Dark

Dark

The lights went out suddenly,
leaving me in the dark.
A cloudy night, not a spark
of starlight to light my way.

My search for candles was slow.
I found them, struck matches,
and sat at the table watching
light catch and flames glow.

A war baby – bombs, blackout
curtains, diminished light, all
are present in my DNA, and yet,
I fear the dark above all.

Like a moth, or a high plane
caught in a searchlight,
I struggle to escape from twin
siren calls: fire and light.

I sat and waited for power
to return. An hour, two hours,
three, four. Then I couldn’t wait
any more. I climbed the steep,
wood hill that led to bed.

At the top of the stairs
a plea for light filled my head
and a plea for the return
of light formed the focus
for long-forgotten prayers.

Comment:
We lost power for 15 hours a couple of weeks ago. One moment we were sitting there, after supper, ruminating quietly, with the lights on. The next, we were sitting in the dark. We found a flashlight – light but no warmth. Then moved on to candles. Candles need matches. When the ingredients were ready, we struck the matches to light the candles. These were the first three we lit.

We are so lucky. Sure, it was an awkward night. But it was only fifteen hours. We talked about the homeless, their poverty, often in the middle of such wealth, the poor who have homes, but who cannot afford to light them or heat them, the innocent victims in war zones, powerless in every sense of the word, deprived of light, heat, water, plumbing, sanitation. Our prayers that night included them as well – all of them.

What is one thing you would change about yourself?

Daily writing prompt
What is one thing you would change about yourself?
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What is the one thing you would change about yourself?

Only one thing? I remember a story about a boy who boarded in a monastery school, and there, like the monks, they all changed their dirty habits once a week. So, is a dirty habit a thing? Probably is, if its a brown, sackcloth habit, tightened around the waist with a white cord by a man wearing open-toed sandals and no socks. So, there we go, once a week, on Wednesdays, like those monks, I also change my dirty habits. I also change my shoes, my socks, my shirts, my sweaters, my jeans.

More important, as I grow older, I have permitted myself to change my mind as often as I like. So, yes, I also change my mind, and not just on Wednesdays. And I really do change it when, like my habits, it gets dirty. “Oooh, you’ve got a dirty mind, you have.” “Well, so I do. Never mind, I’ll just go and change it.”

“What did Big Ben say to the Leaning Tower of Pizza?” – I’ve got the time, if you’ve got the inclination.
“How many ears did Davy Crocket have?” – Three – a left ear, a right ear, and a wild front ear.
“What’s yellow and deadly?” – Shark infested custard.
“What’s black and deadly?” – A crow in a tree with an AK47.
“When is a door not a door?” – When it’s a jar.
“What time is it Eccles?” – “It’s eight o’clock.” “Here, how do you know it’s eight o’clock?” “I’ve got it written down on a piece of paper.” “What do you do if it’s not eight o’clock?” “I don’t look at the paper.”
“Ding-a-ling” – That’s my ear ringing. I’ll just pick it up and answer it.
“What’s the first sign of madness?” – Hairs in the palm of your hand. “What’s the second sign of madness?” – Looking for them.

So what is one thing I would change about myself? Possibly the absolute necessity to tell awfully bad jokes. Easy to say – I’ll probably keep adding to these as I remember more of them. Take care – you have been warned.

“How many – men – does it take to change a light bulb?” – Five. One to hold the bulb and four to turn the ladder. Jokes like these can be good or bad. Good because they are occasionally funny. Bad, because it so easy to insert an adjective before – men – and to turn the joke into something more devious and not necessarily very pleasant.

“And that is the end of the gnus,” said the lion on BBC television, as he licked his paws. “Enough, no more. It is not as sweet now, nor as sour, as it was before. Pass the chow mean, please.”

What are your two favorite things to wear?

Daily writing prompt
What are your two favorite things to wear?
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What are your two favorite things to wear?

What a strange question. I suppose it merits a strange answer. And the answer is – it depends. You see – I live in Atlantic Canada. Here we have several sayings. One from the Bay of Fundy is – “You don’t like this weather? Hang around five minutes. It will change.”

I had the snow blower prepped for winter a week or so ago. So, what are my two favorite things to wear when snow blowing? Only two? Hat, scarf, water-proof / wind-proof coat, thick gloves, scarf, warm socks, boots that keep out the water and the cold and that have soles that grip into the snow. You mean I have to choose two things from that lot? I just checked the calendar – it’s not April the First, you know.

In summer, when the Fundy Fog rolls in from the sea and wraps scarves of salty mist around the trees, and it becomes so cold, so damp, and so chilly so quickly – what are my two favorite things to wear? I guess you can double-check the list above and eliminate an item or two. But I wouldn’t chuck out too many.

And what about cross-country skiing? As the weather changes, and as you warm up, you need several layers of removable clothing that can be taken off, when you warm up, and placed back on when you hit the shade between the trees and you start to cool down. But only two items? What are you doing to me? And what about the wind-chill factor?

Once, when I walked the picket-line at -35C, we had all been pre-emptively locked out from my former place of employment, we were visited by Flying Pickets from the Northern Part of Canada. They had a saying: “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.” You notice they didn’t say anything about two items of clothing. I wonder why not?

So there you have it. Be prepared, I say. It always depends. And remember: “Never mind the weather / As long as we’re together.” Perhaps those two items might just be you and me! But then, we’re not clothing, are we? Not unless we are just rag dolls.

The Seeker

The Seeker

Weaver of words, I wander my weary way
across a field of snow, careful as I go
not to slip and fall into the depths that wait below.

I know them of old, those man-trap mine-shafts
where darkness dwells, hand in hand with despair.
I know only too well the weight of coal dust,
fine and thin, polluting lungs with unfiltered air.

How long will I have the courage and strength
to survive so deep beneath the surface
and to explore those depths at greater length?

Who would now, willingly, plunge, or dig
and delve so deep into the mines underground?
Ony the searcher, the seeker who knows that
in dark pits wondrous gems can still be found.

Comment:
I don’t really know why, but my thoughts are now appearing (more or less) in rhyme and often in sonnets. Well, Milton Acorn’s Jack Pine Sonnets, straggly and wild, like the Jack Pines of Canada’s East Coast. Sometimes I think that this is a new format for me. And then I realize it’s where I started so long ago – a rhyming poet. “In my beginning is my end.” I have indeed returned to my roots. But now they are Jack Pine roots, well settled here in this wonderful Maritime Province of New Brunswick, amid Jack Pine, rock, and winter snow.

Doubts

Doubts

At midnight,
when that dark owl calls,
I sip a bitter wine.

The thoughts I think
are not my thoughts,
how could they ever
be mine?

And yet they are
the thoughts I think,
and round and round
they twine.

They wrap me in
a thousand threads
and none of them
are mine.

Whose are they then,
these thoughts I think?
They do not come from me.

And yet they make me
double think
this person that is me,
and who I am,
and what I am,
and where I’m going to be.

Comment:
I guess that’s what happens when you finish your bottled sunshine (sol embotellado) before going to bed. The painting and the poem match up nicely though, ribbons of dark thought streaming through an empty head. Guessing and double-guessing, thinking and double-thinking, doubting and finding yourself inside that great cloud of unknowing in which you rarely know where you are going. Still, if you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there. Pen-y-Bont, anyone? Or Abertawe, Cas Newydd, Llandeilo, Caerfili, Rhiwbina, Treorci, Trebanog …

Old Wounds

Old Wounds


“The slow wound
deepens with the years
and brings no healing.”

The Minister. R. S. Thomas

How deep time’s wounds
have cut and carved,
not just in flesh and bone,
but in the embers
of that slow-burn fire
 they call the heart.

Memory and mind
have also played their part.

Some days, those wounds
don’t ache at all.

But there’s no real healing,
and a moment of madness,
a knife-edged finger nail,
careless, in the dark,
opens them up again
to bleed afresh
and remind us
of the frailty of the flesh.

Comment:
The opening quote, from the Welsh poet, R. S. Thomas, made me aware of so many sad things that have happened in my life. Usually they lie dormant, asleep like an ancient volcano. Occasionally they erupt, and memory’s hot lava breaks through to the surface and spills like blood. Hard as I may try to control those moments, they are, in essence, uncontrollable. The scars itch. I scratch them with sharp finger-nails, and the old wounds open and bleed again.

Magnolia

Magnolia

She stands there, at the garden gate, waiting for me.
I can see the scene, the flower beds, the magnolia
bleeding, in Wales, its soft, spring snow of ivory pearls.

Some fall on her head, crowning her with a beauty
more precious than frankincense or myrrh. Petals
also perch their pure, ermine cape on her shoulders.

She walks towards me, eyes shining, arms open.
Then, the vision fades and she drifts away, leaving me
alone, my face bathed in the tears of her passing.

For pass each other by, we did. Ships in the night,
trains rushing through a tunnel of darkness, bathed,
for an instant, in the constellation of a station’s light.

Now, when I try to go back and to recreate that scene,
I find an empty garden, fallen leaves, and winter’s cold.

Comment:
I have been struck recently by the number of published articles that speak of post-Covid loneliness and the difficulties of re-establishing old friendships that fell by the wayside, let alone establishing new ones. It seems to get harder and harder, as we age, to leave our post-Covid isolation, to get out of our new comfort zones – sometimes so limited and limiting – and to make new friends. As we age, our minds go backwards and we return to earlier days and happier memories. Yet all too often those memories are tinged with the sepia sadness of old photos, from a non-digital age, faded and stained.

Bay of Santander – 1963

Bay of Santander
1963

I stood there
on the sea wall
calling out to the dark
“Help!” “Save me!”

Moon hid her face
behind veiled clouds.
All hope denied
I called out to the tide,

outgoing, to take me
with it, out to sea,
past the island
and the lighthouse,

out to where the waves,
stronger than anything
I ever knew, would thrust
strong fingers under my arms

and lift me up,
then drag me down,
so I could finally rest
in peace, and drown.

Comment:
This painting is called Picking at Scars. Some scars run so deep that they are always there. When they itch, you scratch them, and they bleed afresh. The scar of loneliness is one such scar. Alone, in a foreign land, learning their language, the culture, their customs, feeling not just unaccepted, but unacceptable, and the moon at night shining on a land, a bay, a city, to which you know, deep in your heart, you will never belong. That loneliness walks with me still and, sixty years later, it still leaves me desolate.

Limbo

Limbo

I live with my head in the clouds.
What clouds you ask – Alto-Stratus,
Nimbus, Cumuli-Nimbus?

No, I reply, none of those.
At one level I build cloud castles,
in Spain, as they say in French.

But, at another level,
I find myself lost in the medieval
cloud of unknowing, this mental limbo.

Here, grey mists weave spider-webs
of doubt that glisten with dew, and sparkle
with the two-edged sword of thought.

Here, I feel my life-web tremble
and I realize that I alone can walk
this way and try to understand

how frail threads catch small flies,
how words tell stories, but not the story
of all I know, nor where my world will go.

Comment:
Once more I have linked verbal and visual images. Moo’s painting above – thank you, Moo, – called Limbo, depicts a limbo dancer while my poem expresses the reality of that internal space in which creative spirits sometimes find themselves. It is a sort of Limbo of the mind, in which thoughts appear, dance along the frail threads of the mind’s web, yet never really materialize into formal verse or poetic patterns. This is also the lost world of the dreamer. But remember, the dreamers of the day are dangerous people, because sometimes they make their dreams come true.

Joy of Words

Joy of Words

If the words won’t come, don’t worry.
Sooner or later, they will arrive, driving
down in flurries. Think wind-driven leaves
or the soft white whisper of snaking snow.

There is a moment when all sounds cease
and you can be at one with your inner self,
there, where summer sunshine twinkles
and soft rains bring forth clarity and joy.

What are words anyway, but soap bubbles
emerging from an iron ring to rise in
child-hood’s skies, soaring, dying, around
the cloudy thrones of sun-kissed clouds.

We, their so-called creators, are left below,
building cotton-wool castles spun from air.

Comment:

The painting, animales de fondo, comes from a book by Juan Ramon Jimenez in which he describes human beings as ‘animals living at the bottom of an ocean of air’. I have tried to capture the concept both verbally and visually.