I have not been very active on the reading scene for some time now, so I welcome this chance to appear in public behind a microphone and with a book in my hand.
My thanks to Jane Tims for organizing this reading and creating the poster.
If anyone is in the area, please drop in and visit. I’ll be on my best behavior.
I promise.
Wordless Wednesday
Kingsbrae 25.4
25 June 2017
Middens by Jarea
Garbage dumps they are to us,
filled with childhood treasures,
shaped flints, arrowheads, spear
tips, scrapers for deer hide,
so many castaway items.
Garbage dumps to us, maybe,
but for the Passamaquoddy
who first settled this area
and lived on this shore,
these precious middens
are anything but dumps.
They are guide posts,
lighthouses in the moonlight,
signposts to point the way
for wayfarers and wanderers,
at high tide, low tide,
and especially when the mudflats
bathe beneath sun and moon
and the channels twist and turn,
serpentine labyrinths in their wanderings.
Garbage: we dig up what they have left,
expose past lives to scientific theories,
and destroy their navigational knowledge,
the science they left behind.
Kingsbrae 22.4
22 June 2017
Trinity
A coming together of cultures,
these three statues, placed
equidistant, an equilateral
triangle, all things being
equal and none more equal
than others; three brothers;
mother, father, child; father,
son, and holy ghost: no women
there; perhaps three founding
cultures: English, French, and
Indigenous, in alphabetical
order; and there they stand,
face to face to face,
a triangulation, in profile,
silhouetted, sharing positive
and negative space; and, at the dead
center of their union, at the spot
where all is still and nothing moves,
a living space, that takes away
your breath when you breathe
in air and light and sun and
a renewed hope; then faith runs
tingling round your body with
joy and life and love reborn.
Kingsbrae 22.2
22 June 2017
Lupins
To dwell here
is to build
cloud castles
or castles
in Spain.
High-ramparted,
the clouds,
sky-sheep
wind-driven
across a blue field.
Here,
no sound but the breeze
rippling the pond,
leaving soft footsteps
as its cat’s paw
bats at trailing branches.
Lupins,
in bank and ditch,
sway to the wind’s soft voice.
Toe-tapping, head tossing,
they play a jazz and blues concert
to a chorus of yellow bells.
Kingsbrae 20.4
20 June 2017
Rain
Hand in hand, we walk
beneath black umbrellas.
Grass beneath our feet is wet
and water seeps through
our shoes, soaking our socks.
Cold and numb in spite of the date
(the summer solstice draws near),
my ears strain against the pitter
-patter of falling rain to catch
the nearby robin’s song.
He has mislaid his voice
and I can no longer translate
his liquid notes into soul music
that might lighten mind and day.
Clouds gather and empty themselves
over our umbrella-covered heads.
In spite of damp and dark that rule,
thoughts abound and hop around,
like frogs in a summer pool, while
light bulbs explode in my brain.
Kingsbrae 20.2
20 June 2017
Summer Visitors
Wind-blown birds,
songsters, passerines,
carried up from the south
on the wind’s wings.
Myths become facts:
hummingbirds on
eagles’ backs, warm,
clinging, feather-nested.
The following wind
drives carrier and
passenger onwards
and upwards to our land.
Look to the Mountain Ash
with its Indigo Bunting,
rare passerines flourish,
too, new, sudden and
unexpected visitors, drawn
north by our sun’s magnet
and our short summer
season with its wealth:
swarming northern insects
(never forget
those migrant butterflies)
and pestilential flies.
