Mystery

What would you do if you lost all your possessions?

Daily writing prompt
What would you do if you lost all your possessions?
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What would you do if you lost all your possessions?

When I look at the growing number of refugees across the world, I wonder what would happen if such a disaster fell upon me. Then I look at the forest fires, out in Western Canada, in BC and Alberta, and wonder what we would do, what we would we pack, how would we manage, if the order to evacuate our home came suddenly upon us. When the Bocabec fires burned in New Brunswick, I felt the stress and distress of several of our close friends who were forced to evacuate. Then I thought that, really, it’s not a question of if, but of when. And this was my dream.

            … with my angel … face to face … the one I have carried within me since the day I was born … the black-one … winged like a crow … the one that hovers over me as I lie asleep … the one who wraps me in his feathered wings when I am alone and chilled by the world around me … the one who flaps with me on his back when I can walk no further and who creates the single set of footprints that plod their path through the badlands when I can walk no more …
            … ‘the truth’ my black angel says to me … I say ‘he’ but he is a powerful spirit, not sexed in any way I know it … and yet I think of him as ‘he’ …awesome in the tiny reflection he sometimes allows me to glimpse of his power and glory … for, like Rilke, I could not bear meeting his whole angelic being face to face … as I cannot bear the sun, not by day, and not in eclipse … not even with smoked glass … when earthly values turn upside down and earth takes on a new reality … wild birds and bank swallows roosting at three in the afternoon … and that fierce heat draining from the summer sky … I remember it well … and the dog whimpering as a portion of the angel’s wing erased the sun until an umber midnight ruled … a simple phenomenon, the papers said … the moon coming between the earth and the sun …but magic … pure magic … to we who stood on the shore at Skinner’s Pond and sensed the majesty of the universe … more powerful than anything we could imagine … and the dog … taking no comfort from its human gods … whimpering at our feet …
            … I saw a single feather floating down and knew my angel had placed himself between me and all that glory … to protect me … to save me from myself … and I saw that snowflake of an angel feather bleached from black to white by some small trick of the sunlight … and knowledge filled me … and for a moment I felt the glory … the magnificence … and there are no words for that slow filling up with want and desire as light filters from the sky and the body fills with darkness … and I was so afraid … afraid of myself … of where I had been … of where I was … of what I might return to … of my lost shadow … snipped from my heels …
            … I don’t know how I heard my angel’s words … ‘the time of truth is upon you’ … ‘all you have ever been is behind you now’ … ‘naked you stand here on this shore … like the grains of sand on this beach … your days are numbered by the only one who counts’ … I heard the sound of roosting wings … but I heard and saw nothing more … I felt only midnight’s cold when the chill enters the body and the soul is sore afraid …
            … ‘it is the law’ my angel said … I saw a second feather fall … ‘and the law says man must fail … his spirit must leave its mortal shell and fly back to the light’ … ‘blood will cease to flow … the heart will no longer beat … the spirit must accept and go’ … ‘do not assume… nobody knows what lies in wait’ … ‘blind acceptance … the only way … now …  in this twilight hour …  now when you are blind … only the blind shall receive the gift of sight’ … ‘all you have … your wife … your house … your car … your child … everything you think of as yours I own … and on that day … I will claim it from you and take it for my own … now I can say no more’ …
            … the sea-wind rose with a sigh and one by one night’s shadows fled … the moon’s brief circle sped from the sun … light returned, a drop at a time, sunshine flowing from a heavenly clepsydra filled with light …
            … birds ceased to circle … a stray dog saw a sea-gull and chased it back to sea … and the sun … source of all goodness … was once again a golden coin floating in the sky …
            … on my shoulder a feather perched … a whisper of warmth wrapped its protective cloak around my shoulders … for a moment, just a moment, I knew I was the apple of my angel’s eye … and I hoped and still hope that one day I might meet him again and understand …

Why do you blog?

Daily writing prompt
Why do you blog?
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Why do you blog?

I blog to make the world a brighter, healthier, happier place. I also blog to keep my readers aware of the existence of poetry, beauty, truth, love, and creativity. If I didn’t blog, those readers might never see the painting that I have attached above, painted by my friend Moo, of course – wrth gwrs. In fact, if I didn’t blog, you might never know that Moo is my friend, as is Sparkle. And if I didn’t blog you would never read the interview I had with Sparkle.

Who are you?
I am Sparkle.

What are you?
I am a fairy.

What???
I am a fairy. More important, I am your house fairy.

What on earth is a house fairy?
Well, when your granddaughter built a little fairy house and placed it where I could find it, and when I saw it and entered it, at her invitation, I became your house fairy.

Why did you choose that particular house?
Because it was built by a kind, loving young lady who didn’t want you to be alone. She built the house and outside the door she wrote Welcome Fairies. So I knew I’d be welcome. More important, perhaps, she built another fairy house in her own home and my friend Crystal lives there. Crystal told me there was a fairy home vacant, and she also told me where to find it. And she said that her human had told her that you might need a fairy friend to keep you company and stop you from being lonely. So, here I am.

I didn’t know that fairies could talk to humans.
They can’t, normally. But you are not a normal human being.

What do you mean by that?
You are a poet and a dreamer. Both poets and dreamers already have one foot in fairy land. Sometimes we call it la-la-land. It is a very special place and the people who can go into it are, in many ways, almost fairies. These are the ones we can talk to.

How do you know I am part-fairy?
Because I can see your wings.

But I don’t have any wings, not that I can see.
Quite. “Ah would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as the fairies see us.” That poem was written by a friend of mine, a long time ago. He was a poet and I could talk to him too. When the time comes for poets and dreamers to cross the rainbow bridge, their wings become visible and their spirits can fly again. That’s when they are able to return to fairy land.
Socrates was another friend of mine. He too was a poet and a dreamer. He dreamed that humans originally had one wing in the middle of their backs. When they found their soul-mates, they could join together and then, with two joined wings, they could fly to the heights of the spirit world.

Socrates? What did he know? He thought the world was flat.
He didn’t know everything, of course. But he was right about some people having a single wing and needing a partner to fly. You are very special – you have found one of those. Socrates just didn’t know that other people could have two wings, although they couldn’t be seen here, on earth, in this dream world where they dreamed they were wingless people.

So, am I dreaming that I am a wingless person?
Of course you are. But you will wake up to the truth one day. My task here, as your house fairy, in this house built for me by that cute young lady, is to help you realize your dreams. I will help you release the poet within and I will help you to reach out and make the world a brighter, kinder, more loving space, for other people who lack what you have – the power to dream and to create.

Oh dear. This is a little bit too much for me, Sparkle. I’ll have to sit down and think about it. It’s too much to take in all at once.
I know. But I have been chosen and I have been given the power to choose you. I have done so and I am here. And remember – I will never leave you nor forsake you.

Thank you so much, Sparkle. And thank Crystal and that little girl for me.
I will. Now I must go. It’s September and I have some fall sparkling to do. But don’t worry – I am here. I’ll be back. We’ll talk again.

What was the last thing you searched for online? Why were you looking for it?

Daily writing prompt
What was the last thing you searched for online? Why were you looking for it?
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What was the last thing you searched for online? Why were you looking for it?

The last thing that I searched for online was a prompt that I wished to be prompted by, but I promptly lost it before I could respond to it. Then I went looking, but still couldn’t find it, even though I searched everywhere I could think of.

I grow forgetful as I age, and now I can’t remember what the prompt asked for, and that’s a pity because I remember that I had a lovely answer. Now I can’t remember my answer either. So I am stuck in a sort of one-way street, going in the wrong direction, as I draw near to a roundabout that will lead me back the way I came.

I am afraid some Minotaur or other will seek me out, because I am lost in a labyrinth without the thread of Theseus to lead me out. And its no good searching online, because I no longer know what I am looking for. And that’s a bit like my life at the present time – a pointless search for meaning as I wander, amazed, through a baffling maze of days, seeking, I know not what, and never finding it. I don’t want to give up on it yet, because I know that the answer lies just around the corner, lurking like the last sardine in a sardine can, or the last piece of squid, cowering blackly in its own ink, in the tin, not wanting to be eaten.

Life leads me a merry dance, as king-like, a one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind, I rule my world. For, en el reino de los ciegos, el tuerto es rey / in the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. And no, I didn’t search for that online. It came to me in a sort of dream because, as Goya says, el sueño de la razón produce monstruos / when reason sleeps, monsters are born. And now I see them everywhere, those monsters, and I search online for solutions, but none appear. And so I continue on my merry-go-round way, leading my ragamuffins around those ragged rocks.

Hide and Seek

Hide and Seek

Pictures and memories play hide and seek.
They hunt the slipper that hides in the words
that slither and slide across my page.

They long to emerge, fully formed, and to step,
without effort, into your mind. They want
to linger there, to baffle, taunt, and haunt you.

Digging through the verbiage, a thought,
a metaphor, a grouping of words will join and
rejoin. This is the grit that the oyster slowly shapes
into the pearl of great price that glows so bright.

Consider the opal. Plain at first sight, yet changing
color, shimmering in sunlight, a chameleon
adapting to mood and shadow, its moon dance
hovering, a butterfly over burgeoning blossoms.

Who could ever forget, once seen, star light
illuminating the bay, the moon gilding the sea,
those summer nights, our secret love flowering.

The veiled will unveil itself and tease its way,
its path over the sparkling waters of the bay.
Knock and it will open. Seek and you will find.

Comment: I had a specific, named place in mind when I first wrote this poem. Then I realized that my secret place was not necessarily the remembered place of other people who had undergone similar experiences. So, I removed the specific and made it generic.

I know you have been there, to your own special place. A warm summer night. Star light over a bay. Or maybe it was an estuary, or perhaps a river bank? The moon appearing, lighting up the waters. Walking, perhaps, hand in hand. Or sitting, as I remember it so well, in a late-night café, watching the night lights on the fishing boats, as the moon spread its golden carpet over the bay.

Bone Fire Night

Bone Fire Night

Sometimes the sun’s too bright
and we are best, at night, by moonlight,
when shadows flicker and we seize,
in the shimmering half-light,
half-truths glowing in the dark.

In the full light of day, these ideas
take forms, flesh themselves out,
grow skin and bone, flesh and blood,
their skeletal beings standing,
fully-clothed, beside us.

They take on match-stick bodies,
twisted, pipe-cleaner shapes,
or stick their stakes into the ground,
hold out their arms, and turn into
scarecrows that scare away the truth

Do they bring us release from our
darkest yearnings, or are they those
self-same cravings, hankering after
their day of glory, that precious moment
when they stand upright in the sun?

With the advent of bone fire night,
we stack them into wheelbarrows,
place them on the gathering pile
of outmoded thoughts and ideas,
light a match, and watch them burn.

Why am I?

Why am I?

A coast line
where sea and shore
engage in a never-
ending dialog
of silence and sound.

Who sees such things?
The man or woman
who has eyes to see.

Who hears such words?
The person who has ears
to hear and a heart
with which to feel.

And who am I,
this old man walking
life’s sands at the tide’s
foaming edge?

With a clarity of vision
that morphs light into shadow,
and then back out again,
would you tell me, please,
who, and why, I am.

“The chorus of the ocean, the silence of stone.”
John O’Donohue, Anam Cara, p. 78.

The Appointment

The Appointment

“We have room tomorrow,” she said.
“But only between 7 and 9 am.
Shall I book you in for 8:15?”
“Sure,” I replied, not realizing
that I had forgotten to remember
the joys of rush hour traffic,
and the crush of crossing
the only bridge downtown.

I left home early only to find
chaos at the end of my road.
School busses, cars nose to tail,
trucks, cyclists, you name it,
it was all there, flowing, slow
but steady, with scarcely room
to insert a razor blade between
bumper and bumper. But that
was only the beginning.

The bridge downtown: it was
like threading a four wheeled camel
through the eye of a very small needle.
Crawlers, creepers, slugs and snails,
racing demons, speedsters, all of them
hustling, impatient, bustling, yielding
not an inch of space. My car became
a shuttle, weaving a thread of progress,
inch by inch, through the maze
that confronted and confounded.

I got to my journey’s end at last.
“You’re late,” said the girl at reception.
“You’ve missed your appointment.
Shall I book you in again?
Tomorrow at the same time?”

Click here for Roger’s reading.

Tell us about yourself

Tell us about yourself

That is one of the questions I most hate to be asked. What on earth is there to tell? One direction is the Muhamad Ali route – “I am the greatest!” Some people take that route and walk you down the highway of their lives, everything from winning the egg and spoon race (age seven), to coming second in the three-legged race (age 9), to finishing third in the slow bicycle race (age 11). And that’s just the start. A similar route is the 007 route – license to kill – shoot from the lip – a blast from the past – history, herstory, my-story – by me!

No way. My history is a mystery and long may it remain so. There are many magic moments (thank you Perry Como – my mother’s favorite singer) and many tragic moments. Some might be worth mentioning, most I’d rather keep quiet about. I think sometimes of the famous examination question – write down everything you know – except I can’t remember who was examining who, nor why they were being examined. Sounds a bit like the Civil Service to me, before they ask you to swear the Official Secrets Act.

On the other hand, if a person asks me a direct question, I will try to answer it to the best of my limited ability. Who is Lisi? I don’t know. Her identity has baffled the literary critics for close to 400 years and I certainly haven’t been able to solve it. Why did Cervantes write the Quixote? Try asking him yourself – but I guess if he’s been silent since 1616, he will remain silent for a lot longer. Not everyone is – or wants to be – the Memory Man – “We know Easter is a Moveable Feast, when did Easter Sunday last fall on Boxing Day?”

Trick question – Easter Sunday is a race horse, not a holy holiday. Boxing Day, in Britain, used to be the day for point to points and obstacle races for horses. But the Memory Man knew that. He also knew the name of every jockey, every horse, their weights, their odds, the order in which they finished, and the name of the fence which caused Easter Sunday to fall on Boxing Day.

So, tell us about yourself. No. I won’t. I am not the memory man and I will reveal as little as I can. Remember the old song – “Yesterday is history, today is still a mystery, but what a day it’s going to be tomorrow.” Right – now I am ready to tell you about myself. I am not yesterday’s man, I am today’s man, and today is still a mystery. Sorry, I can’t do better than that!

A Month Ago

A Month Ago

A month ago, on November 23, I posted my last message on this blog. Since then, nothing. Silence.

For thirty days and thirty nights the world has been as silent as the painting I posted above. It has been as silent as snow flakes circling. As quiet as the ribbons tied silently together. Nothing stirred. Nothing moved. Nothing.

Can an absence be a presence? Sometimes it is, for example, when we lose a tooth, a family member, or a friend. In their absence, we lament the loss of their presence. With a tooth, we run the tongue around the empty space, noticing the tenderness of the flesh, the hollow within the gum.

It’s the same with friends. They go AWOL. Move on. Forget their promises of eternal friendship. They become the empty space where the tooth once stood. At first we grieve. Then we become used to their absence. Then, one day, we realize that their voices have fallen silent and then they are friends no more.

Right now, there is a hollow in my life. An absence. I cannot put my finger on what is missing, absent, as always, without leave. Maybe it is the Christmas beliefs that dogged my childhood. Maybe it is the emptiness that warns of oncoming storms, each one greater than the one before. Maybe it is just the premonition, the suspicion, that all is not well with the world.

This year we gave more money than ever before to the Feed a Family Fund. Then we sent extra money to the local foodbank. Everywhere we see that the social ball of string is unwinding and ends no longer meet. It seems our society no longer has the will or the means to justify any ends, except selfish ones. Is it everyone for themselves, then, and the devil take the hindmost? Sometimes it feels like it.

I have seen the hindmost, human beings they are, just like you and me, except they are wrapped in blankets, begging at traffic lights, sitting outside the supermarket, a coffee cup at their feet, hoping for a penny to drop. Where have all the pennies gone? Gone to the smelters everyone. So they wait for a nickel to drop, or a dime, or even a quarter.

Covid-19 and all its subsequent derivations may well have been at the heart of all this. The isolation. The masking. The distancing. The fear of the unknown. The fear of the stranger in our midst. We have become used to living with those fears. We still have Covid-19 and its variations, some with long term complications. We now have a virulent flu as well. And there are various viral infections circulating.

The Apocalypse? Not yet. The Apocalypse has four horsemen and I have only mentioned three. So – where is the fourth one hiding? When will he appear? What will he look like? Maybe he’s lurking in a food bank, an unrepentant Grinch preparing to steal the food? Perhaps he hides in an unheated house? Can he be spotted at the dinner table, where the parent or parents are not eating, so that a child may eat?

I throw these questions out. Outside my window, clouds gather and snow starts to fall. I listen carefully. But all I can hear is the silence to which I have grown accustomed.