Joy of Words

An Allegory for Gaia

Sponge in Water
an allegory for Gaia

She is in me
as I am in her –
I the sponge,
she, the water.

Our essences blend
with the promise
of an ample life
full of movement.

Eau de vie:
the water of life.

It causes me
to blossom and flourish,
to wither and perish
when her waters fail.

How lonely would I be
if she abandoned me?

What would she be,
what would she do
without me?


Commentary:

A summer without rain led to an early autumn drought. Slowly, water grew in importance. Wells in our neighborhood ran dry. We were lucky and were not affected. But we took great care not to waste water. Eau de Vie – the water of life – the water that brings life and causes life to blossom and flourish.

Without water, we are nothing. We cannot live. Then, when the rains came down, we rejoiced. We walked out into the yard and stood with our faces to the rain, looking up at the sky, mouths open, letting the water renew our hope and faith.

I took the photo, incidentally, from the dining table in my kitchen during a heavy rainstorm. Looking out into the garden, I saw a rush of water, so thick and heavy. Incredible. The photo hardly does it justice.

Carved in Stone 4 & 5

Carved in Stone 4 & 5

4

Maiden Castle –
Rome’s victorious Legions
sought out the main gates,
broke them down,
and placed their altars
to Mars or Mithras
on the ruins of the pagan temples
they desecrated.

What were they, those Romans,
but pagans themselves?

Their false gods
replaced the fake gods,
worshiped there long before
the legions’ arrival.

5

Later, the Saxon sword-song
superseded them
and the Roman Empire fell,
with a pendulum swing
that led to another set of gods.

How did they know
which was the true god?
Was it the belief in miracles
or the military might
that resolved the issue?

Bonfire night.
The sacred texts go up
in fire and smoke.

Brave is the man
who risks his hand in the fire,
defying the flames
to hold on to his truth.


Commentary:

“Brave is the man who risks his hand in the fire, defying the flames to hold on to his truth.” It appears that the Congregation of the Holy Office, aka the Inquisition, threatened to hold Galileo’s right hand in the fire unless he recanted and denied his scientific observations. Church theory held that the universe was terra-centric – the sun moved round that earth and the earth stood still – while Galileo showed that it was actually heliocentric – the sun stood still and the earth moved around it. Old and sick, he recanted in public, but was heard to mutter eppur si muove – yet it still moves.

Bonfire Night celebrates the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot. Barrels of gunpowder had been placed beneath the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, but they were discovered on November 5, 1605 and removed. Bonfire Night is also called Guy Fawkes Night, Guy Fawkes being one of the key plotters to remove the English Parliament. Leading up to Bonfire Night, young children in the UK place a ragged scarecrow, called a Guy, around the streets begging for “a penny for the Guy”! With these pennies they buy fireworks. Then, on November 5, the Guy is set atop a large bonfire and the fire is lit. This autumn burning is accompanied by fireworks.

Bonfire night also refers to the old medieval book burnings of texts that were anathema to whatever religion or regime was in control. Cervantes refers to them in Don Quixote, I, 6 (1605).

Hallowe’en

Hallowe’en

1

Today is All Hallows Eve.
Tomorrow is Oaxaca’s
Day of the Dead.
The clocks change
the day after tomorrow.

Today, it’s raining,
and rain is a trick when
it forces celebrants off the streets
and town councils vote to change
the traditional date and send
young children out trick and treating
on a dry, warmer night.

But this rain, after drought,
is a Hallowe’en treat.

It brings a promise
that the aquifers will refill
that wells will not run dry,
and above all,
it brings us hope.

2

Around us, fall thrives
and watches and clocks
will soon fall back.

Trees weep for lost leaves.
Flowers that flourished
now wither and perish.

Hollyhocks topple and fall.
Bees’ Balm is abandoned
by butterflies and bees.

3

I expect time
to change with the clocks
and my body clock
will soon be out of sync
with the tick-tock chime
that denounces each hour.

Hours that used to wound
now threaten to kill.
They used to limp along,
but now they just rush by
and I, who used to run
from point to point,
now shuffle a step at a time.

But still I live in hopes to see
the clocks spring forward
once more.


Commentary:

A great poem for Hallowe’en, even if I say so myself, and I haven’t even mentioned the Blue Jays and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Oh, woe is me. Shame and scandal in my poetry.

Game Six of the World Series on Hallowe’en – wow! – well, one team will get a treat and the other will receive a very disappointing trick. I know which team I support, but I don’t know who will win this time around.

Having said that – with substantial rain after drought, everybody in my province is a winner. And who could wish for more than that?

Carved in Stone 3

3

Death is everywhere.
It rides a pale horse
in the lands
where Odin reigned.

Sleipnir, his eight-legged steed,
carried him round the world.

It also carried the god
to the underworld,
and brought him back,
one of the few to enjoy
a return ticket.

Purity, innocence, power,
the White Horse rules
these Wiltshire hills,
a symbol of hope and renewal.

Above the horses,
hill forts in high places,
lie hidden.

Wave after wave
of earth-wall and ditch
blend into the landscape
making the forts
invisible from below.

Commentary:

Odin > Wodin > Wednesday, in English, not Mercredi (French) or Miercoles (Spanish). English, via Anglo-Saxon, often goes back to the Nordic gods of the invaders. Not so in Welsh for Wednesday in Welsh is Dydd Mercher, the word breaking down into “Dydd” (day) and “Mercher” (which is named after the Roman god Mercury). Alas, it is all too easy to reduce language to its most basic level. But dig below the surface and the wonders of language, history and culture, adoption and rejection, complication and simplification, are all there to be seen.

Our language links us, binds us, holds us across our culture and history. And remember ‘to lose our language is to lose ourselves.’ While to learn another language is to grow another heart and soul.

 

Carved in Stone 2

2

How many free thinkers
stumble up the gallows’ steps
or take that short walk,
candle in hand,
to the executioner’s block?

Some take a longer trip,
in a tumbril along French streets
lined with howling,
slogan-chanting citizens,
en route to the guillotine.

Heads, already severed,
welcome them with sightless eyes,
a strange harvest for straw baskets.

Hearken to the swish of stone
against steel as the executioner
sharpens the blade that will swiftly fall,
then rise, only to fall again.

The horse-drawn cart
creaks towards its inevitable end,
filled, standing room only,
with unfortunates trapped
by whatever rising tide
hurled them against the razor rocks
of their imminent mortality.

Commentary:

Flower Pot Rocks along the Fundy Coast. One of the most beautiful spots in New Brunswick, a province with so many other beauty spots. It’s hard to believe that I was standing on the seabed when I took that photo. It’s also hard to believe that the Fundy Tide, one of the highest, if not the highest, in the world, rises to the tree line, at the top of the photo, way above the sand.

If you go to the Fundy, consult the Tide Tables with care. You do not want to get stuck in the Fundy mud. Nor do you want to be one of the unfortunates trapped by whatever rising tide hurls you against the razor rocks of your imminent mortality.

Clepsydra 51 & 52

51

… and thus I sit in silence
     while unspoken words
          echo through
               my empty skull

I cannot produce
     the grit that oysters use
          to smoothly shape
               the pearl of great price
                    that radiates with light

the word
     once spoken
          can never be recalled

word magic
     water magic
          liquid trickling
               from cup to earthen cup

time slowly dripping away
     filtering through my fingers

flickering and dying,
      and the snuffed candle flame
          absent now
               and everywhere
                    the pain of its absence …

52

… and me like so many others
     caught up in time’s dance
          a shadow among other shadows
               moving on the cave wall
                    while the fire flickers

I try to hold them
     as they flit by
          but they vanish
               drifting like dreams
                    half-glimpsed
                         in early morning light

dancers and dance
     must fail and fade away
          when the music ends

I recall snippets of song
     that fan the unborn fires within

what am I
     but a tadpole
          swimming bravely
                into my next metamorphosis

the dancers hold hands
     and sing, oranges and lemons
          as they circle under the arch

“Here comes a candle
     to light you to bed

and here comes a chopper
     to chop off your head

 and when will that be
     ring the bells out at Battersea

I do not know
booms the great Bell of Bow” …

Commentary:

And here ends Clepsydra. One sentence, one poem, 52 sequences. Time, frozen in the writer’s mind, the passing of time, measuring time, internal time, external time, sidereal time, historical time … all linked through memories … personal, cultural, literary, family, events … all tied up with what Miguel de Unamuno called intra-historia, those deep, very personal little histories, that lead us away from great historical events into the minds of the observers, the witnesses, the readers, all with their interior monologue and their own mindfulness.

For those of you who have chosen to walk this road with me, I offer you my gratitude. I do hope you have enjoyed – if not the whole journey, then selected parts of it that may have touched you, or amused you, or aroused your interest. Pax amorque.

Clepsydra 47 & 48

47

… the baited fish-hook
     the tidbit swallowed
          by an eager young gull
 
then reeled in
     by the young boy
          who winds the bird down
              
I wish
     I could control the words
          that appear in my mind

but I cannot I tie them to a hook
     and use them as bait
          for anyone gullible
               that I can reel in


I must leave so many gulls
     to float on the wind
          to hover soar and fly
               in their element

the lonely sea
     and the sky …

48

… I listen to the heartbeat
     of this old house
          hearing an occasional creak

I inhale
     exhale
          listen to my body sounds


my heart rate slows
      the faint tick
          of a distant clock
               no footstep
                    on the stair

a dust mote dances
     on a moon beam

I swim in an amniotic silence
     broken only
          by the beating
               of my mother’s heart

and my own heart
     throbbing
          in response …

Commentary:

So little to say. The poem now says it all. “The lonely sea and the sky. My heart throbbing in response.”

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.

Writing in the Red Zone

Writing in the Red Zone

The Red Zone:
it’s a familiar concept.
Monday Night football
talks about it all the time.

“Success percentage
in the Red Zone,
offense and defense.”

It’s not just football.
Other sports, soccer, rugby,
have their red zones.
So does life, my life,
for better or for worse,
and now I know I’m in
the Red Zone.

I can see the goal line.
I can feel the tension rising.
I know the clock’s ticking down.
I can sense it, but can’t see it.
I no longer know the score,
and I don’t know whether
I’m playing offense or defense.

They tell me it’s a level playing field,
but every day they change the rules,
and today I wonder what the heck’s
the name of the game I’m playing.

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.