Love

Love

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Kingsbrae 4.1
4 June 2017

Love

Love wore a mummer’s mask.
Cloaked in mystery, it came,
tumultuous, to my door,
and sold me a pig of promises
wrapped in a colored cloak.

When love broke my heart,
I swore I’d never love again.
I chose instead a steady friend,
a singular flower growing
wild in the hedgerow.

Wine, I offered, distilled in
my own winery. Drawings
and paintings, poems, simple
things that rooted deep
and blossomed when least expected.

No passion now, no smoldering fire,
just a slow growing old together,
hand in hand, and a settling down
in comfort and joy, our glasses
filled with the sunshine and un-
tarnished gold that spell true love.

Journal: Absence makes the heart grow fonder, they say. Sitting here, at my window in Kingsbrae, at 6:00 am on Sunday morning, the sunlight sews gold threads through my heart and I realize how much my life has been enriched by the person I have left behind in Island View. Those same gold threads that descend from the sun have bound us together across the years. Apart, we are not alone and I feel her fill me with light even as I sit  here at this window, typing these words, watching the sun rise up over Passamaquoddy Bay.

 

Dawn at Kingsbrae

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Kingsbrae 3.1
3 June 2017

Dawn @ Kingsbrae

1

A fiery wedge fierce beneath
black-capped clouds, alive
the firmament with light,
breaking its waves over woods,
waters, tranquil the bay, grey,
yellow streaked, then blue,
the new day dawning,
driving night away,
false shadows fleeing.

2

To rock this new born babe,
to swaddle it in a cloak of cloud,
disguised for a moment its promise,
nature nurturing heart and mind,
filling the flesh with memory’s
instantaneous flash breaking its light
into the dark where no light shone,
fearful, the dream world,
gone now, dwindling as day light
shafts its arrowed flight.

3

How thoughtful My Lady
who placed me here,
at this desk,
at this window,
at this moment of time.

Glorious the day-break,
words no justice can do
to peace and light,
this early morning,
filtering sunlight
through the waking mind,
relighting the fires within the heart,
and glory striped on the horizon
just a word’s throw away.

 

Gift

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Gift

“I have a gift for you,” I said.
“Why?” I had no answer.
Silence built its barriers
between us. “Look,” I said.
“It’s yours.” I held out the book
and she took it in her hands.
“For me?” she asked. “You wrote
this book for me?” “Yes.” The lie
hung in the air for a moment,
a listless, lifeless kite, floating.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. Her smile
ignited the air, sent sparks across
the space between us. She opened
the book, turned the pages, saw
her name. It was indeed her name,
but she was not the person who bore
that name when I wrote the book.

Rainbow

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Rainbow

I dreamed last night
that angels lofted me
skywards and wrapped me
in cotton-wool clouds.

The nearest rainbow
was a helter-skelter
that returned me to earth
where I landed in a pot
of golden sunlight.

Red, gold, and yellow
were my hands and face.
I stood rooted like
an autumn tree covered
in fall foliage with
no trace of winter’s woe.

“May this moment last
forever,” I murmured,
as the rainbow sparkled
and I rejoiced in
my many-colored coat.

Battle Axe

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Battle Axe

Grim-faced, ageing,
wrinkles bone-deep
sculpting her skin
into unsightly waves,
a grimaced frown,
much practiced,
worn as a mask
to keep the world at bay.

Over her shoulder,
the mail-pouch slung,
brimful of letters,
bills, in all probability,
their content unknown
until the recipient’s
thumb or pocket knife
slits open the envelope
and reveals the secrets.

She carries more secrets.
They bob along in the streams
that flow beneath her skin
where joy and sorrow mingle.

Tomorrow, the surgeons
will perform their biopsy
and search out those secrets.
For now, she walks
with her eyes cast down,
unwilling  to meet
my all-seeing gaze.

Help!

 

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Help!

The world turns full circle
and my mother is on the phone.
It’s four AM. “Help me!” she cries,
from the far side of the Atlantic.

Her ship is sinking fast and she’s
nine sheets to the wind.
“I’ll stick my head in the oven,”
she says, “and turn on the gas.”

What can I say? What can I do?
She makes so many threats.
She’s crying “Wolf!” and her words
now bounce off this duck’s back.

Yet still I wake at night to hear
her whispered words, and they still
chill with their razor’s edge of
“Help me! Help! Please help!”’

Cramp

Chaos

Cramp
(Jackpine Sonnet)

Late last night, lying in bed,
cramp laid siege to my lower limbs.
I crawled out of that bed and stretched,
left leg, right leg, in the bathroom.

Aching still, the fear of more cramp
to come weighed heavy on my mind.

I didn’t want to wake my wife
with panic and alarums, so I slept
in the spare bed in the other room.

A great round moon sailed its pale-
faced boat on a sea of silent clouds.

I lay on the life raft of my bed
and prayed for cramp to stay away
and for the mattress to keep me afloat.

Clare

 

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Clare

She moves more slowly
up the slope,
pushing against the hill’s
shallow grain.

I knew so well her
swaying grace,
but now she shuffles
with the drag-

foot limp of the aged,
and aged she has,
like a good wine in
an oaken cask.

Her beauty still stays
in my memory,
lodges in my mind and
I see her as

she was, beautiful
in body, slim,
graceful, a joy to hold
and behold.

Her eyes still sparkle
and she bubbles
still with a champagne
joy that draws

me to her, and still she
enhances each
room she enters, filling
it with light.