closed my eyes and watched him. The line shuffled forward. He brought his leg back and gave my bag a mighty kick, right on the rear end of my granite bull. I can still see that man hopping on one leg, cursing, and my bag sitting there, having moved not an inch.

Gifts and blessings, along with kind words and actions, move the heart and soul. I will write more on this subject at another time. Meanwhile, remember the old song: if you can’t sleep, “count your blessings instead of sheep.” I just did and five of them are listed right here.