Hope

Clepsydra 41 & 42

41

… fire flares on the water
     rivers and lakes blaze
          that sound is a monster
               a dragon descending
                    breathing fire

so swift so powerful
     come sudden
          from nowhere
              yet another disaster
                   with its ravenous roar         

the dragon refuses to move on
     until sated
          but who could satisfy
               that monster
                    destroy its will
                         defeat its power

will Lac Megantic
     ever be the same
          after all these years
               of grief and tears

will fading memories
     be all that remain …


42

… a stillness between words
    tranquil movements
         the world suspended in space
               soundless the night
                    drenched in silent light

 Aurora Borealis
     draws gaudy curtains
          across the night sky

I can hear my heart beat
    as time softly sifts

a celestial hour glass
     this sky filled
          with unimaginable light
               breaking coloured waves

lit up
     with mysterious flowers
          so graceful
               when decked out
                    in light

 the moon returns
     turns into a mirror

          its silver boat
               suspended in space

silent its light
     enlightening
          the heart’s dusky craters

dawn’s silent glory
     will be here soon
          pointing the silent path
               to even more light …

Commentary:

Ten years or so since the disaster at Lake Megantic. I am sure it affected everyone who followed the news, saw the pictures, and bore witness to the power of conflagration. Moo offered me his painting called Burning Birbi. A Birbi is a Koala Bear in one of the Aboriginal Languages. When the fires hit New South Wales, the Eucalyptus Trees started to fire. When in danger, the Birbi climbs the eucalyptus trees, higher and higher, followed, of course, by the fire. A fate inescapable. Just like the Megantic Disaster. Word has it that it could, and should, have been prevented. I cannot (will not) comment on that here. I will just stress the fear that we all have, those of us who live in a drought stricken province (New Brunswick) surrounded by trees.

The closest wildfire to us, in Island View, was about 31 kilometres away. The closest trees are about 30 feet away from the house. Much too close for comfort. Curtains of flame and smoke, rising up to stain the skies. And the smell of burning also inescapable. Stay indoors, I say. Shut the windows. And hope that nothing comes your way!

Fire, controlled, brings heat, warmth, light. The Northern Lights bring spectacular light flooding down from the skies, not rising up. You can almost hear the sky crackling as the light curtains shift and shimmer and dance their way across the horizon. Fire and Fire Light – beautiful when we can control them, but oh-so-destructive when they flame and flare, out of control.

Do not despair. Just remember we need each other, all of us, each one of us. Together we can overcome most things. Isolated and alone, like the lone koala at the top of his tree, it is much, much more difficult to survive. Select your friends carefully. Maintain contact with them. And be there for each other in times of need, for, as we say in Wales – “a friend in need, is a friend in deed.”

Clepsydra 39 & 40

39

… all too soon I too shall move on
     leaving behind me
          fading memories and cloud shadows


yet I recall
     standing beneath the cathedral’s
          great rose window
               on a sunny day
                    my body dressed
                         in a harlequin suit
                              of glistening lights 

in such splendour
     mortal things like words
          cease to flow

I held my breath
     shocked by an enormous presence
          that filled me then
               as it does now
                    with the knowledge
                         that nothing happens in vain …

40


… illumination
     I must find it for myself
  were another to tell me
      where it dwells
            its light would be untrue

only I can strike the match
     ignite the flame
          and trap its warmth
              in my body’s bone cage

when it flowers within me
     I’ll need no candle
          not even in the darkest mine

in Alma, I have seen
     the tide lower
          Fundy fishing boats
               down into the mud

like those boats
     I lack the power
          to resist both time and tide …

Commentary:

I asked Moo for a painting of boats from Fundy, preferably from Alma, lying on their sides at low tide. “Let me see what I am meant to be illustrating,” he said. He read the above excerpt from Clepsydra and told me “You’re navel gazing again. I thought I told you not to do that. Now, have I got a painting for you.” I didn’t dare refuse to post it – he’s had a bad couple of days and it has sharpened his sense of humor – so it’s here it is. Moo calls is – now don’t laugh – Naval Gazing.

“Nothing happens in vain.” So maybe I was predestined to ask Moo for a painting he didn’t have and to end up with one that tickled his fancy. Now that set off a light bulb in my skull. Mr. Dimwitty came to his sense – I have been navel gazing. Naughty, naughty. How many of you remember Mr. Dimwitty, the not too bright schoolmaster on BBC radio? Hold up your hands, and I’ll count them.

Meanwhile, things happen to Moo and me, and like the boats on the Fundy, we lack the power to resist both time and tide. And that’s why we help each other, carry each other along. “We few, we few, we band of brothers.” That was Shakespeare. Nowadays we have to say “we band of siblings.” It pays to be inclusive. Speaking of bands, I saw a man walking down Main Street yesterday, blowing a rubber trumpet. I asked him what he was doing and he told me that he was looking for a rubber band. Joy to the world and help spread the joy. If you don’t like joy, spread Marmite. And if you don’t like Marmite I am sure you’ll love Vegemite. Ma might, but Pa won’t. That’s why it’s not called Pa-mite.

Clepsydra 37 & 38

37


… now I am absent from myself
     but can an absence
          be a presence

 I guess it can
     like when I lose a tooth
          I lament the loss of its presence
               and run my tongue
                    around the tender gum

a space where my tooth once stood
     where the candle flame
          once flickered and flared
               before it disappeared …

38

… I grieve for my mother
     standing in the garden
          her magnolia bleeding
               ivory petals
                    as soft as spring snow

some settled on her head
     crowning her
          with youthful beauty
               as she walked towards me
                    eyes shining arms held out

yet when I try
     to recapture that scene
          I only see a winter garden
               with withered blossoms
                    on a leafless tree …

Commentary:

“Can an absence be a presence?” Good question I asked Moo that and he showed me several paintings of trees in winter and vacant faces that he had knowingly filled with sorrow. But I preferred the image of “I only see a winter garden with withered blossoms on a leafless tree.” So I chose my own photo. Moo was very upset and asked me to put in one of his winter paintings anyway, so here it is.

Now Moo is very happy, and he needs to be, because he has had a bad day. I am so glad I am not Moo when he has a bad day. His cardiologist wanted Moo to wear a Holter. Moo didn’t want to wear one. But he listened to his specialist, and obeyed. He was very stressed when he went into the hospital. The acquisition of the Halter was meant to take 15 minutes, maximum. Moo sent 75 minutes sitting in a cold room with no shirt on, terminals attached, and no Holter available. “Can an absence be a presence?” Indeed it can. And Moo is still very upset and very stressed. Nobody’s fault. Things happen. “The candle flame once flickered and flared before it disappeared.” Now you see it, now you don’t. And Moo laments the absence of what should have been a presence and then became a delayed presence. Oh fickle life and times!

I still grieve for my mother, standing in the garden, her magnolia bleeding ivory petals as soft as spring snow. I remember that some settled on her head crowning her with youthful beauty as she walked towards me, eyes shining arms held out. Yet when I try to recapture that scene I only see a winter garden with withered blossoms on a leafless tree. Maybe Moo, with all his stressed out Moo-ds saw that scene more clearly than I did. So, Moo boosts me, and I boost Moo, and that’s what best friends always do. So you go out and boost your best friend too. Blessings and blossoms. And may you all help each other to fare well.

Clepsydra 34

34

… my heart so broken
     I can’t count the pieces
          nor solve the puzzle

scars are trenches
     deep defensive lines
          gouged into my face 

every night
     the black dog returns
          and I wake up from a dream
               to find myself pincered

attracted by the light
     squeezed tight
          between cave walls

my top half struggles to be free
     my bottom half
          hips down is held
               in a ferocious grip

I scream the way
     a stuck pig screams
          when the knife flashes
               and the hot blood spurts

all at sea
     I move up and down
          on dark restless waves

I reach for a life raft
     but find only an apple
          bobbing as it floats …

Commentary:

Moo thought I needed cheering up, so he did this painting for me. U R My Sunshine, he said to me, then gave me the painting for today’s post. I think he was rather taken with the phrase ‘attracted by the light’ … hence the nice, bright, sunny painting. Whenever I feel down, Moo reminds me that every cloud has a silver lining. Today’s clouds over Island View certainly do. They have actually brought rain and we need that rain so badly. We are in the middle of a drought, in places it is a severe drought. Wells are drying up, the river and the aquifers are low, we need rain – and now we have some. Too late for the apple orchards and the farmers who do not have enough winter feed for their cattle. Too late for the local deer who do not have their usual post-summer glossy looks. And too late for the trees that look drab, having lost their usual fall glow to appear very pale and peaky. Let us hope that a little more rain, on a regular basis, will change all that, and give us the sort of silver lining that, next year, will produce golden apples and brightly colored fall leaves

Clepsydra 31 & 32

31

… I become more aware
     of the world
          outside my mother’s womb

I listen to the house’s heartbeat
     the occasional creak
          intruding rarely
               the house inhaling
                    exhaling

 I pay attention
     to my own bodily sounds
          my heart rate slowing
               increasing

now I can hear
     the faint tick-tock
          of a distant clock

a sunray illuminates
     a dust mote
          that dances before my eyes

light without sound
     silent butterfly wings
          seeking celestial light …

32

… did I write
          these words for me
               or did I write them
                    for someone else

does it matter
     when the only thing that counts
          is the beauty released,
               when the butterfly breaks free
                    and takes flight …

Commentary:

“The only thing that counts is the beauty released when the butterfly takes flight.” Sounds beautiful, doesn’t it? Just like the old poetic adage “beauty is truth and truth beauty.” But is it true? There are some very ugly truths and it is very hard to beautify them, even though we do our best to do so. I have always hated simplicities like “lipstick on a pig” or “silk purse out of sow’s ear”. And then there’s ‘a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’ Probably true. Yet an ugly truth is still an ugly truth however much the spin doctors try to spin it.

And for whom does a poet (he in this case, the poet being me) write his poetry? Did I write those words for me, or for someone else? Good question. I certainly wrote them in the hopes that someone, somewhere, perhaps you, whoever you are, might read them. But I don’t know you, can’t know you, how could I know you? But if I don’t know you, how could I write for you? Did Cervantes write the Quixote for himself, or for his readers? And who were his readers, did he know them? He certainly didn’t know me, because he passed away on April 23, 1616, same date as William Shakespeare and the Inca Garcilasso de la Vega. The same date, you notice, but not the same day! Puzzle that one out, if you will. Meanwhile, he died 328 years, give or take a month or two, before I was born, so I don’t think he had me in mind as he penned his words, much as I didn’t have you (specifically) in mind, as I penned mine.

Carpe diem – seize the day. Don’t wase it on such idle philosophical speculations. Speculation / peculation – go buy yourself a lottery ticket – you may even win the jackpot. Of course, if you wish, you can be like me. I never buy lottery tickets and that would put money in my pocket every week (think of it as winnings!) except I never take it out. And remember – “Keep your water weak and your cider strong, keep your hands in your pockets and you won’t go wrong.”

Clepsydra 28 & 29

28

… diagnosed
     with a terminal illness
          called life
               I know it will end
                    in death

I have seen many
     pass that way
          two-legged humans
               four-legged friends
                    and none have come back

I recall
     holding the dog’s shaved paw
          while the vet slipped
               that last redeeming needle
                    into the exposed vein

the dog’s eyes
     pleaded for release
          her tongue licked my hand
               oh so trusting
                    even at that
                         for me
                              so bitter end

and did the poor dog know
     what was coming
          did she live her life
               as I have led mine
                    waiting for that last word
                         to be spoken
                              the last order given …

29

… two of us
     me and my death
          walking side by side
               everywhere
                    sharing the same bed
                         sleeping between
                              the same sheets

I wonder if
     we dream
          the same dreams

my death
     how would I greet him
          when he came
               as executioner
                    not friend

I re-create him as a man
     or as a dark angel
          with all-comforting wings

is he open-eyed,
          while I am blindfolded
               not knowing the way
                    afraid of falling

this death
     is it cruelty
          or merely love               

the path is ahead is new
     and totally unknown …

Commentary:

Many of the images in these two pieces are exercises in intertextual examples, Stanza 29 in particular, drawn from the Neo-Stoicism of Francisco de Quevedo (1580-1645). His advice, set out in poem after poem, is to embrace death before it comes. Prepare for it, mentally, and be aware that it is the natural end of life. As Dylan Thomas also writes, “Every morning when I wake, oh Lord this little prayer I make, that thou wilt keep thy watchful eye on all poor creatures born to die.” The Dunvant Male Voice Choir gives us this version of it. Remember to turn your sound on! I like this version, not just for the music, but also for the views over one of my favorite childhood beaches, Rhossili and the Worm’s Head, not far from my home in Gower.

As I grow older and creakier, as my ailments accumulate, one by one, so I realize that indeed I have been “diagnosed with a terminal illness called life.” It’s funny to think of life as a terminal ailment. “Take two Tylenol and when you wake up tomorrow morning you’ll be feeling much better.” And yes, like every sane person “I know it [this terminal ailment] will end in death.” So, don’t be sad. Carpe Diem – seize each day and enjoy every one of them to the best of your ability. Remember the inscription on the Roman Sundial – horas non numero nisi serenas – I count only the happy hours. Whatever you do, have no regrets. If you do have some, make your peace with them now – or as soon as you possibly can. And, when the call comes, go willingly. Step with pride and joy onto that new and unknown path that will lead you to an eternity of joy, acceptance, and love.
                   

Slipping Away

Slipping Away

Some days I feel you are slipping away, sliding
slowly into yourself, losing all thoughts and feelings
in your mind’s twisting maze of secret ways.

It gets harder and harder for me to drag you away
from the color tv and back into the black and white
realities of the daily life we used to share.

I do my best. I drive you out for a daily walk
in the local park. I do the shopping on my own,
selecting the groceries I think will please you.

I pick up your prescriptions from the pharmacy.
I prepare a croissant sandwich for your lunch.
Every night, I cook you the supper of your choice.

The possibility of losing you starts to affect me.
Already I am feeling alone and desperate and I grieve
for that which I might lose, your active presence.

What is happening to us? Is it just old age?
The longer it goes on, the more it seems that you are
like a sailing ship at sea, diminishing in the distance,
or like early November snow, slowly fading away.

Commentary:

Moo liked this poem. He thought that First Snow was an excellent choice for the painting. This is Canada. We all know how that first, early snow storm can suddenly drift away into nothingness. The original poem ended with the line ‘like a sailing ship at sea, diminishing in the distance’ but Moo begged me to add another line – and so I did ‘or like early November snow, slowly fading away’. Good old Moo, he mothers me like a mother duck with only one duckling. He has some good ideas, though, and I love some of his paintings. It’s Thanksgiving Monday in Canada today and yes, we can all give thanks for Moo and his paintings! Well, I can anyway. So, here goes – thank you Moo.

Not that there’s any early snow here. Not yet, anyway. Frost yes, but last year I only used the snowblower on three occasions. That is a crazy winter. We used to get nine feet of winter snow here in Island View, and when the spring melt came, our black Labrador retriever could swim around the block in the flooded ditches. Now we scarcely get enough water to fill the aquifer and we live in fear of a water shortage that may, next year or the year after, dry up our wells. “De Nile ain’t just a river in Egypt.” No water shortage yet this year – but we are being very, very careful with our water usage. The St. John River is lower than anyone can remember – four feet down at least as it descends towards the sea. And that is not good news for anyone. “Those who have eyes, but will not see until the river fails to reach the sea.”

Many of us care. And we all do our little bit. No watering the lawns. No washing the car. No watering the flowers. Use the dish-washer once every few days, one weekly load, not multiple daily loads. Don’t leave the tap running while you brush your teeth. When they stayed with us, our friends from Oaxaca looked on in astonishment at the amount f water we wasted. We learned a great deal about water conservation from them. I must include them in my Thanksgiving Thanks as well.

My First Thanksgiving

My First Thanksgiving

For the first twenty-two years of my life,
Thanksgiving had no meaning, no substance,
no shape, nor form, nothing to hold me.

When I emigrated to Canada,
my Canadian cousins changed all that.
when they invited me to come to
Kincardine for Thanksgiving.

They served a traditional Thanksgiving Dinner
with vegetables in colored jellies
and all sorts of things I had never seen.

We were all surprised
at how alike we looked.
Like Cousin George in Vancouver,
or Cousin Elsie in Revelstoke.

They told me how WWII
had brought the family back together
on these special holidays –
Christmas in Wales for the Canadian troops
or Thanksgiving in Winnipeg
for the Welsh boys learning to fly.

That thanksgiving, the old family names
turned into photographs before me.
Snaps of my mother’s wedding,
my grandmother holding me on her knee.

And finally, as a special Thanksgiving gift
a long-distance phone call to Britain
and Clare on the phone saying
yes she would come to Canada
and yes she would marry me.

And I remember crying
all the way back from Kincardine
to Toronto and that was my first
Thanksgiving in Canada.

Gone out

Gone out

“She has lived.
Now she has gone out.”

And all too soon
I too will go out
and people
will be able to say
he has gone out.

Or not.
Maybe there’ll just be
a silence.
Few people know me.
Even fewer care about me,
know who I really am
what I’ve actually done.

What have I done?
Nothing, really.
Nothing at all.

But I have struck a match or two,
lit some candles,
and allowed them to shine
in the darkness …

…

and soon, I too,
like those candles,
will go out.

Commentary:
The opening quote, changed and adapted, is from Rudyard Kipling’s novel Kim. I was reading it a few days ago, by candlelight, as we had a brief, and totally unexpected power outage because some idiot ran into a power pole on the highway below us and cut off our power.

Reading by candlelight is so inspirational. It brings back memories of my childhood in Wales, summer evenings in the bungalow, no power, no running water, reading by lamplight or candle light. The candle’s scent, the flicker of shadowy thoughts across the page, each word held for a moment or two in a magic, shimmering glow. I recall also the candles on the high altar, lit for midnight mass, and the church all a-sparkle with shimmering light, incense, and flowers.

Power outage – I often think they should be called power out[r]ages. Then I think of the war zones, rife with suffering, where power outages are only one of the many outrages from which people are suffering. “Man’s inhumanity to man.” Robbie Burns, I believe. I regret calling that driver who took out the power pole an idiot. Shame on me. I found out later that he was a human being, suffering, just like me, from the attributes of ageing. A heart attack took him and his leaden foot, dead on the accelerator, sped him into the power pole.

DOA – dead on arrival at the power pole, and at the hospital. “He has lived. Now he has gone out,” snuffed out like the candles I blew out when the power was finally restored. It’s so easy to relight a candle, so hard to relight the beauty of a lost human life.




Clepsydra 16-17

Clepsydra 16 & 17
Click on the following link for the previous stanzas
Clepsydra 14 & 15

16

… would this be the beginning
     or the end

men and women
     on the street
          hands out
               fingers splayed
                    panhandling

their eyes
     black holes in empty faces
          not brain dead
               just drained of hope
                    brains deadened
                         by blow after blow

loaf after loaf crisping
     blackening in life’s oven
          fit only for preacher crows
               flitting from tree to tree

descending on garbage day
     to feast on desperate souls
          marooned kerbside
               for garbagemen to find …

17

… no soul allowed
     to weigh more than forty pounds
          each one swaddled
               in a plastic garbage bag
                    that serves
                         as a winding sheet

dust to dust
     to grey-faced ashes
          wound up by brawny arms
               swung flung skywards
                    into the truck

then ferried away
     to that place where crows
          and hunch-backed vultures
               gulls and humped eagles
                    wait for merciless ferries,

they cross into the shadow lands
     who was the one who found me
          who untied the ties that bind
               freed me from my cell
                    the shell of myself
                         and set me free …

Commentary:

Poetry explains itself.
If it doesn’t, it’s inexplicable.