How silent is night
You, these stars, and candlelight
Tomorrow on hold
Moment
Stories Less Spoken
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We are alone, yet we observe others even in solitude.
We meet. Events emerge. Come together. Then part.
Catching Wisdom
You must be shoeless
to feel stepping stones
You must be quiet
to hear songs of ancient bones
You must be ready
to catch a star
when it arrives midday
Poems Without Titles
January
Breathing
I balance here
Between
Night Bird Discovery
True Pencil Notes my old friend for you this day
What words can I say that won’t give my aching heart too much away
Regret
Reminiscence
Redirect
Guilt insistence
Survival
Melancholy
Memories
Some nights when sleep won’t come I let it be as it may
Let darkness sit beside me while I contemplate awake
Now and then I’ve watched my thoughts wander to you
I’ve looked but not too hard
Did you ever look for me
What is it we hope to achieve by our reverie
We lost something or we let each other slip slowly out of view
What does it matter
What is there left in this mysterious life to figure out
Drifters sway together parlay awhile then part lose or win
No reasons offered none returned
Last night I searched your name
No rational expectations
No expectations at all
I search places people ideas every day
I am not unlike the I then of the curious kind
And searching just as often saves me from wrestling with presence in mind
When did we last meet
What did we talk about
What did we decide
Who was last not to write
Somewhere and someone else along our crooked separate highways
To unknown yet predetermined destinies
Remember these scenes:
You at the bus stop on Denman in coastal rains again waiting for me
You poised always ready and me stumbling unsteady through time
Both of us watching for what was inside while stepping just outside prescribed lines
We were single raincoat bus riders then
Occupying our cubbyhole apartments in the occupant heavy West End
Why should the smokers have the prime furniture
They have their fog to comfort them
I said there’s no need to send requisitions for change
Synchronized in willingness and deviant vision
Wait for departing lunch people then we’d rearrange
Ah, I hear your laughing voice rise as we struggle up those stairs
What about those bright yellow stockings you used to wear
Bumble Bee woman
That black and white photograph of you and me standing close laughing
When we were both bleach blondes and hopefully young
Matching robes flashing in summer morning’s light winds
Luminescent as our sun licking away Pacific sea sins
So what is your smile doing tonight among these year old obituaries
Smuggling my cat in the No Pets Allowed elevator
His striped tail keeping four/four time from the box
While we avoid eye contact with your suspicious neighbour
Lists grow short as these hours of light
Those who know us knew us when over there before better than or
Still under construction
Oh maybe I ought to have known or guessed
You gave me a pair of desert boots when I came to see you after
The move a long long time ago
And when I arrived home I could find only one.
Guide
There are no tourists now
No trekkers following close behind
No hikers underestimating the distance
Overestimating their stamina or agility
Almost a whole year’s income forfeited
The guide paces his village
His friend, porter when they’re on the trails
Leading the curious from around the world
Over steep mountain passes
Counselling on how to safely pass a Yahk caravan
Returning from a trading journey in Tibet
Designing routes to accommodate trekkers’ demands
Limitations or schedules or delays due to altitude sickness,
is anxious too but not so anxious as the guide
Who thought he could endure month after month at home
Being a grandson a son a husband a father a farmer
Stationary
His friend says we will rebuild and we will soon again traverse
High mountain passes through Langtang, Annapurna, and the mighty Manaslu
We will stand at the edge of the world and watch the clouds fill up
the depths of Kali Gandhi Gorge at Khopra Ridge
They will return and we will guide them again, my brother
But the guide is inconsolable
He retreats into himself and does not eat
No one will remember us he tells his friend
The world is afraid of us now
The trekkers are gone forever and we are nothing
In the West, we do remember
Two humble young men who became guardians
To us in an unfamiliar and perilous landscape
Its spectacular natural beauty eluding capture
In photographs, its vistas defying description through mere words
Two who educated who held us when we ran out of breath
Whose patience coaxed us to the survival side of our trepidations and fears
Whose care and kindness effected permanent changes within us
We do remember
With a bond borne of gratitude and love
And upon receipt of our nominal gift the guide sends his quiet message
Namaste. Thank you, mama and papa, for thinking of us
It’s so strange having no work when we are always ready
But you are right maybe
We will all somehow make it through to 2022
One day maybe we will again see you
I read his words through a blur
And hope somehow that distant dream might come true.
Connecting roots
In the silence between morning birds’ song
whispered comforts or threats traverse unseen
Communities of canopies
Neighbourhoods of heartwood sheltered deep
for decades or centuries
Human steps tread past or with bravado some ascend
lookout holding steady trunks endure
fragile limbs of women and men
Night gatherings moonlit shadow shapes
sacred swaying to the rhythm of stars
Record keepers
inhaling exhaling all glory all decay all debris
Beyond the continuum of this holy life
our human eyes may glimpse a light amid seas of possibility
Yet misinterpret again and again the message of our role
and what could be
We occupy this fleeting existence so temporarily
what has been and always there will be
beyond you and me beyond all of us in our collective lack
Despite our elevated posturing our experiments our narcissism
our valour even our creativity
After we again have surrendered and ground ourselves back to dust
There will remain the one constant one glory whose truth
always was and ever will guarantee
Survival of the Tree
Hands
We were slow shuffling up Pilot Street
I promised I’d show you where fairies reside
Sea was roiling west winds were sighing
Stop for flowers we lingered no consultation between
Sometimes kindred depend on synchronicity not words
Man and his camera honouring life beneath stoic Garry Oak
We decide it’s phenomenon worth brief watching
But it’s the mirror on a trunk affixed askew
Spoke to me about what to do
And I like the way you smiled your acquiescence
Raise your small open hand you gentle friend spirit
I know the difference between a wave of hello and
Help I need rescue
