Someone stole the nose from a sacred statue. He placed it on his face and I watch it as it crosses the central square.
A moving shadow: zopilote flies high above. I talked to him once on a midnight bus. He begged me to fold his wings and let him sleep forever.
The balloon lady sells tins of watery soap. Children, newly released from school, fill my days with enchantments. They blow soap bubbles, tiny globes, circular rainbows, born from a magic ring.
The voices in my head slip slowly into silence. Some nights I think they have no need of me, these dreams that arrive in the early hours and knock at my window.
When morning comes, I watch them fade and then I know they cannot live without me. When I am gone, they will go too.
This photo just reappeared on Facebook, posted 17 October 2016. I couldn’t believe it then, and I can hardly believe it now. What an honor. What memories. Imagine: immortalized on a beer pump in the bar of a foreign-to-me-now rugby club.
“There is some far corner of a foreign bar that is forever Canada, and Wales. And in that bright brew, a shadow will remain, a memory, ghosting through, whose stay was not in vain.”
Vanity of vanities, all things are vanity. The Olde Order changeth lest one good custom should corrupt the world. The memories fade as faces age and friends grow distant. They fade away like dreams in the early light of day.
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.
Meditations on Messiaen. Quartet for the End of Time.
3
The End of Time
A thin violin crying its cat-gut heart out in tears of sound, falling, rhythmic raindrops, down a grey-streaked face tight with stress and pain.
Such concentration, such soulfulness packed into each mindful note.
An audience of one, I sit, head bowed, meditating on the meaning of meaning and nothingness, the nothingness of being condemned to oblivion yet oblivious of the how and when.
Each note a hammer-blow, then, the piano hammering nail after nail into this coffin body I drag through the motions of extracting meaning from this meaningless life.
I remember pushing my father around the ward in the hospital. Two weeks we had together.
My father sat in his wheel chair and I wheeled him up and down.
“Cancer,” they told me. “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 letting him know what I now need to know?
One day, he begged me for help and I lifted him out of his wheelchair and placed him on the toilet. He strained and strained but could not, would not 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 in his arms, on his back, and me standing there, watching him, his trousers around his knees, straining hopelessly, and me bent over him, rubbing his back, waiting,
for him to go.
Comment: Thank you, once again, Alejandro Botelho of Diverse TV. This was a great reading. If you, dear reader, are interested, you can listen to it HERE. Alejandro’s reading of my poem begins at 40.52 and ends at 42.33. But remember, the other poems are also well worth listening to and Alejandro has a great voice and wonderful interpretation. A further comment: first there is the text. Then there is Alejandro’s excellent reading. Then there is my own reading. From each of these the observant reader and / or listener will extract a slightly different emphasis and meaning. In my own case, following Alejandro’s reading of the original text, I have added some minor changes, to add to the intertextual rhythm of the words. Tolle, lege et vade mecum. A Cancer Chronicle is available HERE.
Spotify Remember to scroll down to correct episode.
My Grandfather
My grandfather gave me my first sewing lessons. He sat before the kitchen fire and put a grey wooden darning mushroom inside the sock, stretching woolen threads to expose the hole.
He chose with care his colors: bright yellows, oranges, reds, sky blues, anything that stood out against the sock’s dark rainy-day drabness. If the socks were thin, he split new wool, pulling it into individual strands that he would dampen with his tongue. Then he would thread the needle.
Wool in place, he would cross-hatch the sock’s hole, slowly forming a life-raft that he’d fill with color. All my life, I have darned socks, sewn buttons, and mended my sweaters. I use bright colors, to my friends’ dismay. I still have my grandfather’s World War One sewing kit, all wrapped up in a canvas bag with his needles and some wool.
It’s wonderful to touch where his strong hands were. There are dark blood traces where he pricked his thumb and deeper stains where he sewed up wounded friends.
Comment:My Grandfather, the poem, is available on DiversityTV where it is read by Alejandro Botelho. Thank you, Alejandro, for a great reading and a fine interpretation of this poem. Click here > My Grandfather < for Alejandro’s reading. Note that My Grandfather begins at 13.30. Note too that the other poems on this site are worth listening to as well.
Dance of the Spheres Thursday Thoughts 26 August 2021
I thought for a moment that, yes,
I was an angel and I was dancing
on a pinhead with so many other
angels, and all of us butterflies
spreading our wings with their peacock
eyes radiant with joy and tears spark
-ling in time to the music that wanders
up and down and around with inscrutable
figures held spell-bound in a 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
earthbound connections severed and all
of us held safe in an Almighty hand.
Comment: This poem is from my book A Cancer Chronicle (2017) where it is published under the title Sewing Circle. While in the Auberge Monsieur Henri Cormier, in Moncton, undergoing treatment, I joined the quilting group. What fun, one anglophone man learning French from, a dozen Acadian women. What fun: and yes, I did learn a tremendous amount about so many things, including the peace, mindfulness, and inner concentration of sewing and quilting.
A Cancer Chronicle The verse-story of one man’s journey Click on the link below to purchase this book
Dawn from the Red Room at KIRA. Another form of birth.
Spotify Remember to scroll down to the correct episode.
The Origin of the World Gustave Courbet L’Origine du monde
The origin of the world and where I came from, her deep, moist cave that cast me from dark to light. She loved me, she said, depriving me of her warmth, leaving me to go back to her lover, loving him more.
Was it guilt that drove her to drinking whisky? A forty-ouncer a day at the end, sometimes more. She would wake in the night, wander the house, banging against chairs, tables, walls, and doors.
She ran up bills in local shops, and the keepers would dun me for the money she owed. She also borrowed cash and some days her fingers were bare. She left pawn shop IOUs on the table and I drove
into town to redeem her rings. Once, in a drunken frenzy, she cursed her only child. A mother’s curse is a terrible thing. Living albatross, it claws lungs and heart. Its weight drove me to the bottle. I too sought oblivion.
Joy came when blackness descended, the albatross flew, amniotic waters rocked me in warmth and comfort, and my body’s boat floated once again on an endless sea. Reborn each day, mornings cast me back from dark to light.
Comment: Here is the link to the DiversityTV reading of The Origin of the World. The Origin of the World begins at 28.40. I will attach my own reading from Spotify, just as soon as I complete it. I always find it fascinating to compare the way others read with the way I do. meanwhile, I would like to thank Alexandro Botelho for his invitation for me to participate in his DiversityTV show. I enjoyed his reading very much and I wish him all success with this venture.
rogermoorepoet 