Nature

Autumn Leaves

Autumn Leaves

I used to run,
jump, and catch them
in mid-air,
one, two, three
in each hand.

Now
I stand and wait
for them to fall
and land, perhaps,
on my clothes
or catch in my hair

…

the Leprechaun luck
of my Irish heritage,
so long-denied,
with its pot of golden leaves
waiting for me
at summer’s cast-off
rainbow’s end.

Commentary:

Autumn Leaves, but where does it go to. Good question. Moo asked me that the other day. I just had to tell him that I didn’t know. However, he did offer me the perfect painting for the fall and the changing leaves. Fall Folly Age. I never realized that he could play with words like he plays with paint. Anyway, I know that last winter he painted a picture of little white dots with wings. “What are they?” I asked him. “Snow flies,” he replied. “You know, when the snow flies …” “When the snow flies do what?” “I don’t know.” Moo and I live in a mysterious world, as you have probably come to realize.

Any way, the combination of fall foliage and fall folly age is quite a good one and it shows the folly of ageing and trying to chase down falling leaves when gadding about in the garden with two sticks, one in each hand. Of course, in case you don’t like that painting, and I hope you do like it, because I do, then here’s another one for you.

The text reads – “Autumn leaves – catch them if you can – while you can -and close the door behind her – when she leaves.” Oh witty Moo. Painting and occasional poetry too.

OAS

OAS

I take up my pen to scribble
my name and a riddle in the sands,
neither seen nor understood
by folk in far off lands.

Yet here I stand on foreign strand
my body twice marooned
by friends and fate and oft of late
my achievements all lampooned.

I bid you spare a thought for me
and also for my fate:
I came, I saw, I got a job,
but retirement ain’t great.

A pittance for a pension,
a life on OAS,
a walking stick and SOS,
that’s all that’s left, I guess.

Commentary:

A Golden Oldie from way back (2013 or so). Things get worse, in many ways, but yma o hyd – we’re still here. And that’s the main thing. We need rain, more rain, and yet more rain. Yet the damp really gets to those of us who suffer from osteo-arthritis. Maybe we should put a tariff on it (250%) and then it would be priced out of existence. Then it can rain as much as it wants and the aches and pains will stay in Aix-les-Bains and not come running after me.

I asked Moo for a painting of rain drops falling on my head, but he didn’t have one. So I found a photograph of a real rain storm falling on the back porch, a year or so ago. We need one of those right now. Moo is nodding his head as I type. Oh dear, he just snored. He must have fallen asleep. He does much more noddy now than he used to. And so do I. Maybe I’ll do a photo of a big yawn next. Or he can paint one.

Monkey Turns Down Promotion

Monkey Turns Down Promotion

“I hereby appoint you head of the asylum.”

The young office monkey with the plastic stethoscope
was dressed neatly in a white sheet.

“Dr. Freud, I presume?”
Monkey held out his hand
but his witticism was lost in a flood of water
flowing from the flush and over the floor.

Monkey stood there, paddling in piddle.
Inmates with crowded heads and vacant faces,
fools grinning at a universe of folly,
paddled beside him. He wiped
a sick one’s drool from his sleeve.

The office boy spat on his hands,
slicked down his hair, and placed
his stethoscope on monkey’s heaving chest.

“You have no pulse.”
“How do you know I have no pulse?
Surely, you cannot hear my heart
for you have a banana stuck in your ear.”

“Speak up!” said the doctor,
“I cannot hear you:
I have a banana stuck in my ear.”

Then monkey felt fear.

Daylight diminished
and waters closed over his head.
He spurned the proffered paw,
the life belt thrown
by the offer of a new position.

Exit monkey left,
pursued by a chorus:
“Run, monkey, run!”

Commentary:

A Golden Oldie from Monkey Temple (2010). I came across it by accident as I thumbed through some older books – wow, fifteen years ago that came out. A Golden Oldie indeed. I had forgotten all about Monkey Temple. However, the last couple of days I have watched New Zealand vs Canada and England vs France (Women’s Rugby World Cup). Both semi-finals took place at Ashton gate, Bristol. That’s when I started thinking about Bristol and Bristol Zoo.

We had family in Bristol (Westbury-on-Trym) and from an early age we visited Bristol Zoo. One of my favorite places was the old ruined Monkey Temple, full of monkeys that impressed me with their antics. A small, walled zoo, it was full of innovations and I remember well Alfred the Gorilla and Rosie the Elephant. I loved the rides on Rosie’s back. The camels too offered lifts to young children and the elephants took apples from my hand with their long trunks. I also remember the bear pit, and loved watching the brown bear climb to the top of his pole and catch food thrown to him by the visitors.

I think everybody’s greatest thrill came with feeding time for the seals. What a racket when the attendant appeared with his / her pail of fish and he/she threw them to the waiting seals. Almost as thrilling was the penguin house with its aquarium and glass windows. Animals that seemed so clumsy, waddling on land, turn into sea-angels when they dived and we could meet them, face to face, so to speak, almost in their own environment.

My love of zoos reached out and I recall the zoo in Madrid, established when Columbus returned from his voyages with species of animals hitherto unknown. And who could forget Copo de Nieve, the albino gorilla in Barcelona zoo.

Alas, my zoo day’s are over. But the world is wonderful. Today, two deer entered our front yard, lunched on the fallen crab apples, and went to sleep underneath the trees outside our window. Joy to the world and the world brings me joy -sunrise and sunset, colored clouds, the deer in my yard, a fox passing through. However, I must admit I am not impressed by the little red squirrel that nests under the hood of my car and gnaws my cables. Nor by the porcupine who loves the salt in my garage doors and nibbles at the door frame every chance it gets. The love of nature – red in tooth and claw – I guess we have to enjoy the good and put up with the bad. Life’s like that. “Ask the animals, they will teach you.” Bristol Zoo motto.

On reste ici

On reste ici

The double meaning
troubles my brain,
tugs heart strings,
sings a violin strain
or strums a throbbing
double-bass tightly
enclosed in my chest.

Rest, reste: here
we will remain and rest.
I like the sound of it.

Outside my window,
the mountain ash weeps
red autumn tears.
Robins flock, grow tipsy
feasting on its berries.
Ici on reste.

You and I, now,
and here we will remain
until, at last, in peace,
we will rest.

Commentary:

I live in a functionally bilingual province in a legally bilingual country. Yet I am consistently told that poems should contain only one language and should not wander between two (or more) of them.

This always reminds of the old joke – “I know what CBC Radio means, but what do the initials EC mean in ici [EC] Radio Canada?” This draws attention to one of my pet hates – the translators who translate for our politicians as they transfer their thoughts from one language to another. Suddenly, without warning, the husky-voiced male prime minister starts speaking French and his deep voice immediately changes into the high-pitched feminine interpreter’s alto. Most disconcerting. I flick back and forth between channels to catch those politicians in both languages. Alas, they rarely deliver the same message in both languages as the nuances and emotions change. Listen carefully and you’ll see (or hear) what I mean.

And so it is with poetry. I love the play on English – rest (to rest or to stay) and French rester (to stay or remain). Why shouldn’t I use that type of play in my poetry? It lends infinite shades of meaning and emotion to the verse. Ah well, the jury’s out. But don’t put foreign words (NB in Canada, French is NOT a foreign language) in your poems. You won’t get published and you won’t win any competitions, even if you do explain what the words mean. And remember, T. S. Eliot didn’t translate the foreign words he used in his Four Quartets. And he wasn’t a bad poet!

October

October

… and the wind a presence, sudden,
rustling dusty reeds and leaves,
the pond no longer a mirror,
its troubled surface twinkling,
sparking fall sunshine,
fragmenting it into shiny patches.

It’s warm in the car, windows raised
and the fall heat trapped in glass.
Outside, walkers walk hooded now,
gloved, heads battened down
beneath woollen thatches.

A wet dog emerges from the pond,
shakes its rainbow spray
soon to be a tinkle of trembling sparks
when the mercury sinks
and cold weather closes the pond
to all but skaters. Then fall frost will turn
noses blue and winter will start to bite.

Comment:

I was the first to like Moo’s painting, and indeed I do.
I hope someone likes my poem, too.

Sweet Dreams

Sweet Dreams

Amnesia survives in these amniotic waters,
moving in time to the water pump’s heart beat.
I close my eyes and dream. Nothing is the same.

Do I drift dreamily or dreamily drift?
The bath-tub’s rose-petals bring memories –
primroses, bluebells, cowslips, daffodils dancing

beneath the trees in Blackweir Gardens,
or beside Roath Lake, where I biked
on gravel paths so many years ago.

Photos float before me, pictures of moments
I alone recall. Spring in Paris, the trees
breaking into bud along the Champs-Élysées.

Santander in summer, walking the Piquío
as it slumbers beneath the jacarandas.
One winter in Wales, up in Snowdonia,

I ran down a valley between high hills,
on a freezing night, with only the stars
to keep me company, so cold, I nearly froze.

Autumn at the Peace Park in Mactaquac,
with leaves reflected in the head pond.
Or the Beaver Pond with its fall orgy

of gaudily painted trees, leaves drifting down
on this first chill wind, to settle like tiny,
colorful birds in my beloved’s hair.

I remember the look in her eyes when
I caught a falling leaf and put it in
her pocket, telling her to save it,
like a falling star, for a rainy day.

Autumn

Autumn
and all that jazz

1

Slow last drag of summer’s sad trombone
sliding its airs between stark, naked trees.

Golden memories float face down in tranquil
waters, life and the summer drained away.

A voice, her voice, ripples across the pond,
echoes over drowned and mirrored leaves.

2

Grey the sky, white the birch trees:
Narcissus kneeling, dark waters flooding

Tumble-dried by this autumn sky,
leaf words falling, still her voice echoes.

3

Tintinnabulation: a tin-pan alley of leaves
blown against windscreen and car windows.

I, who a grief ago sat here watching her walk,
now sit here alone, waiting for her return.

4

Here beginneth the gospel of the fall,
the fall of all things finally into deep water.

Fall, fall asleep to the rhythmic leaf beat
that summons us all to our appointed end.

5

I who am nothing know nothing, save that I
am a burnt-out ember, cold, in a grey-ash grate.

Grating of old bones, these hips and knees,
and if I fall, sweet heart, please love me more.

Commentary:

The trees and the grass are all stressed out and we are looking at an early fall this year. So many bright berries on our Mountain Ash and Crab Apple trees. Yet the grass all dry, the hollyhocks brittle, and so many flowers dried up and gone.

Water

Water

Here, in Island View, my lawn’s parched grass
longs for water, long-promised but never drawing near.
Do my flowers remember when the earth slept without form
and darkness lay upon the face of the deep?

The waters under heaven gathered into one place.
When they separated, the firmament appeared.
Light sprang apart from darkness
and with the beginning of light came the word,
more words, and then the world …

… my own world of water in which my mother
carried me until her waters broke
and the life sustaining substance drained away
throwing me from dark to light.

In Oaxaca, water was born free, yet everywhere
lies imprisoned in bottles, in jars, in frozen cubes,
its captive essence staring out with grief-filled eyes.

A young boy on a tricycle pedals the streets
with a dozen prison cells, each with forty captives:
forty fresh clean litres of drinkable water. He holds
out his hand for money and invites the villagers
to pay a ransom, to set these prisoners free.

Real water yearns to be released, to be spontaneous,
to trickle out of the corner of your mouth,
to drip from your chin, and fall to the ground.

It is a mirage of palm trees upon burning sand.
It is the hot sun dragging its blood red tongue across the sky
and panting for water like a great big thirsty dog.

Commentary:

This year, spring came with lots of rain. At one stage it looked like the waterlogged plants in our flower beds would all drown. Then, just before summer came, the rain went away and we suffered day after day of unbearable heat followed by nights during which the temperatures scarcely dropped.

As a result, the woods dried up and dry lightning strikes started fires. At one stage close to forty wild fires burned, many out of control. Entry to the woods was forbidden by law. Gradually, the fire-fighters fought back, extinguished the fires, one by one, and reclaimed control. I hope everyone realizes the enormous debt we owe to those brave men and women who risk their lives to save not only our lives, but our houses and our properties.

The fires have gone now. We had a day’s rain, 11 mms fell, but it’s not enough. We need more, a great deal more. We need to soak the trees, the grass, and to feed the streams and rivers. We also need to refill the aquifers on which life on earth, as we know it, depends. We need deep ends in our pools, not the shallow ends of depends, when it depends on whether or not the skies open and the heavenly waters fall.

CBC radio last night – farmers say they have lost their winter hay. How will the animals survive our winters with the hay fields burned and dry? One farmer said that, having no hay himself, it would cost him a minimum of $55,000 to bring in hay – if he could find anyone to sell it to him. Unfortunately, the same is true across the Maritimes – drought, forest fires, and a lack of winter hay. Spare a thought (and a prayer or two) for all those poor creatures, born to die, who will suffer this winter on account of this summer’s heat.

Apocalypse when?

Apocalypse When?

A strange, milk-cloud sky, skimpy, with the sun
a pale, dimly-glowing disc and my pen scarce
casting a shadow as the nib limps over the page.

Out on the west coast, fires still range free and this
is the result, these high, thin clouds casting a spider
web cloak over the sun face and darkening the day.

The west coast: five or six hours by plane and three
whole days to get there by train, even longer by bus,
all chop and change with multiple stops.

The wind blew and the clouds came widdershins,
backwards across the continent. Today they reached
across the ocean to claw the sun from European skies.

It is indeed a small world after all. Isostasy:
you push the balloon in here, and it bulges out
over there in the place you least expected.

Now we are all interconnected in an intricate network
of a thousand ways and means. What does it all mean?
Ripples ruffle the beaver pond’s dark mirror.

The forest mutters wind-words, devious and cruel,
that I sense, but cannot understand. High in the sky
clouds turn into horsemen on plunging steeds.

Fear, fire, flood, foe, poverty, pandemic, crops destroyed,
unemployment, and, waiting in the wings, the threat of civil
unrest, leading to the apocalypse and the war to end all wars.


Pioneer Sky

Pioneer Sky
04 September 2020

Sky and clouds float side
by side in the beaver pond,
mingling shape and color
with the autumn leaves.

When the walking trail
became too crowded,
the beavers left their lodge.
They moved to another pond,
lower down than this one,
and there, where fresh milkweed
grows, they built another dam
and a brand-new lodge.

The great blue heron still
stands on guard, patrolling
his usual watery haunts.
He searches for solitude
in untroubled waters,
weaving his wary way
between white and blue skies
mirrored in the pond below.

Just when I think that life
has become meaningless
I look up at that Pioneer Sky,
celestial blue for hope –
white clouds for purity,
and I seek new meanings.

I also find them
in the rippling patterns
of the Beaver Pond.