Carpe Diem

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.

What does your ideal home look like?

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What does your ideal home look like?
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What does your ideal home look like?

My ideal home looks exactly like the one I am living in right now. In the country, surrounded by trees, with blossoming crab apples in the front garden and a mountain ash in full view from the kitchen window, what more could I ask for? Blossoms in the spring, a gradual flowering throughout the summer, and now, as fall approaches, the fruit ripening.

Verde, que te quiero verde. – Green, for I love you green. But what exactly is green? I sit on the front porch in the cool of summer, and look out on a sea of greens – green grass, green leaves, light green, medium green, dark green, and all kinds of shades and hues as the sunlight filters a subtle dance of colors through the leaves. The eye distinguishes so many different shades of green. Alas, I do not have the vocabulary to distinguish verbally what I see visually. Ah, poor poet, linguistically damaged, and writing with one hand tied behind my back, I suffer from an ability to feel and an inability to express. Terminological inexactitudes, Winston Churchill called them. But in my case, they are the lies I must create when the truth overwhelms me with its beauty.

And in winter, when the cold winds blow, and the leaves lose the safety of their trees to be blown hither and thither at the wind’s will, what then? A blanket of whiteness, shadows shifting beneath the moon by night, and a million brilliant sparkles beneath the sun by day. And the visitors, every night the deer come, stay awhile, then vanish, only to reappear the next day. At midnight, in the moonlight, I watch them from my window as they dance on their hind legs and nibble the hanging fruit that the mountain ash reserves, just for them, so that they will survive, as they have done for millennia, in this paradise that surrounds my ideal home.

Hide and Seek

Hide and Seek

Pictures and memories play hide and seek.
They hunt the slipper that hides in the words
that slither and slide across my page.

They long to emerge, fully formed, and to step,
without effort, into your mind. They want
to linger there, to baffle, taunt, and haunt you.

Digging through the verbiage, a thought,
a metaphor, a grouping of words will join and
rejoin. This is the grit that the oyster slowly shapes
into the pearl of great price that glows so bright.

Consider the opal. Plain at first sight, yet changing
color, shimmering in sunlight, a chameleon
adapting to mood and shadow, its moon dance
hovering, a butterfly over burgeoning blossoms.

Who could ever forget, once seen, star light
illuminating the bay, the moon gilding the sea,
those summer nights, our secret love flowering.

The veiled will unveil itself and tease its way,
its path over the sparkling waters of the bay.
Knock and it will open. Seek and you will find.

Comment: I had a specific, named place in mind when I first wrote this poem. Then I realized that my secret place was not necessarily the remembered place of other people who had undergone similar experiences. So, I removed the specific and made it generic.

I know you have been there, to your own special place. A warm summer night. Star light over a bay. Or maybe it was an estuary, or perhaps a river bank? The moon appearing, lighting up the waters. Walking, perhaps, hand in hand. Or sitting, as I remember it so well, in a late-night café, watching the night lights on the fishing boats, as the moon spread its golden carpet over the bay.

Skype or Zoom

Skype or Zoom

I sit and watch the grandfather clock,
listening to every tick and tock.

So slow, the sullen pendulum swings
as time limps by on leaden wings.

When they arrive, the house will fill
with youthful joy and much goodwill.

Age will flee for a week or two,
then we’ll be alone, just me and you.

Watching the telly, watching the clock,
counting each tick and every tock.

We will be lonely, left here alone,
waiting for them to telephone.

The very best thing to lighten the gloom
is to see them again on Skype and Zoom.

What is the most important thing to carry with you all the time?

Daily writing prompt
What is the most important thing to carry with you all the time?
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What is the most important thing to carry with you all the time?

Things I carry with me

            That old black cast-iron stove, wood-fired, that baked the best ever breads and cakes and warmed the bungalow on cold, summer mornings. The Welsh dresser with its age-blackened rails that displayed the plates, and cups, and saucers. The old tin cans that ferried the water from the one tap located at the end of the field. Full and wholesome, its weight still weighs me down as I carry it in my dreams. The Elsan toilet from the shed by the hedge and the shovels that appeared, every so often, as if by magic, as my uncle braved the evening shadows to dig a hole on the opposite side of the field, as far from the bungalow as possible.

            The outhouse at the end of the garden. The steps down to the coal cellar where they went when the sirens sounded, to sleep in the make-shift air raid shelter, along with the rats and mice that scurried from the candles. The corrugated iron work shop in the garden where my uncle built his model ships, the Half-Penny Galleon and the Nonesuch. The broken razor blades I used to carve my own planes from Keil Kraft Kits, Hurricanes and Spitfires, an SE5, and once, a Bristol Bulldog. Twisted and warped, they winged their ways into nobody’s skies, though once we built a paper kite that flew far away in a powerful wind and got tangled in a tree. The greenhouse from which I stole countless tomatoes, red and green. Kilvey Hill towering above the window ledge where the little ones sat when there were more guests than chairs in the kitchen. The old bombed buildings across the street. The bullet holes in the front of the house where the Messerschmidt strafed us.

            The old men spitting up coal dust from shrivelled lungs. The widows who took in lodgers and overnight travelers. The BRS lorries, parked overnight, that littered the street. The steep climb upwards into those lorries. The burrowing under dirty tarpaulins to explore the heavy loads, and many other things. The untouchable, forbidden drawer where the rent money waited for the rent collector’s visit. The old lady, five houses down who, when the shops were shut, sold warm Dandelion & Burdock and Orange pop for an extra penny a bottle.  The vicious, snub-faced Pekinese that yapped fierce defiance from the fortress of her lap. The unemployed soccer referee who on Saturdays walked five miles to the match and five miles back just to save the bus fare, his only financial reward. My father’s shadowy childhood. His first pair of shoes, bought at five years old, so he wouldn’t go barefoot to school. 

            Wet cement moulded onto the garden wall, then filled with empty bottles to be smashed when the cement set solid. The coal shed where the coal man delivered the coal: cobbledy-cobbledy, down the hole. The outside toilet with its nails and squares torn from yesterday’s newspaper. The lamp-lighter who lit the lamps every evening as the sun went down. The arrival of electricity. The old blackout curtains that shut in the light and shut out the night. The hand rolled fabric sausage that lay on the floor by the door and kept the heat of the coal fire in the kitchen. The kitchen itself with its great wooden chair drawn up by the fire. That chair: the only material possession I still have from that distant past.

Qué será

Qué será

Peace in the Peace Park,
here on the headland,
where cool grass slopes
down to the water’s edge.

Geese have nested close by
and gifted us with goslings.
Golden balls of fluff, they walk
on the land right now,
but soon will take to the water.

A thin, yellow line, they will
paddle behind their parents,
webbed feet invisible
beneath the water’s flow.

And I, in the metal coffin
of my over-heated car,
sit and watch them, envying
their freedom of movement,
waiting for whatever will come.

My beloved draws near.
I sense as much as see her,
as I covet her strong steps,
the ageless sway of her body.

Alas, I am growing old,
and not with any grace,
but fighting it all the way,
and qué será, será
is all that I can say.

Rebirth

Rebirth

“El mundo nace
cuando dos se besan.”
Octavio Paz

A new world is born
when two people kiss.
The hummingbird sips
at the hollyhock’s lips.
Bee enters the blossom
and, sated, comes out.
A butterfly perches,
flutters its wings.
The sun enters a cloud:
radiance is born.
Silver linings
morph to gold.
The sun’s needle stitches
the world together.
Oh to be a part of Eden,
Paradise born anew,
in the moment when
lip meets lip and the tongue
is a twister, touching down.
Two hearts a-whirl,
their world aflame.
Their world reshaped,
new shapes now born.
Wild flowers swaying
in an age-old dance.
Life’s journey renewed,
not always by chance.

Write about a random act of kindness you’ve done for someone.

Daily writing prompt
Write about a random act of kindness you’ve done for someone.
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Write about a random act of kindness you’ve done for someone.

Sir Alex Ferguson, one of soccer’s greatest managers, once said that it wasn’t the victories he remembered, but the defeats. So it is with my own coaching career – it’s the losses I recall. Same thing with random acts of kindness. There have been many, too many to count. I will not paper my e-walls with glowing memories of past kindnesses. But what about those random acts of kindness I failed to do? Here’s one of them.

            Crave More: I hate those words. I always choose a cart with the shop’s name on the handle. I can handle that. I can’t handle a shopping cart that screams Crave More at me every time I stoop down and place another item in the wire grid. If stores were honest, they would inscribe their shopping carts with a sign that said Think More, Crave Less, and Save Your Money. I bet that would quickly cut into profits.

            Anyway, there I was, in La-La-Land, leaning on my cart, still half asleep, when this ghost drifted towards me. “Help me,” it said. “I’m hungry. I need food.” I woke up from my dream, looked at the ghost, tall, skeletal thin, cavernous eyes and cheekbones protruding, gaps in the teeth, grey face drawn and lined. The single word “Sorry” came automatically to my lips. Then I felt shame. I looked at him again. “I only carry plastic.” The excuse limped heavily across the air between us. I saw something in his eyes, I knew not what, and I turned away.

            Then, as I walked away, I added 100 lb of muscle to the scarecrow frame. Took forty years away. Filled his body with joy and pride, and remembered how he played when I used to coach him, hard and fast, but true. I ran my hand through the card index of former players that I had coached. I knew their moves, and attributes, the way they played the game, their stronger / weaker side, their playing strengths, their weaknesses. I remembered him holding up the Champion’s Cup. But I couldn’t remember his name.

            I pushed the cart all over the store in a frantic search for him. I went to the ATM and took out cash. I could hand it to him. I could tell him he had dropped it. I went through a thousand scenes. I could invite him to the snack bar. I could tell him to buy what he needed and follow me to the check out lane where I would add his purchases to my cart. I looked everywhere. He was nowhere to be seen.

            A single opportunity. One chance. That’s all we get. Miss it, and we blow the game. Take it, and we win the Championship and hold up the Cup.

Was today typical?

Daily writing prompt
Was today typical?
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Was today typical?

So, I Googled the meaning of typical and here are some of the synonyms that appeared. Standard, normal, stock, representative, usual, conventional, characteristic, regular, orthodox. Following the meanings offered, yes, today was typical. Dark at midnight, dawn breaking about 5:30 AM, full sun by 7:30 AM, noon – dead on 12 o’clock, as usual. And so it goes on. The weather may change, but the basic structure of the days, although also cyclical, growing longer then shorter, in terms of daylight hours, does not change much. Therefore, yes, by this definition, it was a typical day. But was it?

For creative people, each day is different and each moment, minute, hour of each day is different. Creatives listen, observe, feel, touch, delve beneath the surfaces of things, and see things in a lateral multiplicity that means everything is evolving, changing, growing, decaying. Creative people look and listen (with or without mother). They imitate, and from that imitation they create and re-create. And creativity moves way beyond the standard, normal, stock, representative, usual, conventional, characteristic, regular, and orthodox. If it doesn’t, it’s not creative, it’s just standard, normal, stock, representative, usual, conventional, characteristic, regular, orthodox.

Was today typical? Well, it’s not over yet. But up until now, it has only been typical in terms of its intimate creative typicality. The light has changed with the changing sky and clouds. Rain fell, and changed the tones of the colors around. The light changed, but so did the scents that arose from the warm earth with its carpet of grass and the tarmac and concrete, its heat suddenly cooled. The ground glistened, spider-webs sparkled, birds sang when the sun returned, flowers tossed their heads, in slightly different ways from yesterday, when the wind was warm. Now, damp and shining, their dance-steps and rhythms also changed. Now the world is wet. The trees are waving their fans and have caused a slight wind to arise and rustle their leaves. This day is full of creative magic – but only for those who have ears to hear and eyes to see. For too many people, alas, yes, this is, after all, just another typical, humdrum, boring old day. As W. H. Davies wrote: “What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?” Creatives make that time – and they live among the blessed.