She surveys her empire from a tall tree, then steps into space, plunging her body’s weight downwards, diving into fragile air.
A feathered arrow, she makes contact, feet first, and pins the unsuspecting robin to the ground. His shrill shriek emerges from a beak that shreds failing life.
The hawk’s claws clench. Her victim weakens. His eyes glaze over. One final spasm, a last quick twitch, the robin is gone.
One wing drags, flaps weakly, borne skywards in the hawk’s triumphant claws.
Sometime, make the time to drive to Alberton where the Great Blue Herons stand thigh deep in the incoming tide. Lobster boats spark stars from the waves.
They white-water surge through a gap in the sandbank where the lighthouse stands red and white, outlined against blue sky, golden sand, sparkling bay.
Follow the fast-eroding coastline, a little less each year, past Jacques Cartier Park to Kildare Capes. Black-backed gulls ride shotgun on the red sand beach. Piping plovers charge up and down the wind-rush of surf digging for treasure, the crustaceans that will fill their bellies and enable them to survive their long journey south.
Head north past Sea Cow Pond to North Cape. Quixotic windmills wave their arms, like giants. The sand and pebble reef stretches its low-tide footpath out to the lazy seals basking in late summer warmth. Sea-birds seethe in great white clouds while fishing boats bob on wild waves and a black horse hauls Irish Moss off the beach to be sun-dried on the shore.
An osprey hovers, drops its lightning bolt to spear a flapping flounder on sharp claws. The magic of that great bird’s fall and rise will drive a wedge through your heart and split it open.
My family never forced me underground. Nobody ever made me kneel at the coal- face altar and worship, on my knees, that grimy god with its coal-black soul.
A child in body and heart, nobody ordered me to squirm down diminishing seams, much too narrow for men or machines and fitting only for the smallest child.
Fitting indeed, an early coffin, made to measure, lying in wait for the slightest slip of the rocks above or below. Tight fitting, indeed, no wiggle, wriggle room.
Billy Blake, my mate from Trinidad, younger than me, saw the black faces of miners emerge from the mine, enter the pit-head baths and come out white.
He, too, wanted to be white. He dug underground, grew even blacker, went into the showers, gouged his black skin, drew rivers of blood, never changed color.
He died when the roof above him fell without warning. They pulled him out. Brought him to the surface. Prepared him for burial. Wrote on his tombstone:
“His body was as black as night, but oh, his soul was white.”
Snow geese falling, plummeting from the sky, dropping like leaves, slowly and tumbling, swiftly and twisting, spiralling down. Fresh snow on the ground, their seasoned arrival.
Some land on water, others on the earth. They gather in groups, snow banks of geese, ghost-white, frightening, true sky lightning, celestial, striking from its ancestral throne.
Always some sentries, necks stretched, eyes open, alert, watching, guarding their needs while the flock feeds. One honks “Who goes there?” the flock looks up, watching him move.
Slowly, at first, they waddle from the walkers, then faster and faster as the man unleashes his hounds. An idiot woman, grinning like a death’s head, points her cell phone and barks instructions.
The dogs run at them, barking and growling. The snow geese panic, run ever faster, taking to the air with a clap-wing chorus, honking and hooting. The woman laughing, shouting
and shooting. “I’ve got them, I’ve shot them,” she calls in her pleasure. Frustrated, the hounds take to the water. Whistling, calling, the man cannot catch them, not till they tire of the chase,
no match for geese, not in air, nor in water. Joyous the couple, their videos made, hugging, cuddling. They get back in the car, dogs shaking, spraying them, baptismal water, cleansing all guilt.
I have been revising lots of mss. but haven’t done anything new, apart from revisions and paintings. Very little has appeared on my blog recently and this is the first post after an absence of five days. Oh dear. Facebook has been barren too. Still: can’t be helped. Better days are on the way.
Here’s Worm Squirm. It’s part of my series of Pocket Paintings / Peintures de Poche, so-called because they all fit neatly in a pocket. They are easy to carry around and yes, I have something bright to look at, even when the skies are grey. Inner grey or outer grey, there’s nothing worse than a grey day. Everybody needs a spot of painted sunshine to brighten a grey day when it dawns.
It’s been a great year for painting foliage, too. Nothing better than to carry a pocketful of painted leaves to remind you of the natural beauties of our picture province. So make it a sunshine day, even if the skies are grey!
The back ground is dark green, or should be. We have red and yellow leaves, of course, this is New Brunswick, Canada. And the white flecks are the frost on the grass. Lovely.
Look closely and you can see bits of me reflected in the glass of the painting. That’s why it’s a selfie. Not a total one, but a teeny little bit of one. How much of ourselves do we ever capture, in a photo, a painting, a poem, a piece of prose? Not much, I guess. And is it the real ‘us’ anyway? I very much doubt it.
Does it matter? No. If you want to see the real me, come and visit. But, be prepared: I am not who I seem and I am desperate to hide the real me from the real world. You may catch glimpses. And that’s about it.
And I have a cat, just like that. Runs to the basement, hides beneath a chair, sits and purrs in her basket, sleeps on the bed at night, winds herself round my knees at feeding time, is and isn’t, just like all pussy cats. And aren’t we all like that? Here today and gone tomorrow. All that joy and all that sorrow.
Enjoy us while you can. And can-can while you can-can!
This from the days when I was a wannabe artist who thought he could actually be an artist. But no, it was not to be and the masks fell off and dropped to the ground. There was no Covid back then, so I didn’t have to pick them up and put them back on again. And I didn’t have to stay two metres – six -feet – away from the painting. If you paint with the Devil, you need a long brush. Also known s a Devil’s Paint Brush.
To paint or not to paint, that is the question. So, I chose the path of mindfulness, la escondida senda por donde han ido los pocos sabios que en el mundo han sido / the hidden path along which have walked the few wise men who have lived in the world. And yes, art, in all its forms, is mindfulness, being in yourself, being aware of the moment, being taken up by that split second when paint hits paper, canvas, or whatever, and being absorbed totally in that.
Gardening will do that for you. Also what I call hyperspace, that wonderful world between fingertips, and screen where the great ideas flow naturally, like paint, and words come tumbling out onto the page. Today’s theme: The Great Pretender. Not all the words are wonderful, nor all the ideas great. The greatest skill is to be able to differentiate between gems and dross. This comes with patience and practice. But when the words flow, and the paint settles, there are few joys like it.
How could one not give thanks for the bounties of Thanksgiving? Listening to Cross Country Check Up, last night, as I have done for the last 55 years, I was amazed at how people, some of them in dire circumstances, were able to find things for which to be thankful. I haven’t made a list of the things for which I am thankful and I certainly didn’t call in to the talk show to give my opinion, but let me think…
I am thankful for the beauty of the natural world. Just look at that sunrise! Yesterday we walked in Mactaquac and admired the beauty of the changing leaves. Migrating geese put on a display, taking off from the waters of the head pond, flying, then settling down again. We: I am grateful for the presence of my beloved, still beside me after all these years. I am grateful that we are together and that we are both of us able to walk and indulge in this province’s autumnal beauties.
I am grateful for faithful friends. I will not name them all. If I did, this blog would never be finished. This morning, an e-mail from Geoff Slater, whose paintings and drawings have often appeared on the blog, spoke of the nature of ritual and how we use it. He spoke of external rituals and how, during times like these, when our normal lives are upside down, we lose the ability to follow our external rituals. This may cause dismay and a loss of stability to many. However, he also reminded me that we, as practicing artists, have established our own internal rituals. These keep us going in the difficult times, for they are always there to fall back on. Following his line of thought, I explored my own daily rituals, the ones that have kept me going throughout Covid-19. Thank you, Geoff, for those ideas and for your long-term friendship.
I am grateful for the initial offer, from the University of Toronto, to come to Canada to study all those years ago. Canada gave me a chance to challenge my established rituals and to build and shape new ones that were more suitable to my inner being, a being that I had kept well hidden from the Masters of the Universe who limited my creativity, and ruled the rituals of my Boarding schools and my undergraduate studies. Above all, I am grateful for that rich, inner world of creativity and dream and I am doubly grateful for those who have allowed me and encouraged me to express it and set it down for others to share.
So, Thanksgiving Day: a day on which to give thanks for all the blessings that are in our lives, large and small. Sure, times are tough. Sure, we could all do with more money. Sure, we could go on and on about our wants and needs. But today my want and my need is to give thanks for who, what, where, when and why I am. As my friend Norman Levine once wrote: Canada Made Me.
This is a painting inspired by one of Messiaen’s works: Visions from Beyond. His music inspired me to write the Meditations on Messiaen, and I have posted several of those poems on this page. For me, creativity is continuous: verbal and visual. The visual includes painting and photography, the verbal, short stories, poems, and short philosophical pieces on life and art. This is the link to the first poem from the sequence entitled Visions from Beyond. I should add that the audio reading is part of what I call creativity too: audio, visual, verbal. The complete package.
My Thursday thought: I feel that I have been blessed. To be able to see, speak, write, hear, and express some of the beauty of this world around me. I know there is ugliness out there, sickness, ill health, poverty and despair. So far, I have been spared. “Why me?” I think to myself, “Why me?” Then I cease to question and I just say “Thank you” to the Spiritus Mundi and to the Muse when she descends.
Every morning, when I wake, my mind runs through some of the hymns I used to sing as a child. “Songs of praises, I will ever give to Thee.” “Laud, bless, and praise Him all thy days, for it is seemly so to do.” “Good Shepherd may I sing Thy praise, within Thy house forever.” Meanwhile, until that time comes, I will do my best to celebrate and sing the beauties of this world in the oh-so-limited ways I know best, poetry and paint!
rogermoorepoet 