Nos Sadwrn

Nos Sadwrn

Saturday today, just another Saturday. Took a morning whirlpool bath, had breakfast went shopping, then decided to post something. But post what? Anything.

Qui tacet consentire videtur – whatever that mans, and I am sure someone out there can help me. Life takes funny steps at my age, and forgetting things is one of them.

Ephemera – the title of the leading painting, shows a poem being half-obliterated by autumn leaves and early snow. Everything seems so ephemeral, so quick to pass by. As for me, I blossomed and flourished like a leaf on a tree, but now I wither, slowly, shrinking back into myself. Or is it just a version of my myself? To thine own self be true. So easy to say. But I am no more myself, I have become the fifth of the twelfth. Or, as Apollinaire, whoever he was, once wrote: je ne me sens plus la, moi-meme. Je suis le quinze de l’onzieme. Oh accents, accents, accents – you can’t find them when you need them and you can’t lose them without expensive elocution lessons. And even with those lessons, rhythm and accent come creeping back again, when least you expect them to.

Jyst nos Sadwrn arall yn – and maybe there’s someone out there who can sort that one out for me too. But in spite everything, I guess it’s anither day, another post, and a drop more water under the Mirabeau bridge as well as just another Saturday night. meanwhile – Odeur du temps, brin de bruyere – et souviens-toi que je t’attends –

Flower Power

Flower Power

The hollyhocks are back. A little bit late, but just starting to reveal themselves in all their glory. It’s been a strange spring, with frost warnings (and two actual frosts) in June, heavy rain, T-Storms, a tornado watch, extra hot days and, thankfully cold nights with the temperatures at +4C, even this month, July.

The yucca plant is flowering again, with three flourishing stems this time. It only started to flower late last week, but it, too, is full of promise. Somehow, while there are flowers, there is still some hope, some beauty, and some time and space for rejoicing.

Ah, daffodils, my favourite flowers.

Daffodils

Winter’s chill lingers well into spring.
I buy daffodils to encourage the sun
to return and shine in the kitchen.
Tight-clenched fists their buds,
they sit on the table and I wait
for them to open.

For ten long days the daffodils
endured, bringing to vase and breakfast-
table stored up sunshine and the silky
softness of their golden gift.

Their scent grew stronger as they
gathered strength from the sugar
we placed in their water, but now
they have withered and their day is done.

Dry and shriveled they stand paper-
thin and brown, crisp to the touch.
They hang their heads as their time
runs out and death weighs them down.

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
Daffodils

Vis brevis, ars longa – life is short but art endures. Maybe my daffodils will last longer than the yucca and the hollyhocks. They will certainly outlive this year’s bloom. Time and tide wait for no man, and flowers too are subject to the waxing and the waning of the moon. That’s life, I guess. Long may it last.

To Meditate is No Disgrace


To Meditate is No Disgrace
The Water Tower
16

There comes a time when you can do no more.
You need to take a break, to step aside and wait
for the tide to turn and energy to flow.

The hard yards may be behind you,
but there’s hard yards waiting round the bend,
waiting for the break to end.

And you, you might bend and take a break,
but you must never break.

No one else can see what you see
or do what you do.
Nobody can take your place.
To take a break
and meditate is no disgrace.

Click here for Roger’s Reading on Anchor.
To Meditate is no Disgrace

My Morning Coffee

My Morning Coffee

The Water Tower
15
“The only photo I took today was of my morning coffee.
Looks calm and peaceful, doesn’t it? It wasn’t!

The wind gusts were unrelenting, with just
enough moments of calm and warmth from the sun
to give me hope.

There was also some rain, snow, and a little hail,
just enough to get me running for cover.

A wise man once told me that
‘some days you’ll be the hammer,
and others the nail.’

Today I was the nail.”

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
My Morning Coffee

On the Seventh Day

On the Seventh Day
The Water Tower
14

On the seventh day he would have rested,
but there’s no rest for the restless artists
who create in thought, word, and deed.

They can rest from the deed
and take a day off work,
but thought and word go on.

And even if their day is silent,
with no one to talk to, no words at all,
the everlasting bunnies of thought
dance on and on,
beating their drums,
planning, sketching, designing,
outlining, shuffling the cards,
mixing colors and words
in endless games of creativity.

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
On the Seventh Day

Another Long Day

Another Long Day
The Water Tower
13

“Another long day but I completed the sky,
then finished the wharf’s grey asphalt.
Large areas are easier to spray with my air gun.
It’s hard to paint them with a brush.

I also got the base coat on to the ever-greens.
Much more difficult: I painted the inside of the cage
around the ladder that leads to the roof.
Fiddly work, time consuming, but nice
to get out of the way. 

No painting tomorrow,
but Saturday and Sunday look good.
As for Monday, I don’t know yet
I’ll have to wait and see if it rains.”

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
Another Long Day

Fight the Good Fight!

Fight the Good Fight
The Water Tower
12

“I fought the weather all day.
Relentless winds. Overpowering gusts
threatening to topple the tower,
to throw me off the ladder.

Very challenging, the painting.
An understatement like the undertow
when the tide threatens to take us out to sea.

I was treading water in the middle of the ocean,
 huge waves under my armpits, lifting me up,
dragging me down, and me quite powerless.

The strain, both mental and physical of biking
up a long steep hill, into a driving wind.
It felt like Sisyphus pushing his rock.”

Click here for Roger’s Reading on Anchor.
Fight the Good Fight

A Good Day’s Work

A Good Day’s Work
The Water Tower
11

 “A good day’s work,” the artist said,
admiring, as light drained from the sky,
 all the different blues of a lower sky renewed.

Above the tower, a deeper shade of blue.
At the tower’s foot, the nascent grass grew damp
with dew beneath the artist’s feet.

And so, to home, but not to rest.
The restless mind plans on and on,
the next day’s work, and after that, the next.

We who bear witness, our feet fixed in the earth below,
cherish each moment, admire the paints as they flow.
Time and space trapped in fragile things
and the water tower, a watch tower now,
standing guard, on high, watching over, mirroring,
all poor creatures, set on earth, and born to die.

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
A Good Day’s Work

The Water Tower 10

The Water Tower
10

In the beginning the artist decided to start
with the sky and work his way downwards.

He chose and mixed his paints. Then he climbed
to the tower’s top and began to paint.

“Let there be sky,” the artist said.
He masked his face, pressed the button,
and refreshed the sky’s battered surface
turning it to a delicate shade of blue.

The morning and the afternoon took up that day.
When evening came, he packed up
his equipment and went home to rest.

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
The Water Tower 10

The Water Tower
St. Andrews
New Brunswick

Geoff Slater
Illustrations

Roger Moore
Poems

School Days

School Days

Sixty years ago, in 1962, somewhere around today’s date, I left my public school – private school – boys’ boarding school and entered the real world as a free man. I was lost. They educated me to be part of a world that no longer existed, the world of walls, and boundaries, of lists and rules, of school reports and chains of authority, older boys > house monitors > prefects > head boy of house > head boy of school > masters > house masters > head master. That great chain of authority was to rule me for the rest of my life.

Lists

This is my clothing list. Six times a year I packed all items into my school trunk, 3 times to go to school and 3 times to go home. Six times a year I unpacked all items from my trunk, 3 times when I arrived at school and 3 times when I arrived home.

Reports

I still have my school reports signed by by teachers, initials only, and my father, full signature. He had to sign so that the teachers could ascertain that yes, he had read my school report and that no, I had not hidden it from him. The report is a disaster story. I look back on some of the comments and wonder what worlds, what different realities, were we living in? One verbal remark, made in class: “Why are you in the sixth form?” “I am going to university, sir.” “The only way you’ll go to university is on a train.”

I sent that gentleman my train ticket, but he didn’t choose to remember the comment, made to a fifteen year old boy.

Scars

I still carry them. So many of us do. Less than most, possibly, for us ne’er do wells and miscreants.

In the beginning was the word, and the word, maybe, may endure. I guess, maybe, one day we’ll find out.