The Pandemic Poems

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Dear David, Dear Michelangelo (J)

You will be pleased to know
that your hyacinth locks
noble brow and shepherd boy hero story
still hold power for the populace
five hundred years later.
Replicas abound in unlikely places.

Sincerely,
A traveller to Florence.

Singular Combat (W)

Just like the time Gorgeous George dropped André
the Giant. That was a big stakes bout too.

Best of Wrestle Mania (L)

“Oh, isn’t he gorgeous!”
Gorgeous George had curly locks
Just like the guy in the photo
In the ring he got hard knocks
Though not like the guy in the photo
Not as classy as Freddy Blassie
And a lot more frilly than Whipper Billy
Once George located his persona
His sequined silk kimono
And his ermine trimmed cape-o
Just like the fur in the photo
When he finally found his mojo
His performance though outrageous
Morphed into a style contagious
Five foot nine, eyes that shine
Could he, could he, could he whine
But oh, what those good looks could do
Gorgeous once winked at a young Bob Dylan
Who, in other words, thought that was thrillin’
And while speaking of musical grooves
James Brown borrowed a few moves
But even a guy of fantastique mystique
Can make a mistake, ruin his physique
It’s true he drove mature women delirious
Until his poor old liver got cirrhosis
If only he’d kept his hands on the throttle
And likewise, his lips off the bottle
George is sure to be on that tape in the VCR
And maybe, too, front row centre, my grandpa, Par –
After his pre-show bout with my grandma’s hasslin’ –
In the Golden Age of Professional Wrasslin’
~~~
This effort is a nod to my grandfather, affectionately called Par, who loved to hang out at the
Memorial Arena to watch weekly wrestling matches, much to the disgust of my grandmother,
Phoebe.
Some references were lifted from Wikipedia.

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The Scrying Glass (W)

MacKellen’s blue eyes search the silent street
as Shakespeare’s scoured Silver Street from the safety of his attic
the theatres closed by the plague old agonies revived
the aging actor stomped and raged, chanted and mumbled the words
till they came right loop’d and window’d raggedness
yes keep that your houseless heads and unfed sides
could be his own if the city stays shuttered the old king in exremis
finally ready to learn Take physic Pomp but will they?
We learned tonight that our friend’s mother has the virus she is 94
not raging not even remembering confined to her room
unvisited she is unperturbed Mackellen’s furrowed face
is half hopeful and innocent, half tragic mask
Does Mrs G stare into the black mirror of her midnight window
and wonder about that woman in the glass?

Blasted Heath, Calm Waters (J)

"Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow!"
As I walked out this early morning, as beloved ballads sing,
I breathed air fresh after rain
beside the Gorge tide easing out
while a circle of Barrow's Goldeneye ducks
dove and disappeared and rose
to stretch and shake their wings and travel in company.
Our storms these days are interior, underwater,
appear in our dreams. We aspire to surface calm.
Unlike Shakespeare, brave in quarantine, who quarried Lear's madness
I side-step Sturm und Drang if I can
and dial the desperate drama down.

 

King Lear (L)

Too sad. I will not write about King Lear today
I will concentrate on “The Old Farmer’s Almanac”
At Christmas I give next year’s issue
To my son-in-law whose specialty is tomatoes
There is a legend about the “three sisters”
Corn beans squash
Today, I will read about them
And postpone sistories in Shakespeare, Chekhov,
Jane Austen (a novel in 13 pages), et aliae
I will shelve my father’s and his brother’s heirs –
Three daughters apiece – and other clusters
Of sisters, constellations actual and imagined
I’ll save Lear for another day

 

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Suffering (W)

 Lady Rokujo’s hatred
was shaking the grain
of her being. It burst out
and savaged the lives
of two noble women.
Yet she learned
to let go.
Suffering had worn thin
the white mask of Lady Aoi
her body blackened
with fever
but the pure vase of her soul
did not shatter.

 

Scene: the Horticulture Centre of the Pacific Conservation Area (J)

Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow -- Robert Duncan


Yesterday Wayne and I walked trails that transported us to Manning Park alpine meadows from our
early days together.
The environment that surrounded us: a field of daffodils, marshes, a Marsh wren, red-winged
blackbirds, a tiny purple butterfly, trilliums, a lake view, paths through pine and fir, forest camping
scents, a teasel field, flowers white and flowers purple (as our old Lyons book of plant identification
termed them), open meadow.
If I wore a mask to express this experience on a stage, it would find its place in the line of classic
masks of comedy, tragedy and every human emotion. It would feature high eyebrows of surprise, eyes
wide open and a smile of meadow joy.

 

{slider title="April 24 Pizza" open="false"} 

May God Smile on Him (W)

I had another life in another place:
study, career, family, language, hope.
Nobody cares. Damn their eyes. Look, already
I have begun to paint this town gold.

 

Bold Brash Red Appeal Plus (J)

O for a beaker full of the warm South
Let flowers in the window signal
a suggestion of sophistication, some secret
spice subtleties in our sauces
that pair extravagantly with our
full-bodied earthy red wines
from the slopes of sunny Sicily.

Note: (A)
Sorry I couldn’t finish the job. Ladder too short and anyways run out of red paint.
Yours truly,
Bill
Two from Lorraine:

Pizza Café (L)

 

Store to door direct
The siren call of pizza
Pizza all the time
**
While I listen to…
I dream of pizza, pizza
Pizzeria

Feelin’ squirrelly (eau d’almond) (L) -- from yesterday’s “senses” prompt from Yvonne)

Dabbed dregs of liqueur
Behind both my ears today
Plopped rest in hot choc

 

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Asymmetries (W)


It is a truth universally acknowledged
that most dogs resemble their owners
but this one emphatically does not,
which leads us to surmise
that opposites also attract
or that this is not his dog.
We’d have to ask the dog.

 

Some things never change (L)

 

There better be something for me in that bag
Is there something for me in that bag?
Is there something for you in that bag?
What’s in the bag, dude?
I’ve been good.
I will be good.
Do I have to wear this thing?
It makes me stick out like a sore thumb.
I was “looking for something in green.”
Let’s go home and stay there until
We run out of food again.
I adore you. “You’re my best friend.”

-----
~ “Something in Red” was written by Angela Kaset, and recorded by Lorrie Morgan. 1992
~ “You’re My Best Friend” was written by Wayland Holyfield and recorded by Don Williams.
1975

 

They Commune (J)


The dog's soft tomato coat
puts the owner's dull and droopy
sense of fashion
in the shade.
But wait -- those teal shoes hint --
perhaps the man is at heart a fashionisto himself
just too abashed to step out
in the fuchsia or total teal he'd wish to and
unleashes his wishes by proxy.
Or else his mother sent this loving coat
to warm the pooch.
April 26 Enamel Ware

 

Another World (A)

 

I’m used to the sound now, the distant thunder of gunfire, and the stench of strong disinfectant in all the
tents, even the mess hall and especially the latrine. Don’t think of home, girl, just do your job. I
straighten my starched white cap and smooth my starched white apron. I fold my sleeves up just to the
elbow. Then I choose a white enamel bowl, a sheaf of gauze bandages, collect a white enamel pot and
fill it from the kettle, and start my hospital rounds, washing and dressing the wounds of the young,
fallen soldiers.
When will this war end?

 

Invitation from the Kitchenware (J)

Come together right now over me ---- The Beatles

 

Do you hear that? These modest teapots
and bowls, gleaming clean,
honest blue rims
say: come together,
you may safely sip
in our comfortable companionship.

 

For Us (W)

woodsmoke
cups of hot coffee round the campfire
warming a chilly mountain morning
the clink of cups on day packs
the heat of high meadows
ridge after ridge of Fireweed Tow-headed Babies
Indian Paintbrush Mountain Heather Lupin
and all the ones I cannot name
on and on and on
For Our Parents
rusty dusty discarded
Depression hand-me-downs
filled with hard memories
good for the garden
maybe

 

Enamel ware (L)

Classic white and blue
Spouts raised like elephant trunks
Practical – elegant
Camp Ware 1
Speckled blue and white
Our enameled pots and pans
Served well for decades
Camp Ware 2
Inelegant – tough
White speckles shower deep blue
Museum pieces?
.....


We are little teapots
The photo prompt enamel ware is elegant. We used less elegant enamel ware for our camping pots and pans. I
still have some of them – dark blue with white speckles, including a double-boiler!
Two more enamel memories from Jane and Amber
Jane -- with the water we hauled because no running water -- I wrote to Amber whose family had the same
situation: We had an enamel basin too and a dipper for water, now I think of it. Things chipped.
Memories that objects bring back!
Amber added: Yes. True.
We had a washstand in the kitchen with an enamel bowl and dipper as well. I remember the way my skin
crawled at the scraping sound when the two connected.
Sense memories return with what people wrote to that picture. One never knows, do one? Jane

 

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Away from Vancouver Home, Staying with Aunt Ruby (J)


I will skip the orange-milkshake-making gone bad and spraying walls and equipment at
my Aunt Ruby's Saanich Peninsula coffee shop and cut to:
Scene. 1966. Aunt Ruby's back yard on Weiler Avenue, Sidney. Evening, new moon.
Aunt Ruby said "Come, Janie, come", in her slow Irish voice, led me outside and put a coin in my
hand.
"Now Janie, turn the silver in your palm and make a wish and bow seven times to the new moon."
I did.
Now I think it may be time to perform that ceremony again. When is the next new moon?

 

Mary’s Milk Bar (A)

It’s 4:00.
I grab my books and make a dash to Schwartz’s Drug Store just down the street.
I don’t need any medicine or any makeup.
I just want a milkshake.
A strawberry milkshake at Mary’s Milk Bar behind the drugstore.
Mary doesn’t work there.
Marty makes the shakes.
He wears a starched white hat
A little hat
A useless little hat, really.
He sees me coming and he knows what I want.
I climb up on the twirly chrome stool
And he smiles at me
A crooked smile
That leaves a dimple in his left cheek
That I just want to reach out and touch
But I don’t
Strawberry milkshake I say.
Then he pours the milk and squirts strawberry sauce into the silvery beakers.
He gives me one more grin before turning on the beaters in his sea foam green Hamilton
Beach machine.
I sit and count. 6-7-8-9
Until he turns it off and pours the foamy pink liquid into a tall glass. He hands me a straw.
Mmmmm.
Sweet, cold, yummy.
How was school, he asks me.
And he cares. He really cares how school was today.

 

Mary’s Milk Bar (L)

I accept absence, dream of ice cream
A-swirl in a silver tin beaker
Pineapple, my partner’s passion
Mine, root beer unbottled and tart
Compliments of Hamilton Beach
A green machine of heroic labour
I hanker not for the beach in Queens
Is it closed during the plague?
Or the baroque harpsichordist
Has he moved on to ply a pianoforte?
No! I long for Mary’s Milk Bar
Yearn for bygone sustenance
Slowly sink into incoherence
Blow a gasket

....
Will I write about the appliance firm, Hamilton Beach, a company that makes
milkshake machines; the beach in Queens, NYC; or the harpsichordist? No
contest! The only one I have knowledge of is the appliance company. It is not
warm enough to long to go to the beach. I am not familiar with the musician
“previously a member of the baroque group Red Priest.” Baroque!

Malt Shop Memories

On Commercial Drive
Friends tumbling like puppies
round the malt shop table,
sharing chips,
suffering brain freeze.
In the school library
The girls giggled
while one of the rough boys
tried to balance a dictionary
on his erection.
At the sock hop
Cheek rubbed raw
from lacquered hair,
I was quick on kissing
but clueless about coitus.
Everywhere
Ed Sullivan, American Bandstand,
fads and crazes,
my adolescence was ready made
and beamed from the U. S. of A.
We were lockstep and avid for it.
Did even the best of us guess it was bogus?
Not yet.
Wandering
I stood at the edge
and watched the Portuguese families
round their beach fires.
I haunted the curio shops
in Chinatown and Japantown.
I stared at the black canoes
in their dark shed in Stanley Park.
Were there other ways of living?

 {slider title="April 28 Pavement Book Stall" open="false"}

In keeping with the avant garde art of the 60s, when most of these books were popular, I composed these poems
by chance. I wrote words from the titles on separate bits of card and then put them down in rows at random. I
did rearrange a couple of words towards the end. (W)

ADVICE FROM THE BOOK STALL
WHERE ART CHRONICLES CHAOS
ON THE EDGE OF THE BLUES
BLACK ROOTS PLAN INCREDIBLE SPRING
PLEASANTRIES OF THE EARTH
CALLING FROM FOXFIRE
FOCUS, WRETCHED DOG,
LOVE
and
WHERE PLEASANTRIES BLACK ART
PLAN CHRONICLES LOVE
VARIETY OF THE EARTH
SPRING OF THE BLUES CALLING
FOCUS ON THE EDGE
FOXFIRE CHAOS

 

In My Life (J)

 

There are places I'll remember
All my life -- The Beatles

This library takes me back to early days:
poetry, European Literature in Translation,
Dylan a troubadour in that honoured company -
My love she laughs like the flowers
Valentines can't buy her.
This morning, in this time for tender hearts, I'll choose e.e. :
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
and
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
All true.
Love, Jane

 {slider title="April 29 Music Inn window" open="false"}

Welcome to the G V Music Inn (W)

If you’ve got fingers, lungs or feet get off your seat
you’ll feel replete if you let yourself go and feel the beat
at the magical, marvellous, mystical, cavernous Greenwich Village Music Inn.
Come on over, give it a try. You’re just as good as the other guy.
Whatever your ethnicity or even specificity, if music turns your crank
(and you’ve money in the bank) you’ll have us to thank.
We’ve got trumpets and flutes and whistles and conches
for the thick or the thin or the fellas with paunches.
If you’re given to making a hullaballoo we’ve got a didgereedoo for you.
We give a hoot, you big galoot, and we won’t judge you by the cut of your suit,
we’ll even supply a washboard tie.
Electric, acoustic, staccato, vibrato, we’re hep to your lingo, we’ll put you at ease
so please, please come through that door. We know the score.

 

"Sound, Sound Your Instruments of Joy" (J)

The conductor's baton and white gloves
will formally conduct, if asked,
this assemblage, this treasury.
"Sound, sound your instruments of joy"
and your instruments of grief, mercy, celebration,
birth, mourning. Dance, always.
Breath.
Intervals, silence, eloquent spaces between notes,
"knowing
air also means
music to sing to."
The music will rise with infinite variety
each instrument will sing its spirit and its place.
The conductor will step aside. Piaf will be comforted.

 

He’s no “Stranger in My House” (L)

That smile! I home in on it PDQ
I’d know it anywhere in the musical cornucopia
That is the Music Inn, Greenwich Village
The sun glints on his trademark sunglasses
The sun has not always shined on Ronnie Milsap
It was “Pure Love” when I first heard his voice
A happy day when he crossed over to Country.
(Genre-blender. I first read that sobriquet
as genre-bender – either, or – I get both)
The man is versatile, not a traitor to any genre
His range: R&B, soul, gospel, pop, ballads,
Adult contemporary
Country
There must be at least one mention of “neon”
In a Honky-tonk song. There is!
“Now she’s getting over me beneath the neon lights”
(“She didn’t come here for the money
She Came Here for the Change”)
Cue fiddles for the word play
Ronnie’s high notes give me chills
“Please Don’t Tell Me How the Story Ends”
His early life gives me pause
Ronnie was a five-year-old leaving home
His grandparents had stepped up to raise him
And then let him go to a special school
He learned about Bach and Mozart
Learned to play the piano
His genius is recognized. He is slapped
And loses the limited sight he was born with
I weep “For a Minute There”
While steel guitar and violins lament
“An old memory took me back in time…
I’d give all I own for just one minute there.”
I love his laugh as “Country Cookin’” fades out
“Clap your hands, listen to the music, listen to the band
Once you find it you won’t ever lose it…”

----
“The things I really love about country, they are not very popular anymore. The heart and soul
of what I love about country, it’s very similar to the blues, and it’s about people and the stories
people have. Lost love, something they are excited about, it’s all in a song.”
~Ronnie Milsap

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MYSTERY TAPES 50 cents (L)

We don’t need labels
When mysteries intrigue us
We do need labels
----
Labels can be odious; many are mandatory
I prefer labels that are laudatory
Outside the box, the label intrigues me
Inside the box, the contents beleaguer me
They appear to be ancient modes, loads
Of communication all a-scatter
As if they didn’t truly matter
I may not have time for rumination
Cannot wait for illumination
There’s a lineup six feet behind me
Encroaching memories remind me
Cassettes! Who remembers them? I do! I do!
Not only because I harbour hoarder tendencies; I do
I was brought up to practice precise parsimony
(One reason I never wanted to pay alimony)
Went a little beyond best-before bleats
Before the theory was a theory complete
I blame/admire my mother for my mindset
Yes, we have to rewind cassettes
Get real!
It’s an improvement on reel-to-reel
Mum would love the 50-cent label
She was a savvy shopping Mabel
Her musical taste covered more
Than one genre – she knew the score
I would like to buy the box entire
50 cents! – What a bargain! – my heart’s on fire!

Sorry folks. This is altogether too obscure. I took Mystery in a sacred or psychological sense, as in
Mystery Religion or Mystery Play. Nigredo is the first stage in alchemical transformation when
everything seems black, confusing and hopeless. The angels come from the Victoria de los Angeles

album in the crate beside the tapes. (W)

Nigredo

Not for us the bell-like voice
of the angels. Ours is the other bin.
Our task to fumble with stiff chilled fingers
through the discards, the jumbled and mislabeled.
The Mystery is in the muck.
The Tumbled Tapes Deserve More Respect (J)
My many tapes are in their slots in their boxes or
I admit, piled but with their ID facing out.
Lately I have played tapes long unplayed
songs I remember from two childhood
radio stations out of Regina:
"Wayward Wind", "You Belong To Me"
"Allegheny Moon", "Deep Purple",
tapes I sent to my father in his later years.
Yesterday I sang "Cool Water" and
"Tumbling Tumbleweeds" with the Sons of the Pioneers.
"Pledging their love to the ground."
Tumbleweeds blew through our landscape.
"Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples".
In these days of dire news and distancing
we have no wine; I imbibe
comfort food, comfort books, comfort songs.

 

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Hand, Unpadded Shoulder (J)

Some lives carry on with spirit
maybe even with no rancor
against odds I do not wish
to contemplate this morning.
The Queen of the East Village (W)
Auntie, Confucius would be proud of you,
still strong, still curious and alert,
a little sparrow of the New York streets.
Today you have a windfall that’s easy
on your shoulder and doesn’t need sorting.
I wish you well. I love your earrings too.
May 2 Refreshment Contractors London Hoxton

 

Refreshment Contractors (W)

They once kept an empire in meat and pies
but their over-stuffed armchairs were binned
and their over-stuffed owners retired to their clubs.
The literati once loved their slim-line chairs
but Brexit and covid have shuttered the shop
and they’re eating cuisine mince in Madrid.
A new economy is on its way
but whose palm will the government grease?
Ask the cabman who patiently waits.
His father and his father’s fathers all
sat in silence, hearing every shoddy deal
since Scrooge scrapped Fezziwig’s sign.
For Refreshment Contractors see December 28 1867 article in All the Year Round Volume 19, founded and edited by
Charles Dickens. He calls the owners genii for the way they transformed railway food and for their ability to conjure up
huge restaurants almost overnight.
Dynamobel is based in Madrid and designs luxury offices.
Firmly established as one of east London's prime neighbourhoods, Hoxton is sought out by well-paid young City, tech and
start-up workers who are willing to stump up for the privilege of being able to live near work and hang out at some of
London's coolest bars and restaurants without having to pay for a cab home.

 

To Whom Did They Purvey? (J)

The letters maintain their dignity
just need a little burnishing;
the scaffolding is refreshing
structural integrity.
I imagine the company's refreshments
travelled in white linen dining cars
not just in curling-at-the-edges sandwich packets
offered in aisles.
I imagine their wares sustained actors
ravenous after intense immersions in
deep drama or looks-light-but it's-draining comedy.
I imagine lovers in railway cafes
leaned together over their biscuits
and lingered until the steam hissed
and journeys parted them -
not for long, I hope.

Street Panorama Reflections (L)

The man in the red cap
pays attention to the man on the phone
and waits for orders
although he may be giving them
The guy on the phone
asks for instructions although
he may be offering them, or
he may be scratching his head
We wait for others to tell us what to do

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My art teacher: framed (A)

“Always carry a piece of cardboard of the right proportions,” she instructed us. “You will use this to
frame your plein air picture. The whole of the scene before you is much too large for your canvas and
so a portion of it must be selected and captured within this frame.”
She might have been talking about more than art. When I try to understand the world and all it’s people
and all their motives I remember her words. I frame a section that is within my view and concentrate on
thoroughly comprehending it.

 

Framed photo (L)

Frame, framer, framed, frameable, frameless, unframed, in the frame, outside the frame, framework,
frame-up, frame of reference, unhinged
This is a puzzle piece of whimsy
A photograph or a metaphor
Waits to be sawed into pieces
To be reassembled
Into a picture with tributaries

 

Rusty industrial framework (W)

rigid and riveted
your day is done.
Make way for the sun.

 

Profusion Intrusion (J)

If we frame light leaves
green and red
and random branches,
set rigid angles around generosity,
is anything gained?
May 4 Door at Blackwell

 

Respect for Craft (J)

Kind arch, crafted,
good wood and careful stone
invite us, like Tolkien's Elven Door:
Speak 'friend' and enter.

 

Blackwell, Lake District (L)

“Nature I loved and next to nature, art.”

~ etched on the gravestone of M.H. Baillie Scott, architect (1865-1945)

Not far from the service entrance stoop
The garden terraces in beauteous bloom
A kindred spirit of Elizabeth Bennet
Explores the gracious grounds of Blackwell
(She has toured the holiday home that beer built)
Observes Lake Windermere with expressive eyes
Muses about rocks and how men cannot compare
Espies, appalled, a white-shirted Mr. Darcy
Alas, he lacks her literary imagination
And leaves behind his steed in the stables
And – there will be no photos taken today –
His cellphone and charger

(A)
Were those roses carved so carefully over the portal ever painted white or red?
And did the inhabitants bear a loyalty to Lancaster or York?
And what does the entrance with its extra width on one side hide?
And why are both windows on one side?
And are two children hidden in a windowless chamber?
These things are unknown. There are no answers revealed.

 

Blackwell House (W)


Outside
The thin twin windows
tuck themselves beside the wide
and weathered door
like farm children
meeting a stranger.
Inside
The dim and serious
silent hallway leads
to laughter
in the nursery
or to a pale and delicate
luminosity.

  {slider title="May 5 Paradise" open="false"}

 
Writing by hand in Paradise (L)
 
Hands and mind engage
Postpone time and meditate
On a dying form
 
 
This Way to Paradise (J)
 
And don’t go mistaking Paradise / For that home across the road.
- Bob Dylan
 
Will people find hope and radiance
in this version of Paradise?
Is post-industrial Birmingham singing hallelujah these days?
I hope Birmingham has resources and remembers
dark Satanic mills,
supports workers and immigrants,
enables all to take their decent place
in England's green and pleasant land.
 
 
Heraclitus must have been a Londoner (W)
 
Our ancestors built for the ages but
ours is a fugitive world, mediated,
a little askew, like this photograph.
No matter how much concrete gets poured
buildings, like skinny jeans, a bleached quiff,
or the latest text messages are not
expected to last. Each new project is
introduced with fanfare. No one believes it.
New follows new and what the new destroys
is of no account. Take the High Street
in Peterborough. Gutted by a giant
windowless mall, which now itself is
mostly dark, cavernous, echoing.
Not even the postmen remember
Walkinshaw Close. We show them a pencilled map.
“Gone. Ask Mr. Hitler, or the quangos.”
Yes, this is Paradise Circus but
Adam doesn’t live here anymore.
Come to think of it. Nobody stays long.
May 6 Sheltered Housing
 
 
Salvaged (W)
 
I see a substantial structure of untrimmed tree trunks and broad wide roofing which houses
nothing of monetary value, like a house of memories.
Here are the dry smells of dust, mold, earth, and the damp smells of potting soil and fresh green trees.
Here are the colours of earth: umber, taupe (the colour of a mole), dull ember-red orange, washed out
yellow. Here are wicker, wattle, straw, daub, small upside down plant pots, corner tiles, bricks with
two patterns of piercings, lengths of log with mysterious borings, chunks of thick bark, flat slabs of
stone for facing or roofing or to make props or dividers and shelving (like the cupboards at Skara Brae
but variously tilted revealing their resistance to weight and pressure).
These materials are too few to build with. They must have been saved for patching and they are
arranged in a patchwork by a mind that built by eye as the gifted play by ear. A natural man. Perhaps a
peasant. He has called us to witness these materials, their heft and weight and roughness, to recognise
that they are handy and handsome. They fit the hand and the hand rejoices in them. In this ample
house the salvaged have been gathered together and protected. Is there a saint for the discarded? Is
there a saint for work?
 
 
Shelter (A)
 
We live in a multicultural housing complex.
The Mason Bees
Jane You asked about the origin of this photo. I took it in The Lost Garden of Heligan in Cornwall. I
think it’s an accumulation of found building materials stored to provide insect habitat as part of the
biodynamic gardening strategy. Chris
 
 
Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenter (J)
 
Raise high the roof beam, carpenters. Like Ares comes the bridegroom, taller far than a tall man.
- Sappho
 
How deep are these shelves? Are the poles
long and strong enough to be load-bearers?
Would they hold up a hut, a shed, a garden structure --
a home? These elements evoke a shelter dream.
I see slate for a roof, maybe extras for a path,
tiles for drainage
bricks for strength in case of wolves.
A willow basket has been woven for its home by the fire
I see straw for laying hens
even clay pots for herbs
and I will gather more firewood in these woods.
All materials are to hand, all hand-made.
"I will arise and go now". I have bean seeds saved, I'm ready.
And if a bridegroom comes, so much the better.

 

  {slider title="May 7 Anthony Gormley Six Times" open="false"}
 
 
The Last Glimpse (A)
 
The last glimpse I had of my father
Before the eagle plucked me
From the certainty of death
He was chest-deep in liquid earth.
Known as “stealths”
These phenomena were the latest plague
Mother Earth sent us.
Beginning as a minor tremor,
A circle of earth
No wider than a bed but deeper than a room,
It agitates profoundly
Until anyone trapped on it
Is engulfed.
A terrified child, my hands covering my tearful eyes,
The eagle heard my cries.
She carried me in her talons.
Now, years later,
Our mountain compound remains a safe retreat, our ark,
Our garden,
And Mother Nature smiles on us.
 
 
On His Way (J)
 
Free this man. He will walk
to water and wheeling birds and breathe
unexhausted air.
 
 
Here he is again (W)
 
our nightmare
rising through the roadway.
Guaranteed to wreck the car.
Just when we thought we had it
nicely paved over, up it comes
lifesized.
Once it would have been a Morlock,
Frankenstein’s monster, Dorian’s
mouldering portrait, Mr. Hyde.
Today it is a bland expressionless man
of indeterminate age.
Who is he?
Populism? White Supremacy?
Species extinction? Global Heating?
Inequality? AI?
Or is it just
that time we behaved badly,
that time we were foolish?
(I was thinking of the car in a Jungian sense as consciousness, thinking that one is completely in control.)
 
 
 
 
 
Oak's Glorious Notes and Toasts (J)
 
Some die-hard oenophiles believe barrel-ageing is the only true way to impart
oak’s glorious notes on a wine. Vinebox site
 
These staves of oak, these hoops
contain the care and patience
of grape-growing generations.
As we share their wine over food we feel:
"This is civilization, sip slowly" and
"This is European" and we remember
travels and tables in St. Malo, Ravenna, Paris,
wine served in a clay pitcher
in the cathedral square, Moissac.
At home we choose robust reds
with tasting notes of
the Languedoc, Cahors, Tuscany, Sicily.
Salute! A Votre Sante! L'Chaim!
 
Barrel options (a post-pandemic ditty) (L)
 
A tsk-tsk-tasket
A brown and orange casket
Time to blow a gasket
----
Let us store our inebriated friend
In a barrel and before he gets sober
Launch him ensconced over the edge
To the rush and thrill of Niagara Falls
To the refrain of “Roll Out the Barrel”
And then when our friend turns fiend
Has us over a barrel ‘til we vomit
And we’ve looked down the barrel of his gun
Drilled and grilled like green grommets
Will we know better because bitter
When next in the pub we hear
“Time, gentlemen”
Not follow the mellow barrel race thrum
But revert once again to alcoholics bucolic
Roll home and resolve to be humdrum?
 
 
Three Cheers (W)
 
Morning Flight to Kirkwall
Coffee, tea, or whisky?
Too early for you?
Some sweeties then.
Northern Entertainment
The fire flared in the dim room.
The storyteller muttered and keened
in a heap on the floor.
We should have ordered whisky.
Iona in Winter
I never liked rye
but after a damp day on the Holy Isle
whisky was heavenly.
and one more small hurrah
Skye Warmth
The room was cold
and the sheets were damp
but we’d “a wee dram” taken
to warm our insides.
 
 {slider title="May 9 Propellor" open="false"}
 
 
It was dark under the Viaduct. I remembered my mother telling how it began to tremble the first time a
parade passed over it and would have shaken itself to bits if the marchers had not stopped and broken
step. The regular beat of their feet sent echoing vibrations that flowed back over one another like
waves through the concrete. The parade route was changed to Hastings Street after that even though
the Armory was right near the end of the Viaduct.
There was no parade today, just a light rain that barely disturbed the piles of dust and debris under the
columns. I liked the soothing sound of the pigeons cooing overhead, but I’d also been told that rats
liked the piles of pigeon droppings. It was spooky under there. I liked that but I didn’t have time to
wind up my imagination. There were fishing rods to carry, and coolers and cases of beer. The men
were going fishing on my grandfather’s boat and I could go too.
We carried our gear down the damp and slippery ramp to the floating dock. It creaked and protested
when we stepped on it. The oil on the water eddied eerie rainbows around the black tarred pilings. I
liked the smell. I couldn’t find much sea life.
We had to carry our stuff a long way but we found granddad’s boat. He was just taking the tarp off it,
which meant either we were early or, more likely, he’d been sleeping one off and gotten up late. The
boat was an ancient inboard. The paint peeled. It smelled funny. So did grandpa. He was chewing
snoose again and spat into the oily water. Some of that oil seemed to be coming from the back of our
boat.
I didn’t have time to wonder about that. The men were already stomping along the dock, telling the
jokes they couldn’t tell in front of their wives. Their laughter was the only loud sound in that quiet
space. A few pigeons flapped away.
We stowed our gear. I noticed water in the bottom of the boat. Dad saw me looking. He said it didn’t
mean anything. Maybe some rain had gotten in.
We all got in too and grandpa started up the old motor. Tried to anyway. Soon the top was off the
housing and all the men were tinkering and getting in one another’s way. My dad finally got the motor
turning over. A few empty bottles had already gone over the side.
The mouldering ropes were released and we slowly angled away from the dock and out to the open sea,
except we had to get through False Creek first. I liked it there. All the industries were quiet on a
Saturday. Just a little smoke rose from the giant hopper at the sawmill. You could see the sun sliding
over the water, enjoying the motion of the waves. The lights looked pretty through the blue haze of our
motor. I tried not to cough. My uncles did too and wiped their eyes but a second or third beer seemed
to calm their throats.
The bilge water seemed to be rising. Uncle Ray’s pant cuffs were getting wet. Granddad rummaged
around till he found a bent bucket and an empty paint can. We started to bail. The water kept rising.
Grandpa said there were too many people on the boat. There was nothing wrong with her. She was
tried and true. “Yeah, right,” jeered Uncle Barry, “you bought her last month in the Main Street Legion
and never took her out.” Perce insisted. We all had wet feet. It didn’t help that we’d stopped bailing
and anyway the beer was all gone.
Grandpa turned her around and we chugged back to our mooring. As soon as we tied up everybody
scrambled to get out. The boat did rise a bit and the water inside seemed to settle. We gathered up our
gear and trooped along the dock to the ramp. It was at the same angle as when we left. Ray checked
his watch. “Hey, the Legion’s open.” It was just a few blocks away.
Dad bought me some chips and a milkshake and told me to stay in the car. He wasn’t gone as long as
he usually is.
When we got home my mother just laughed. She was cooking sausages for dinner. She hadn’t
expected fish.
 
 
Propeller (L)
 
Too large for a paperweight
Too rusty for an ornament
Too heavy to hang on a wall
An artifact
Displayed in a window with a screen
A view that could be considered
A careful choice to set down
A tribute
I imagine it is a boat propeller
A closer look will reveal the oars
Life preserver, creel, and other
Objects of a fisherman’s world
The pleasure he derived
From visits to a wider world
The elements he loved to discover
And the thresholds he crossed
The surprises to be found there
Another life
 
 
The Commonwealth Air Training Plan plus How They Met (J)
 
My father was in the Royal Canadian Air Force during the war and worked on Lancasters
(probably other planes as well but I remember mentions of that one) as part of the
Commonwealth Air Training Plan. At his graveside his friend Dorothy said, "After they
worked on a plane the mechanics were the first to go up."
I have his photo album from this time.
He kept the poem "High Flight" with him always:
"Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;"
- Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee
He met my mother because the crews in the plan were moved around to various training
schools. In the bunkhouse at Swift Current a Scottish friend had just received a "Dear John"
letter and felt very low. Dad said, "Come on. We're going to a dance."
There he asked my mother to dance and invited her for a coffee afterwards.
Mum said, "I'm with four girlfriends. We come together and we leave together," so Dad took
all five women out for coffee.
 
 {slider title="May 10 Post Box" open="false"}
 
 
There was a time (A)
 
When I was young,
After Sunday church,
After Sunday lunch, really our dinner,
After the dishes were all washed, dried, and put away,
When I would disappear into my bedroom to finish my homework,
My mother would sit down at the kitchen table and answer letters.
She took up her pen and wrote to her sisters and brothers and brothers' wives, to distant friends, to her
older children, to her godsons and goddaughters.
She wrote and received long letters, several pages long.
Sometimes the opened envelopes revealed photographs of a new baby, a family gathering, or an uncle,
with his new car, dressed in a suit and hat, of course. Sometime there was a wedding picture with the
bride and groom and a whole row of bridesmaids and ushers, as well as the bride and groom's parents,
or a confirmation picture from a godchild, along with a thank you note for the gift she had sent.
Sometimes a newspaper clipping showed the image of a deceased friend or relative and their carefullywritten
obituary.
When Mum sat down with her writing pad and envelopes and stamps on a Sunday afternoon nobody
bothered her or even imagined they could. It was a sacred time, a quiet, holy time. It was a time when
friendships between families were strengthened. My mother was holding us together, though I didn't
understand that at the time.
 
 
Her Majesty’s Post (W)
 
The candy-coloured guardsman in his fresh red coat
glows and glowers in the wall.
Your letter better be of the finest pedigree
or he will clamp his jaws and keep it out.
He likes them when they’re elegant and studded with stars,
gilt edged and emblazoned with rich coats of arms.
He accepts invitations to parties in gardens
and galas and seasonal balls.
He’ll take a condolence, commisions are better.
Congratulations please him most of all.
Sometimes on occasion but just by exception
he’ll receive a perfumed billet doux.
But don’t think he approves of a dim assignation
or dark of the night rendezvous.
His post is too high for the tiny passersby
who content themselves with crannies at the base.
They write their little pleas on bits of card or dried out leaves.
The mice will come and carry them away.
Be the address grand or grimy the mice will not be picky.
They’ll get in and be out within a minute.
Their land route is a better one than pony express.
Their air mail is handled by cricket.
In the small world below only elves dare aspire
to the heights of Her Majesty’s mail
They build elven ladders standing steady on their shoulders
one by one until they reach the guardsman’s mouth.
The top elf dare not tremble or he’ll cause them all to tumble.
He just pops the letter in and scrambles down.
Then they gather in a circle. They cheer loudly for their hero
and ignore the ruddy guardsman’s furrowed frown.
Day by day he stands steady, his mustachios ready
to bristle at the slightest levity
but he only does his duty. He isn’t really snooty.
It’s the uniform that does it. Don’t you see?
 
(If you enlarge the photograph you'll see that the mail box has a very definite expression.)
(J)
 
 
Songs of the Hebrides And Other Celtic Songs from the Highlands of Scotland
Some Collected and All Arranged For Voice and Pianoforte By
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser.
Gaelic Editor Kenneth MacLeod
Price One Guinea
Boosey and Co. Copyright 1909 by Marjory Kennedy Fraser.
From the "Fairy Music" (Ceol-Brutha in Gaelic) section by Kenneth MacLeod in The Songs of the
Hebrides: "A literal translation of some Gaelic notes taken down from old folk in the Hebrides):
".....few who go into the bruth (Fairy-den) are keen to leave .....
 
The Folk are so good at the music that if thou wert to enter the bruth to-day the sapling might become
the tallest tree in the forest ere thou would'st get tired of listening. Hast heard of Cnoc-napiobaireachd,
the Knoll-of-piping, in Eigg? In my young days, and in the young days of the ones
before me, all the lads of the island used to go there on the beautiful moonlight nights, and bending
down an ear to the knoll, it was tunes they would get, and tunes indeed; reels that would make the
Merry-dancers themselves go faster, and laments that would draw tears from the eyes of a corpse; sure,
in one night, a lad o' music might get as many reels and laments as would marry and bury all the people
in Eigg -- ....".
 
 
The Fairies' Luring Song
 
If you compose a letter to the Fairy Folk
if you bend your ear to the post box
they will lure you with music
they will enchant you.
Please remember we are calling you
back. Please return with songs that help us
remember what we have lost
quicken the green wood
dance with our children.
 
 
Pillar box (L)
 
Alone, caped in greenery with tiny flowers
Peek-a-booing, as in a fairy-tale recalled
Or embedded in a mossy brick wall
Suspended with invisible supports
Choose a shade: carmine, flame, signal
There may be an iconic telephone box
Situated nearby for symmetry or sentiment
 
 
 
 {slider title="May 11 Fishing" open="false"}
 
The Tartan Umbrella Considers Her Options (J)
 
I can do better than this.
My sprightly blues will blossom
on a Nice beach.
I may meet a painter there, sun-dazzled,
a melter who wants to shelter
under my tender tartan.
The moss on my spokes will shrivel
my silken soul will expand.
 
 
Empty Horizon (W)
 
The channels are clearly marked. The sea is calm.
Weel may the keel row,
But no one returns today. She’s all alone.
The keel row, the keel row.
A solitary fisher ringed with locks
Weel may the keel row
her thoughts like raindrops drumming on taut cloth.
That my lad is in.
 
 
Fishing? (A)
 
Red to port
Green to starboard
Going out to sea.
If wishes were sailboats
I’d sail away.
This yellow lock
Is a great big lie
Like a pitiful fool I believed him.
Now I sit here crying
My tears are like rain.
I’ll prop this blue umbrella
On this post with some old bowls
The fishing rod can lean.
One small act of courage
And I’ll join the fishes.
 
 
The girl with the blue and white umbrella (L)
 
It is an overcast subdued morning
I am reminded of the long line of fishermen
They were all fishers, all men
That used to line the Gorge Bridge, hopeful
For that familiar tug that forecast
The confidence that they knew better
Than most of the creatures they angled for
That their lures guaranteed success
And the story would end with a swagger
And not a lie about the one that got away
The girl with the blue and white umbrella
Meditates, her fishing rod a metaphor
For memories of her father and his urgent
Get up! Get out of bed! – the fish won’t wait.
Perhaps, like me, she hated to see the jellyfish
From the dock at Brentwood and smell the oil slick
On the Bay through the cracks in the boardwalk
...
This is not all about my father; he did not brag or swagger :)
 
 
 {slider title="May 12 Classic" open="false"}
 
Stagnation Blues (A)
 
The satellite dish
Reads messages from underground
And sends them back again.
While the photographer
Takes pictures
Of himself
Taking pictures.
Graffiti artists
Tag walls
To say that they were here.
And gentlemen get Classic cuts
To make them all look the same.
Nothing new.
Just a circular view.
I am here
We tell ourselves.
Does anyone hear or see us?
Amber later clarified that because the satellite dish was facing down she imagined that it might be receiving messages from
the “netherworld” instead of outer space.
 
 
Lookin’ Good (W)
 
I remember sitting on a board placed across the arms of the barber chair, looking at my small feet on
the black leather, the barber’s big hand holding my head steady as he joked with my father.
Then a crewcut, then a brushcut, then down to my shoulders. “Get a haircut Hippy!”
I remember asking a question at a spiritualist meeting in the Moose Lodge, the stuffed moose head
looking down at me mournfully. The elderly leader was honestly confused: was I a guy or a girl?
A glowing spirit child came and placed a large bouquet of flowers across the lap of an elderly lady in
the front circle. I couldn’t see anything but all the old heads turned in unison as they watched her.
Then a beard to make me look older than my students. “Still scruffy, eh sir?” (friendly greeting on the
first day of the new school year at Spencer Junior High). My mother would have agreed with him.
---------
Props (the tag on the wall) as in proper respect, as in R-E-S-P-E-C-T. God bless you Aretha.
“The first thing any Black people learn about White people is that they love to throw their hair.”
- Stanley Crouch in Jazz by Ken Burns
Afros, or just fros. Jane and I passing the Black Panther Headquarters in San Francisco in 1972. Jane
smiled brightly and said Good Morning to the serious young man in the doorway, but we were visibly
out of our depth.
I also remember walking through the Passage du Désir off the Boulevard de Strasbourg in Paris on a
Friday night. I was the only white. I looked in at the barber shop. It was crammed with men, everyone
excited and happy, a real social scene. Another world. As I left I passed a group of black ladies on the
street corner. They were very well dressed and very friendly. Out of my depth again.
--------
Been cutting my own hair lately. Can trim the sides but not the back. Noticed the back of Trudeau’s
hair is getting pretty thick. During one of her press briefings Dr. Bonnie Henry apologized to her hair
dresser. Even in these times you don’t want to look like you’ve “let yourself go.” You certainly can’t
“let your hair down.” Not for a long time.
Of course the Passage du Désir is now fermé and so are all the barber shops in New York but it’s only
temporary. Won’t last long.
 
 
Classic (J)
 
Once a man could get spruced up
for a Saturday night or just to meet his day
in this gents only, warm towels,
hot not cold shave
salon de luxe pour les hommes.
 
 
The Classic Barbershop (L)
 
Our current motto:
Do not despair and don’t succumb to whine-age
One-on-one is coming soon – eyes peeled for signage!
 
There are classic cars, there may be classic bars
There are classics, plural, and classic movie stars
Barbers Seville and several Sweeneys
And of course the inbetweenies
The man who cut your father’s hair
When he gave up on yours, despaired
Home-cutters heard to mutter it’s longer
On the left than right. I’ll tackle it another night
We’ll be open 7 days a week to shear and shape
We tender loving care to every type of hair
We’ll even set your languid locks
With gobs of gel and other goo
Though we’d prefer to knock the blocks
Off coxcombs, buzz-cut lovers, shave-me-balds
No thought of fashion, no advert perusal
Who hop aboard a stool and mutter: The usual
We cringe and our sharp shears shudder
Walruses are deplorable, cookie dusters adorable
(Bob’s was more than passable if not movie star-able)
Handlebars were once the rage even when not on stage
Or the silver screen. Villains gave heroines a whirl
While they gave their facial hair a twirl
Short-sheared heroes on white horses
To the glee of galleries and Greek choruses
Arrived on scene, or vigilantes after sundown
Gave the villains hot shaves on their sit-downs
 
 
 
 {slider title="May 13 White’s" open="false"}
 
Ironsmith (L)
 
Rescued from a wreck
Repurposed for remembrance
A gift of iron
(I was thinking shipwreck, maybe an anchor. I was hoping manhole covers were included in ironmongery. All
smith occupations, and my family name, for sure, and my dad worked in a foundry, another set of occupations.
I admire men with occupational skillsets. Hardware stores are like candy stores to me. )
 
 
 
We Visit the Ironmonger's (J)
 
"Ho ho hi-i-i. Here's your turnips." "Penny a lot, fine russets."
"Three a penny, Yarmouth bloaters."
"Have you Brass Pot, Iron Pot, Kettle Skillet, or a Frying Pan to mend?"
Costermongers, fishmongers, ironmongers -- I can hear them crying their wares from their barrows or
baskets.
When we arranged our first stay in Matilda House in 2002, Judith and Ron told us "Cyril will knock on
your door." Cyril was an old friend of Ron's mother Alice who, with others in the 70s, had restored the
derelict social housing estate of Matilda House into co-op housing under tenants' control, the first in
Britain. "Homes for People Not Profit" says the blue plaque now.
The family felt that Cyril still pined for Alice who had moved to be near her family in Toronto. Cyril
lived a few doors down from our flat #55, and did make sure to meet us.
When Wayne thought the flat could use a toaster we asked Cyril where to go. He gave us directions to
Robert Dyas, Ironmonger on Gracechurch Street in our near neighbourhood, the City of London.
"Ironmonger"! The word had so much more resonance than "hardware store".
We walked past the Tower of London, found our ironmonger at 82 Gracechurch Street and bought the
toaster for our use and as a gift to the flat.
As always in London, more history and literature give streets "authority", as P.D. James says.
Elizabeth Bennet's decent Aunt and Uncle Gardiner's home was on Gracechurch street, "within view of
his own warehouses" in Cheapside. Because Uncle Gardiner earned his living through trade the
Bingley sisters sneered, but Mr. Darcy treated the Gardiners with respect -- to the eventual happiness of
hero and heroine.
We walked back past All Hallows By The Tower church, St. Katharine's Docks with its barges, locks
and swans, and home to tea
 
 
Woodscrew, Coachscrews, Nails and Rivets (W)
 
Everything about this façade is rigid, hard, and cold. The lettering on the door is stiff and blocky,
though the lettering above has an art deco elegance. The pale blue and white colour scheme and the
complete lack of decoration may also come as much from the period as the purpose but the visual
message is clear: my defences are impregnable and this is a hard-nosed business.
The paradox is that Ironmongeries, known here as Hardware Stores, are among the friendliest places
you could ever visit. The customer, me, is invariably clueless but seriously needs what he has come to
buy. The clerk (however you pronounce it) is usually elderly and experienced, a retired tradesman or
even former owner of a business, though we’ve also met handyman bank managers. They listen
carefully to my circumlocutions and invariably say, “Ah, you want a number ten carriage bolt,” and
then magically produce it from a tiny drawer or bewildering display on the wall. I leave happy and
reassured, feeling that I’ve had the privilege of talking to someone of great experience and humanity.
When Megan and I reassembled Iona’s second hand crib from Ikea it was missing one unusual and
indispensable bolt. I drove to Lowes and stared bleakly at the wall of bolts and screws. I searched for
help and found an elderly, talkative gentleman with bird-dog like tenacity. He was new on the job and
apologized for not yet having learned the whereabouts of all 35,000 items in the store. We looked in
every cubicle of every pull out drawer without success. We did it again. And again. I was ready to
throw in the towel but he was certain he’d seen my fugitive bolt. I opened the same drawer for a fourth
time and there it was. I checked with him. He was pretty sure. Another clerk wandered by, younger
and quicker. No question. He could have taken me directly to it. I would have gained twenty minutes,
maybe more, but lost the collective triumph of our discovery.
The oddest hardware store I’d ever visited was in the museum quarter of Madrid. I needed an adaptor
to use the charger for my camera battery. I have very little Spanish but thought I’d just browse around
till I found one. No chance. The shop was too tiny for browsing. There was a narrow standing area for
customers, a very long counter of dark oak, and a massive wall filled floor to ceiling with tiny drawers.
I waggled my useless North American plug in the air and made connecting gestures. I got a bright
Spanish smile. The clerk reached unerringly into the correct drawer and I had my adaptor. I was
stunned but the young assistant was already eager to move on to the next needy customer so I paid in a
flurry of pleasantries and was out the door.
I’ve never met a hardware clerk I didn’t like.
I just pulled up our last bottle of wine to celebrate memories of Spain. It was Sangre de Toro, an impulse buy.
 
 
May 14 Tunnel Vision/Grizedale Forest
 
"I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees.” Dr. Seuss
 
Tree of Life (J)
 
Trees
guardian, fragile
shelter, sequester, sky-rakers
forest bathing heals humans
Beneficence.
 
 
Grizedale Forest (L)
 
A nonagon frames a stand of trees
Tunnel vision confines our view
Walk through, engage with wild flowers
Imagine snowdrops, happy harbingers
Worship the trees – they are poems
Winds serenade them; sunlight sanctifies
As our tears anoint, as our courage strives
We are aware what lies beyond the borders
And trust misfortune spares the trees
Terras Incognitas (W)
Seen through the eye of science
rhe copse is a kaleidoscope
of microcosms within macrocosms
opening and turning in unimaginable spaces.
Heard through the ear of science
there are pulsating communities,
tiny to titanic, making inexhaustible musics
both audible and inaudible.
Do not the doctors tell us
that like the trees, we both create
and contain communities?
Ordinary is magic and magic is ordinary.
 
 
 
 {slider title="May 15 May 146" open="false"}
 
A Dutiful Ditty for the Victoria Day Weekend (W)
 
Even odd fellows hope
and odd gals too
but the odd hopeful fella
sometimes wonders what to do.
Enjoy life while you can
but, fella, don’t be daft.
If we don’t do what’s right now
there might be nothing left.
 
 
The Tassajara Bread Book Verbs of Hope (J)
 
If all goes well
the bubbles bubble when you mix
yeast, a bit of sugar, and warm-but-not-too-warm
(I often failed temperature timing) water.
Add flour, fold, knead,
set to rise. Punch. Rise again.
Shape the loaves. Bake.
May all steps and ingredients yield
the staff of life we long for.
 
 
Positive results (L)
 
More light than shadow
Dual symbols of fellowship
Red generates hope
May 16 Umbrella and Cone
 
 
What Next? Dancing! (J)
 
Just a-walking in the rain
the familiar Scottish rain;
just a-striding down the street
gonna meet somebody sweet.
My shoes and ankles are all soaked
but my umbrella dogs are stoked;
though dour faces show disdain
someone's singing in the rain.
Imagine the whistling background -- nods of course to Johnnie Ray.
The last time we arrived on the train to Glasgow the rain pounded down. As people dashed and were
splashed as we left the station, someone was singing "Singing in the Rain" and it carried through the
streets. Made people (certainly us) laugh.
 
 
Poetic licence: Samuel Johnson and me on a rainy day (L)
 
Real time in this ditty I aim to dodge
When I introduce my late cat Sally
To the late Great Cham’s late cat Hodge
Sal and I need a respite while we rally
After the deluge we are wet and weary
From his doorstep Dr. J invites us
Though Sal and I are a little leery
We are both impressed with his gravitas
After anxious introductions feline
Fearsome exchanges of loud hisses
Both cats make the proverbial bee-line
It wouldn’t matter my house or his’s
While the cats re-purpose both our brollies
Into huts, pagodas, castle follies
Sam and I will share imagined thoughts
On works of genius, on books unbought
Works by authors who have yet to write them
The unborn Brontës, the young Jane Austen
When our cats complete their huddles
Their dreams of drowning dogs in puddles
The doctor prescribes a pinch of catnip
A dish of tea for him and me to sip
We will all enjoy our choice with feeling
The cats with herbal, ours Darjeeling
 
 
Catriona McKenzie Had to Die (W)
 
The world famous neurosurgeon was a woman of precise habits. Every afternoon at 3:06 she watered
the dying orchid in her parlour window. The sniper had a clear line of sight. He checked his silencer
one more time. His vengeance would be complete. It was 3:04.
Suddenly a woman walked up the street, a redhead, just like his sister. The woman carried a dachshund
umbrella. His sister also loved dogs. He could hear her in his mind singing How Much is that Doggie
in the Window. He remembered her charming little bark. He could see her smiling at him and his eyes
misted with tears.
No. Wait. That wasn’t his sister’s bark, it was a police dog. The umbrella girl had been a plant. He
was surrounded.
“Good girl!” The police puppy wriggled in delight. She had caught her first felon.
 
 
How Much is that Doggie in the Window
 
My cousin Donna
a tiny redheaded pixie
loved to sing it,
over and over.
She barked charmingly.
 
 
 {slider title="May 17 Donuts" open="false"}
 
Angels (W)
 
Look sir, look, these contented gentlemen are herald angels. They are emissaries from the future, a
magical time in which people are no longer afraid to walk close together on a public thoroughfare.
Look, you can see his happy expression. They are not wearing masks!
And look sir, there are thriving cafes and restaurants which stay open late into the night. People are
allowed to enter them without prior arrangements of any kind and hand over real money to other people
in exchange for coffee and a donut. Then they sit where they like!
You scoff: “Unthinkable! Unsanitary! Downright dangerous!” You mutter and would like to raise
your voice. You back away, but I assure you that such things once were normal and could be again.
You shake your head. You want nothing to do with this pipe dream. I see.
Oh look sir. The angels are shocked. They’re fading away.
I’m sorry I detained you. It wasn’t important.
 
Writing this actually changed my thinking. I'd been expecting a return to normality but gave that up by the time I'd finished.
 
 
Ordinary Life, Maybe (J)
 
The city street is blue, is it enchanted?
Those swirls of commerce, colour, sugars,
one cheerful walker -- all just cover?
The other walker, serious --
is that Sean Connery, plotting Scottish revolution?
 
Seen in passing, circa 1939 (L)
 
 
~ for Verity
A favourite picture of father and son
A poignant and historical moment
Captured by a street photographer
An artist in time, place, form,
And vision: a litany to add to
Great-grandfather and grandfather
Captured in an instant to answer
A request from their descendant
For an intense genealogical project
Jack, in uniform, his cigarette forgotten
Is smiling at his son, Bill, who is smiling
At the photographer, and it is possible –
To the observer anything is possible –
Bill anticipates a milkshake and a donut
Or two, shared with his dad on his day off.
~
Last night, Verity asked me for a photograph
of her great-grandfather Jack. Coincidentally,
it was the picture I thought of when I opened
Chris’s daily prompt and saw the two men
strolling down the street. I like to think they
are praising the donuts they recently enjoyed.
~
 
 
Glazed, jellied, stuffed
 
What rhymes with donut?
Do not think of calories
Just think Heavenly
 
 
 
 {slider title="May 18 The last day before the first easing of restrictions. Mr Purves" open="false"}
 
The Glowing Window (W)
 
The windows are filthy and streaked with damp.
The shop has been shuttered for years, but once
of an early Edinburgh evening
one by one and rank by rank the lamps
would all be coaxed to life till the glass glowed
like a heavenly choir, a constellation,
a consolation and a beacon
to every hunched and buttoned passing soul.
Mr Purves is gone, the shop’s half empty
but someone remembers and keeps the key.
It had all been found and restored before.
What once was lost could return once more.
 
 
The Incandescent Mantle (W)
 
Dad drove well into the dark, so when we arrived at a campground we had to drive around the whole
site looking for spot that no one had taken. All the other families were already seated around their
fires, laughing and toasting marshmallows. Our site would be black and damp and chilly.
The first thing unpacked was the Coleman lamp. It would be placed on the thick wooden table and my
mother and I would stand well back. My mum would train our waning flashlight on the lamp. Dad
hunched over it. Then came the quiet curses and the scratching and snapping of damp matches until
one finally caught. That tiny sputter was immediately followed by a foot of flame. The shadows
jumped away from us and could not settle until Dad adjusted the flow of fuel and the small bag of
white cloth began to emit a slow steady glow. It was so bright you couldn’t even look at it.
After that the gas cylinder for the stove was pumped and the blue ring of flames flowered at the touch
of a match. Mum boiled water and made hot dogs. Once I heard a small “oops” and when I bit into my
hot dog it was crunchy, really crunchy. “Eat it,” she said, “it’s good for you.”
 
 
Pour the Oil, Trim the Wick, Place the Chimney (J)
 
Lamps, lanterns, blessings --
a soft beam casts a circle
light draws us in at dusk.
What, in unlit corners, needs our care?
Lamps, lanterns. Veritas too, incandescent.
Symbols, say it plain in a dark time:
a candle, a lighthouse, a beacon.
Come. Mr. Purves stocks lamps.
I'll take a yellow one, please, for greatest luminosity.
A favourite quote from painter Winifred Nicholson on a lamp and luminosity:
Yesterday I set out to pick a yellow bunch to place as a lamp on my table in dull
rainy weather. I picked Iceland poppies, marigolds, yellow iris, my bunch did not
tell yellow. I added sunflowers, canary poppies, buttercups, dandelions; no
yellower. I added to my butter-like mass, two everlasting peas, magenta pink and
all my yellows broke into luminosity. Orange and gold and lemon and primrose,
each singing its note.
 
 
Camping – a memory (L)
 
In the camper, at night,
The mantle as it glows
Casts precious light
And likewise, warmth
Dreadful!
The novice camper
Ever the worrywart
Worst-case scenario impresario
Views
Fragile gauze, friable cloak
Hell, in miniature, evil effervescence
Volatile!
Tense, I await its evanescence
Veritas!
 
 
Our mantelpiece at home
 
 
Mementos reside on the mantelpiece
A repository for treasured items
A crocheted runner, a clock
Objects that continue their appeal
A grandmother’s gifts
Decorative dogs guard the fireplace
Silver knights in shining armour
Foundry-forged, my father’s part
In their creation recalled with respect
and affection

 

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