Carpe Diem

Candles

Candles

Candle-light

Three candles burn at my table.
Outside,
the night wind howls like a dog
and scratches its pelt on my roof.

The wind has torn
branches from the trees
and polished the evening frost
until it sparkles
like eighteenth century silver.

A moth circles and sizzles
in a sacrifice of flame.

I keep my vigil at night’s altar
and place a wrinkled palm
into the candle’s liquid flame.

Put out a candle, put out a child.
Who would put out a dog
on a night like this?

Outside,
playing tag between dark trees,
the wind runs wild.

What historical event fascinates you the most?

Daily writing prompt
What historical event fascinates you the most?
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What historical event fascinates you the most?

First, let us define ‘historical’. Here’s what I found – (1) of or concerning history. (2) concerning past events. (3) The historical background to such studies. (4) Belonging to the past, not the present. (5) Famous historical figures.

Now let us think of the number of times we hear on the TV sports shows that such and such an event is making history “right before our eyes”. Wow! In a boxing match, almost ever punch thrown is “an historical event”. Ditto rugby – with every try scored, every penalty missed, and every tackle made. Ditto soccer, basketball, baseball, athletics. So, from the battery of past events that adorn my life, I am being asked to choose “which historical event fascinates me most”. Double wow.

My answer – the day of my birth, about which I know absolutely nothing. Or, to be more specific, the actual action of being born, about which I know even less. So, how do I study the historical background, when no eye witnesses are left alive to assist me? More important, nobody in my family wanted to talk about such an important – for me at any rate – event.

I do have some factual memories – tales told to me later. I was born at exactly 8:00 pm. I know this because my parents’ dog had been left at a neighbor’s house while my home-birth was taking place. As the clock struck eight, Paddy, the dog, jumped straight through their window, and ran up the road towards the house that was now to be our house, barking. “Ah,” said our wise neighbor, “there goes the dog. That means the baby’s been born.”

That is one version of the tale. My own version is the squawking of the stork who carried me, a sudden screech as he dropped me, a slow descent from a bright blue sky, a tumble down the chimney into the fireplace. And there I was. All covered in soot and ashes. I needed washing, of course. But baby, just look at me now. [See self-portrait above – Face in a Mirror].

My maternal grandfather swore that I had not been born at all, but found under a gooseberry bush. That would account for the green tinges in the painting. Apparently, all babies in South Wales were found under gooseberry bushes at that time. Unless they were delivered by the milkman.

And there’s many a tale about merry milkmen for, as they say in Wales, “It’s a wise man who knows his own father.” And I guess that is also a hysterical historical event about which I know nothing. But perhaps that’s why when the milkman who delivered the morning milk used to say “Good morning, son” when I met him at the the doorstep.

Come to think of it, the mailman also used to call me “Son” when he delivered the mail. Hmmmm – so did the butcher, the baker, and the candle-stick maker. Oh dear, so many historical events to choose from.

If you had a million dollars to give away, who would you give it to?

Daily writing prompt
If you had a million dollars to give away, who would you give it to?
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If you had a million dollars to give away, who would you give it to?

The key word here is “who”. Who suggests an individual – children (just choose one and make the rest jealous), grandchildren (copy the above), a friend (wow, that would make the family happy). So, let us choose another set of words – If you had a million dollars to give away – what would you do with it? Now that’s a better question.

Look at the painting above. Bas Bleu was the name given to French women intellectuals who often wore dark blue stockings to show their difference. But check out Moo’s bas bleu – she has blue stockings, but not shoes. No shoes is a sign of poverty (or extreme holiness). I’ll go for the former. I would give that bas bleu and all her colleagues and lookalikes a chance at some security and a more secure intellectual future.

How? I would set up a needs-based scholarship fund for female students with special needs – indigenous women from the first nations, single mothers who need help, support, and encouragement, older women returning to the university, some of them with little or no financial support. This, I believe, is one of the most important things we need to do to improve our university system. A million dollars at invested at 5% would return $50,000 a year. That would provide five scholarships at $10,000 for five financially deserving women.

Can it be done? Of course it can. I know. I have already set the wheels in motion for such a fund to be established when my beloved and I have had our last twitch and fallen off the perch. Alas, the sum invested is a lot less than $1,000,000. I wish I had more to give. But every good thought counts and every dollar, to a person in need, is a step along the way.

What’s something you would attempt if you were guaranteed not to fail.

Daily writing prompt
What’s something you would attempt if you were guaranteed not to fail.
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What’s something you would attempt if you were guaranteed not to fail.

Well, I remember when Arthur Lydiard was coaching Peter Snell, this was back in the early sixties. He ‘allegedly’ said – and I write from a decaying memory – that anyone could be trained to run a mile in under four minutes, using his methods. Next day, it is rumored that a fifty year old man, overweight, smoking a cigar, turned up at training and asked Lydiard to fulfill his promise.

Well, maybe it was Percy Cerruti training Herb Elliott. Same time frame. Different memories. Great coaches and great athletes. So here am I, at eighty (well, nearly), and I have always wanted to run a mile in under four minutes. My fastest time was 4:07 – downhill, with a following wind, during the Bristol University Rag Run (1966 – Bristol – Stamford Bridge – Hastings – Bristol). So, I am guaranteed not to fail, eh? I also hope you will guarantee that I do not fall, eh? And can I use both my canes, or only one, eh?

Okay, so this is how we’ll do it. You load me on the back of a flat bed truck. It has one of those walkways on it, with handrails on both sides, like they use in the rehabilitation centers. I won’t need my canes then. The truck drives a measured mile, in 3 minutes and 59 seconds exactly, and I “run aka speed walk aka speed lurch” all the way, hanging on to the handrails, thus covering a measured mile, in under four minutes, and achieving a life-time goal, attempting which I am guaranteed not to fail.

What was that line from Man of La Mancha aka DQ (and I don’t mean Dairy Queen) – “to dream the impossible dream.” And now, tired from my exertions, I will take a brief siesta and see if, in my impossible dreams, I can bring that time down a little bit lower. New world record, anyone?

¡Qué será, será!

¡Qué será, será!

“Those who the gods would destroy,
            they first make happy.”

Twenty-four hours
            after our power came back,
it had been gone for 52 hours,
            we lost it again.

And happy we were,
            cleaning out the freezer,
            draining the water from the bath,
            packing up the pots and pans.

We sat down for happy hour,
            a drink before supper,
            and zap – the power went.

Promises, they made,
            estimates of when the power
            would return – 4:30 pm –
            5:30 pm – 6:30 pm –

Now we don’t know
            when it will return.
            The power site says
            “No estimate available.”

I write these words by candlelight.
            The battery on the radio
            just failed and now our cell phones
            are rapidly draining.

“¿Quién sabe?” Some are saying.
            “¡Qué será, será!” say I.
            Whatever will be, will be.

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.

Poems for KIRA 2023 # 1

1

when we two came together
 we closed an ancient circle
becoming one with the standing stones
that measure seasons and time

now we harvest the summers
 lilies lupins fox gloves blue bells
a surfeit of wild flowers plucked
from the maze of our days

we wait and watch the slow snow
settling white on sarsen stone
as time weaves crow’s feet
into the corners of our eyes

2

i listen with my eyes
to the words and thoughts
of long-dead writers.

age-old and wise they walked
alone along the hidden ways
to set themselves free

they fled the royal courts
where power and jealousy
plotted twisted ways

cruel means
justified by brutal ends.
mindless quarrels bitter strife

i also ran away
and slowing down i found
an enviable life

enriched i live
harvesting a wealth
of goodness

days lived far from fear
 envy resentment distrust
in wooded seclusion

Comment: I was invited to attend KIRA as writer in residence this month. However, a weakened immune system and a series of setbacks over the late summer made this impossible. That said, KIRA and the early morning light seen from the Red Room live on in my heart and I will try to complete my planned project, here in Island View, over the next month or so. Wish me luck.

Friends

Friends
for Sarah
09-09-2023

What do we say when friends have birthdays,
what can we say? The conventional Happy
Birthday seems so inadequate.

It is even less satisfying to send a meme
of cake with candles, or gift-wrapped boxes
in colored packages tied with balloons.

How, in this age of instant communication,
do we reach out with sincerity and grasp
the importance of passing time when
electronic time and distance are meaningless?

I sit here at my computer contemplating
what words of joy and comfort I can send
to an online friend, that I have never met,
to help her celebrate her special day.

My mind is blank. My screen is blank.
I have so many questions, so few answers,
but I will reach out anyway and hope
she understands my tongue-tied silence.

Are you holding a grudge? About?

Daily writing prompt
Are you holding a grudge? About?
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Are you holding a grudge? About?

I have reached the stage in life when grudges belong to a distant past. Some of that past I still regret, but I have come to accept most of it as the normal rites of passage through which human beings must pass, if they are to grow and develop. This acceptance also comes from the understanding that the steps that led me to my current life and situation, were beneficial, even when I didn’t think they were at the time.

Garcilaso de la Vega once wrote: Cuando me paro a contemplar mi estado / y a ver los pasos por do me ha traído, hallo, según por do anduve perdido, que a mayor mal pudiera haber llegado. The Wikipedia translation offers us this – When I stop to contemplate my state and see the steps through which they have brought me, I find, according to where I was lost, that it could have come to a greater evil.

That said, I have learned to see the lesser evil in things that actually happened and the greater evils into which I might have fallen. I remember bearing grudges, but I feel that I have now set them aside. Reading John O’Donohue’s book Anam Cara, for the fourth or fifth time, has helped me to achieve that state of mind.

Some things do annoy me though. Speed reading is one of them. Well, not speed reading but the application of speed reading to any and all situations. In today’s Guardian, for example, I read that – “A lot of people, myself included, complain that they don’t have time to read but everyone has time to read a poem. You can read Ozymandias, for example, in just 17 seconds.”

One of the first things that I did in Grad School at U of T was to take a speed reading course. I found it absolutely essential in order to read and process the quantity of new material that was thrown at me by my profs. In my undergraduate education (Bristol University) I was told that “It is better to read one poem a hundred times than to read a hundred poems once.” As a poet, and a student of poetry, I prefer to dwell on a poem, to absorb its essence, its meaning, its subtleties, its associative fields, rather than to gulp it down in 17 seconds, for example, and then move on to something else. The poet and dreamer who live within me need that time to re-create, poeticize, and dream.

“What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare, no time to stand beneath the boughs and stare as long as sheep or cows,” wrote W. H. Davies, author of Autobiography of a Super Tramp.

I realize just how much our lives have speeded up, how we are inundated by information, how we drown in sound-bytes, memes, and mini-clips. I also know that, however fast we read, we will never take it all in, not in one lifetime. Sometimes, less is more, slower is faster, we need to take time, to make time, to stand and stare. Seamus Heaney expresses it well – “Some time, take the time…” I don’t hold a grudge against those who can’t, or won’t, make and take that time. But I truly believe that many, many people would benefit by doing so. I also believe that a benevolent society would allow many more people to do just that.

Meanwhile, I will agree with the Guardian columnist that reading a poem in 17 seconds is much better than reading no poetry at all. So, some time, take the time….

Prophet and Loss

Prophet and Loss

I have sown so often on stony paths
and harsh roadside ways where thistles
bloom in purple patches and weeds choke
the fertile soils, closing flowers down.

Who knows what cold winds blow when
new seeds are shuffled, then cast, like bread
upon water, into the mind’s frustrated furrows?

Will flowers flourish, or will they perish,
still-born, in the depths of their stony graves?

I do not know for I cannot read the runes
the wind scatters across the sky when it shuffles
clouds and scrawls shadow-writing on the land.

Careless, I cast out word-seeds, knowing full well
that many will perish. But I also know that one
or two will put down roots. Eventually, developing
shoots will nourish my labor’s burgeoning fruits.

Comment: There is no profit in being a prophet.