Existence

Balloon Lady

IMG_0394.jpg

 

Balloon Lady
(Oaxaca)

Moon face floats
its yellow balloon
across the window
and I conjure up
magic images
of the lady in the square
who sits in her fortress
surrounded by balloons.

Nine o’clock at night:
the coyotes prowl
with their cell phones
and offer synthetic joy
in tiny plastic packets.

The lady gathers
her flock of colored balloons
and, Pied Piper of legend,
she leads her legion of children
away from the square
and back to their beds.

I meet her on a corner:
she is a red-yellow-blue-green
tower of contentment.
No hands, no face:
but below the balloons,
two tiny, slippered feet.

Stepping Stones

img_0279

Stepping Stones

Two years ago
today,
a lovely lady
read me
a death sentence:
my biopsy result.

She poured me
a poisoned chalice,
my personal
Gethsemane,
a cup from which
I had to drink.

I sat there in silence,
sipping it in.

Darkness wrapped
its shawl
around my shoulders.

‘Step by step,’ she said,
‘on stepping stones.’

I opened my eyes,
but
I could no longer see
the far side of the stream.

Comment:

I am searching for a title for the poetry book I wrote in 2015, while undergoing treatment for prostate cancer. My original idea for a title was Echoes of An Impromptu Metaphysics. I was reading the Spanish metaphysical poets during the treatment period and their voices resonated in my verse. The second attempt at a title shortened the original to Echoes. However, that didn’t really gel with what I was writing and what I was writing was not a metaphysical treatise: it was something simpler, and more personal.

We have all, as writers, gone into ourselves in that search for our own unique authenticity. My Echoes were authentic in the sense that they echoed other writers; but did they portray me and the search I was making? I wasn’t sure that they did.

I abandoned Echoes for a whole year (2016) and returned to it in January 2017. The space between writing and revision was most beneficial. I had begun blogging in April 2016, and the blogging experience had sharpened my vision. Reading other authors allowed me to see what I was doing that they weren’t. Preparing my own writing for perusal by a wider audience developed my critical skills. Is this really me? Is this how I want to portray my world?

I still don’t know. I am still looking for a title.

Silence

img_0196-2

Silence

When I wait for words to come
and they refuse,
I know that silence is golden
and spreads its early morning sunlight
across the breakfast table
where yellow butter melts on hot toast.

Light from the rose window in Chartres
once spread its spectrum over my hands
and I bathed in its speckled glow.

My fingers stretched out before me
and I was speechless;
for in such glory,
mortal things like words cease to flow.

So much can never be said
even if it is sensed: fresh coffee,
poutine à pain, bread baking,
flowers  bursting into bloom,

the sense of immanent beauty that fills me
each time my beloved enters the room.

Sanctuary

img_0136

Sanctuary

We thought for a moment that, yes, we
were angels and yes, we were dancing
together on a pinhead with so many other
angels, and all of us as bright as butterflies
spreading our wings with their peacock eyes
radiant with joy and tears sparkling in time
to the celestial music that wandered up
and down inscrutable scales that bonded
the universe and set planets and spheres
spell-bound in that magic moment …

… and I still feel that pulsing in my head,
that swept-up, heart-stopping sensation
when the heavens opened and the eternal
choir raised us up from the earth, all earth
-bound connections severed and all of us
held safe in the palm of an Almighty hand.

Robin Red Nest

 

img_0185

Robin Red Nest

That little red nest,
my heart,
hearth and home
to a galaxy of gods
who nest there,
year after year,
migratory spirits
blessing me with
hope renewed
in their spring
nest’s tangle:
feather and twig.

Old now,
you thump to different rhythms
not to mention
the schisms sprung from my body.

Age winds you up like a watch spring
stretching my lifeline egg-shell thin.

When the wind of change
blows me away,
what will replace you
and your offer of sanctuary
to those you daily nourish?

So sad I will be
to abandon you,
your visions unfulfilled
as winter winds unravel you
twig by twig

until nothing remains
but the bare
white-boned cradle
in which I carried you
so lovingly.

Cribbage

IMG_0360.jpg

Cribbage

Red and white markers
chased each other
along the S bends,
past the skunk lines
to the final straight
where a single space
awaited the winner.

I don’t remember
who won, nor do I care.
But I know we shuffled
the cards and dealt again
as we waited for sleep
to descend and bless us.

We fasted that night:
no food, no water.

When midnight struck,
we put away the deck
and pegging board,
and bade each other
goodnight.

“Sleep well if you can,
my friend,” you said.

“Tomorrow  will bring
a much more serious game
that neither of us
can afford to lose.”

 

Waiting

 

IMG_0155

Waiting

I remember pushing
my father around the ward.

“Cancer,” they said.
“But it’s kinder
not to let him know.”

In those days,
it was better to die
without knowing why.

Did I betray him
by not telling him
what I knew?

Two weeks we had,
together.
He sat in his wheel chair
and I wheeled him
up and down.

I lifted him
onto the toilet,
he strained and strained
but couldn’t go.

“Son,”
he said, sitting there.
“Will you rub my back?’

How could I say no?

That strong man,
the man who had carried me
on his back,
and me standing there,
watching him,
his trousers around his knees,
straining,
hopelessly
…
and me
rubbing his back,
waiting
…
for him to go.

Jacuzzi

IMG_0236

Jacuzzi

Warm and safe,
womb waters whirling,
drifting me through time,
eyes closed, and space.

Amniotic, this liquid,
rocking me to the throb
of my mother’s heart.
I close my eyes.

The walls around me
open out to reveal
the sun by day,
the stars by night.

The full moon:
a golden circle
beaming down.

My mother’s face
hangs in space
above me
…
and me:
re-born.

Raw Poem:

I wrote this lying in the jacuzzi about an hour ago. It’s not just a raw poem, it’s a very raw poem. There’s something comforting about it, though, and I like the in and out of reality moments. It’s good to remember my mother, too, especially in the image of the full moon in all its plenitude and beauty.

“and me: re-born” — the small circle in the centre of the Mexican pottery mask is the symbol of the seed of the new born babe. The mask goes full circle, from birth, to beauty, to old age, and death … a full moon cycle.

Wind

 IMG_0372.jpg

Wind

Wind gusts so strong:
bird feeders rattle
and the house shakes.

Winter withdraws
its savings
from the snow banks
and invests in
dervish drifts.

Laundered money
weaves lace curtains,
snow white,
across the yard.

Wind blows hard,
turns birds into
feathered snowballs
flung towards
frosted windows
and frail walls.

A red poll flock,
hoary and a century strong,
blows in,
blows out,
frightened by the wind’s
great lusty shout.

 

 

Ice Storm

img_0033

Ice Storm

This month and my life
are nearly done.

Sun strengthens in the sky
but birds ice up
in spite of feathers,
fluffed like eider downs.

Man alone,
within warm walls,
can bravely laugh
at winter’s squalls.

But oh, if the power fails,
if wires are tumbled
by winter’s gusting gales,
man’s heart no longer
fills with ease.

He sits at home
in the cold and dark
while all around him,
ice covers the land
and even fire dogs
freeze.