Poetry

Memories of Geoff
 
Tonight I walked alone in the cold October night
through the forest.
And I thought of you,
remembering today would have been your 35th birthday.
And I remembered
walking with you through these same woods on a Halloween night
when you were ten,
holding our tin cans, hung with thin wire, lit with candles.
We’d used nails to poke holes in them and called them bugs,
and they cast bouncing starlight on the trails in the dark woods.
And you at 10 years old were transfixed by them
on that damp October night.
And we were enchanted by the light from our bugs
and laughed and pretended to be scared,
and took for granted our love and mother-son communion
and thought of nothing else.

* * *

Piper
​
That night you first played the pipes
for me
on the deck at my house on the beach,
the full moon was high over Bowen Island
and a mist lingered over the channel
on that secret November night.
I watched shyly through the mullioned windows as
you squeezed the bag under your arm,
your breath filling her with life.
Then, like cradling a swan in your arms,
you fingered the chanter,
her long neck
held elegantly in your hands
as the haunting notes of Dark Isle
drifted across the water.

* * *

A Poem for You
 
And because you love me
you walked into a dirty, wet November night
on Keats
to find my son on the steep bluff
to bring him back to our house
to bring him back to his senses (for awhile).
You took a flashlight
and wore enough clothes to share with him
when you found him.
And you both arrived safely to the back door
of our house on Keats,
he wearing your wet weather outer garments
against his naked skin,
you wearing your jeans and shirt.
You did that for me.
Or did you do that for Geoff?
It doesn’t matter.
You did it for all of us.

* * *

My Dear Abby
 
And in my cottage
At the start of spring
On an evening with pounding rain on the roof
I tiptoe from my bedroom to the bathroom
and through the window
see the flickering lights of TV
in Abby’s house
up the path
in the dark
And think maybe she’s watching the tennis
a glass of red by her side
With the rain outside falling softly on the first buds
of spring
And we are all fine
And all seems as it should be
In the order of the world.
 
* * *

Full Moons and Forget-Me-Nots
 
It’s twenty years today since you left
and the full moon still rises to remind me of the night you passed
and the wild forget-me-nots still bloom
along the abandoned railway tracks
 
You took your exit from everything you
knew and loved
You stood in that liminal space between the here and now
and another world, a distant world
And you stepped away
 
But you are held forever in my heart
and the full moon still rises
and the forget-me-nots still bloom
along the abandoned railway tracks
And they comfort me
and remind me that life goes on
in its own fragile and glorious way.


Capable Woman
 
I grouted and tiled the whole bathroom myself
And fixed that damned leak on the roof.
Then I painted and patched where the water had stained,
of my strong back, this is all proof.
 
I took the kids on a camping trip,
pitched the tent and laid on the food.
I baited the hooks and gutted the fish
before gathering the campfire wood.
 
I can handle it all when it’s thrown in my way
and know there’s really nothing I can’t do,
nothing too much for this old girl,
from morning till all the way through.
 
You know I don’t need you to help with the work,
fix the plumbing and put oil in my car. 
But I need you to soften my calluses
and tell me I’m your best love so far.

* * *
​
In the Dream
 
The image in the dream of the baby’s head
comes to me again.
Attached to nothing.
Vulnerable
disembodied
separating the head
the brain
the thought centre from the body.
Body of literature
body of water
some body
some other body’s body.
In the ditch a pale head
pale grey matter
brain intellectualizing
putting too much thought and reason
into something.
Weighing things
wondering
exploring
investigating
delving into the unknown.
Baby’s head
sitting in a ditch
like an egg
Thin-skinned
transparent
thread-like veins showing through velum skin
eggshell thin
and vulnerable.
Sitting in a ditch
of dirty
putrified
still
polluted
affected
murky water.
Things are not clear.
Disembodied.
A child disembodied
separated from the essential part
of itself.
The essential doesn’t exist
in the physical.
Base.
Bringing things to a base level.
Matter
or doesn’t matter.
Spirit
living on after the physical is gone.
The essence
the flame
the shell is all that remains
in the ditch
in the dirty
murky
putrified
trickly
filthy water
and the baby’s head.
But the essence is gone.
That which can’t be seen is gone.
Safe
closed away
folded up
protecting the soft centre
the vulnerable
gently throbbing
soft centre.
Baby’s body
soft and warm
folded into itself
like a snail
or a sea anemone
closing
folding away
keeping everything close
and tucked in.
Hidden.
Safe.

* * *

A Keats Morning
 
Sheets of rain
slant against a colourless sky
and falling, swooping seagulls
screech their anguish
like Trojan women,
while thin, tired waves lap at
gunmetal beaches.
A sentinel of dark firs,
branches black and heavy
with the effort of holding
the rain,
stand silent
as sea otters, heads bent low,
slither over ancient weathered logs,
and a lone border collie
races along the sand,
barking wildly,
trying to herd the waves.