Fifth World Journal

Well, i recently returned from being part of the 2010 Cultural Olympiad. I took along a suite of poems from Fifth World Drum, adapted for the stage – or readapted, as in some cases the original performance version came well before the book version. I took a looping pedal, with which i created live vocal orchestrations to accompany myself.
Highlights?
The work was well-received, though the houses were less than full (something about a hockey game? skating?). I met some fine and interesting fellow artists, and worked with a warm and charming production crew.
I got to reconnect, through my billet host, with a time and place long left behind. And i was part of an historical time and place.
There are lots of people who have written about the remarkable significance of this Olympiad for our country. Myself, i am mulling over the impressions i received in that regard… this blog is about something simple. About a bus ride.
One afternoon, unencumbered, i decided to visit Granville Island, take the ferry, meander through the markets, be a tourist. First, though, i had to take a bus downtown.
And it was simply the gentlest, most considerate public transit journey i’ve experienced. Everyone wrapped in a spirit of sharing, of taking care for each other. We were all friends, somehow. Even, perhaps most especially, the evidently autistic man who was doing his best to endure the crowding; as his agitation flared again and again, the driver set the tone for gentling him back down again. And we all did our best to cradle him, somehow, in comfort; to create space for him, to listen without agitation, to let him feel that he was okay, just as he was.
I was reminded of a time, years ago, when i was privileged to be in Hawai’i during an international indigenous gathering. Pointing out the nearest station where the little yellow school buses could be caught, my host explained that the elders had put a “kapu aloha” on them for the week. Which was?
An admonition to extend Aloha, the spirit of love and welcome, to everyone. And something that has been so very debased by cliche, Aloha, was reinvested, for me at any rate, with its true importance. It was real, not some cheesy catch-phrase for tourists. It was a contract, between the community and its guests, to share the best of humanity in all our interactions.
And, on the Number 4 UBC route on the last Friday of the Olympics, that same spirit made a simple bus ride into an act of communion. Sound hokey?
I can’t help that. It’s the truth. A bus ride in mid-afternoon ranks as a highlight of my experience of the 2010 Olympiad.

It was 1985. It was spring.
I was 19. My dad had just died, coinciding with my move to the city to get a job before starting university in the fall. I was staying with my older sis in a basement suite just off 107th Ave, in those days the Vietnamese part of town. My brother and his best friend brought me down, stayed a few days, as did my sister’s best friend/sometime room-mate.
We were all in shock. It was a whole new world. We just hung out, trying to make sense of it all.

One afternoon, i decided to go out on my own. Walked down 107th Ave, to the old Marquee Records store. Bought Elton John and Roxy Music. It was incongruous, that the day was so bright and warm, and that i felt so light; my dad was dead, my family reeling. But the sun was warm, and i love walking.
On the way home, i stopped at Long & McQuade – a guitar store! On my own. I had just started learning to play, the few chords my dad showed me. But i walked in, and nobody knew i couldn’t play. An employee approached me, gave me a frankly flirtatious smile. As he led me into a practice room, i was suddenly, deliciously aware that i was wearing red jeans and a striped black and white blouse (this was the 80s, folks, i even had a perm); and that they showed off my body. And that this man liked what he saw.
I’m sorry to say, i don’t remember him, other than a vague recollection that he had dark hair. I was reeling from the shock – he was coming on to me, and i was attracted to him. He was asking me out, and suddenly, it was entirely up to me what i was going to do about that. Anything could happen.
I turned him down, in the event. Probably not very nicely either, i was so naive and non-plussed; and it was just too much, him standing too close, letting his fingers graze my forearm accidentally, his eyes flickering from lips to eyes to open collar of my blouse, me like a deer in the headlights. I had no idea what i’d do with him, i didn’t know the city, didn’t know anything. And there was my family, all strung-out in grief, so much to sort out. So i walked out the door, and walked home.
And now, nearly 25 years later, still, every time i go into Long & McQuade, i have to smile.
If i ever knew his name, i’ve long forgotten it, and i’m sure it’s mutual. We spoke together for probably 10 minutes. But that guy – even if he was just a salesman on the make – gave me a real gift. The girl walked into the guitar shop, not sure where to turn. A woman walked out facing the future, wide awake and suddenly buoyed up by the awareness of a whole world of life to be lived, suddenly sure that whatever might come, there would be joy and adventure for her.
So here’s to that cocky guy, whoever he was; hope he got some good lovin’ somewhere, cause i’m pretty sure he wasn’t bent on philanthropy, nor on offering a signpost to my spirit. Makes me think:
Maybe our “base” motives are best sometimes; maybe we do as much good in the world by honestly following our impulses as we do by being, say, some over-analysing writer, generally trying to second-guess fate and “do the right thing.”
Maybe it doesn’t matter. It was 1985. It was spring. A great day for wearing red jeans, walking along free in the hot sun.

Today was my brother’s birthday. He only lived 22 years on this earth. And he was an unusual person. Tonight, i talked with my sister about him, about our dad, about how our relationships to those two may or may not have shaped our expectations about relationships with men in general.
We both like men.
And we are both thankful that we had a father present with us, and that we have brothers, because that’s probably why we like men. No huge mystery there. But something valuable to remember, with the full moon frosting the new snow. My brother, some would say, didn’t get too much done in this world. Only 22. Never finished high school. Wrecked his back in a workplace accident with a skidder. Drank too much. Contemplated suicide. Could act in mean, angry, callow ways. But he was also blessed, in some ways. He was a spiritual guy.
And maybe that’s why he was marked out for a short life here only.
Not that i’m going to tell you here that he was some spiritually accomplished guru or anything. How would i know if that were so?
I know this. When my dad died, he spent hours walking and talking with my teenaged sister, discussing life and death and the possible meanings, walking her through the dark. Him with his back that barely worked. With his mind that was so often pre-occupied by pain. With his own sense of wondering, what the hell was it all meant to mean, then?
He was her big kid, and he looked out for her then. We were six, growing up. And each little kid had a big kid assigned, to help mind them, guide them, look out for them. And i can’t write in this space all the things that would let you know what a wacky, funny, tormented, kind, cruel, messed up genius my brother was. But i can tell you this. He looked out for his little sister when she needed him there.
And maybe you should know this, too. The night he died, maybe the last thing he did, he reached out, and as the car commenced rolling, used his arm to secure the other passenger in the back seat. She lived. He died. I hope she doesn’t feel needlessly guilty about that. Hope she appreciates that, and has gone on to appreciate her life, however it’s unfolded since. And no, they weren’t wearing seatbelts, but that is just the way it was then, there, on the back roads in those days.
I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about my brother. Figure i’d serve his memory better by not dwelling on the past, by not holding on; by acting out the tradition of sending the dead on their way, getting on with life with the living.
So, i hope you, and he wherever/however his spirit may abide, understand. Tonight, his birthday is special to me again, because acknowledging the anniversary led me into a grand conversation with my living sister. About all the things we lived and learned in that long-ago life in the north, and about how we might make the best of those experiences today, to make good choices for ourselves and our children, to understand our own strengths and weaknesses, and to take a renewed joy in the big miracle – every day, every moment given to us to be here, in this world that is infinitely strange, miraculous and unfathomable, at the very same time as it is knowable, dependable, something to treasure. He lived, not too long. He touched some people’s lives, loved some people. He was human. He was our brother.
A good man for walking old dirt roads under starfields.
When we were kids, i suppose we didn’t suspect the shape his life would take; how would we? He was older than us. But this is the way it has been. He came, lived, left. And we walk on in our lives, the richer for being sisters to a man who was barely a man when he left, who left such a little mark upon the world. At least part of any good i may do today as a person, i gained from the gift of having an older brother. And i am thankful that i still have brothers in this world, each with his own great gifts, each a part of who i am, everyday.

To all the brothers, for all that you are to your families, for all your knotted majesties, your weirdness, your sanity, your strength and your shortcomings, to all the brothers, and for the gift of brothers, today i am thankful.
All My Relations
ams

Yesterday, i met Moe Clark. She is lovely, a bright spark of a woman, who was putting on a workshop for our Writers’ Guild, concerning use of the looping pedal. Luddite that i am, i knew i had to go, because what i was hearing about her and her work sounded so fascinating. And the afternoon very much lived up to expectations. Moe introduced us to the technology, and then very graciously let us have at it. Watch this space! And Moe – Welalin, Chi Megwetch, Hai hai, Limlimpt… Thank you.

Speaking of poetry, i don’t speak Mi’gmaq.
At the workshop i sat beside Jocelyne, through whom i had the adventure, last spring, of performing a poem in Mi’qmaq – not my own, but the translation of a poem in French, “Memramcook,” by Jocelyne Verret. The Mi’gmaq translation was done by Elisabeth Paul of Eskasoni, who was also very helpful when i phoned her cold, the day before the performance, to run through the poem with her, and get some correction.

Because i don’t speak Mi’gmaq, other than a few words and phrases – politenesses and a couple of rudenesses, and a whole lot could be written about how that comes about. I also know one song in Mi’gmaq, George Paul’s beautiful Honour Song.

Add to this, that the poem is in a different dialect than the one with which i am so marginally accquainted, and you can see why i needed some direction.

Still, i waited til the last minute, the very day before the performance, before approaching the woman who did the translation for her guidance in performing the words. Why? In part because i simply didn’t know her, and felt shy. Not too shy to stand up and speak in an unfamiliar language in front of a roomful of strangers, but too shy to call up one woman. Yup, that’s right.

Ironically, part of what gave me the courage to call was the response of the rest of our gang of performers (i was a guest in a multi-writer event) at rehearsal.
“Nobody will know if you get it wrong,” they said, by way of kind reassurance. What mattered was the feeling, and they loved that. And, down in my guts, i know they are right, that is part of the reality of performance. How many times does a fluffed lyric or fumbled line disappear in the glow of connection, the feeling that pervades a successful performance.

That connection is what we seek, and in light of that, exactitude is not so important.

But, i was also painfully aware that “nobody will know” is also partly a recognition that Mi’gmaq is an obscure language, my heritage is largely unfamiliar to people. Of course, we are not in Mi’kmakik, we are in the far west of the continent, but still, even in our homelands, we are somewhat obscure. But we still survive. And we still have ancestors to honour. And i became resolved to act out that it did matter whether i tried my best to get it right, or just sluffed through on feeling.

I’m not saying i got all the words fluently right. I’m not saying that the very warm audience response didn’t come largely from feeling, because when i perform, i deal in feeling, and we had a drummer, and there was a feeling…. but i am so glad that i called Elisabeth Paul, and at least tried to get it right. She, by the way, was very gracious to a strange woman calling her for help out of the blue. She’d been commissioned to do the translation, but nobody had asked her to also coach the performer.

So, Ms. Paul, Welalin again.

All My Relations
ams

I have a good friend. Let’s call him Victor. He gets me into more interesting stuff…. one of the most delightful things about the guy is the way we can be just chatting about anything at all, and suddenly, he’s doing it. My hubby still shakes his head over the time i casually mentioned to Victor, over lunch, and him in his suit and all, that i thought i ought to open a wall in our house….. within minutes, the hammers were flying… but, for the sake of domestic harmony, let’s take instead the lemon pie incident.

One evening last winter, i was sitting round the table just chatting with Victor and another friend. We all like to cook. And somehow, the topic turned to lemon meringue pies, the making thereof from scratch. None of us had a recipe, but all of us were curious. But it was a casual curiosity, right? Talk moved on, we all eventually retired for the evening. Next morning, as expected, Victor showed up at the door with his kids, come to walk with me and mine to school. I was not expecting the lemon meringue pie he triumphantly placed in my hands. And so it goes… to think is to do, to do now, most times, with Victor.

So you can understand that it’s a bit unusual that it took so long between the first time he mentioned it, and the first day we actually went with him to the climbing gym. Read that as evidence of how outside my frame of reference it felt to go to a building dedicated to climbing. I didn’t grow up climbing things, i’m a prairie and bush kinda gal. Add to that, i had a serious back injury several years back, and it’s taken a while to get my moves back in milieu familiar to me, let alone making like a fly on a wall. And if you know me, you can imagine me going into a “gym” at all, ready to cold-shoulder the spandex people who find folk like me hard to resist annoying.

Suffice to say, i did not expect to like it so much.

I was, as feared, feeble and inept. My daughter, aged 5, was herself – very nervous, but determined to figure it out, however slowly and timidly she might progress. Victor’s kids have been climbing since infancy (literally – he built a climbing wall in his living room one winter, to local bemusement). So, there they were, skipping along up the walls like kids – you know, baby goats. But they didn’t make fun of my kid for her lack of skill and confidence; and the three of them had a whale of a time. Which tells you something about them, and also about my friend – he is a kind and lovely teacher, both for us newbies and for his own agile, confident, accomplished kids. That didn’t surprise me.

But i was caught off-guard to find that he himself is astonishingly beautiful on the wall. i don’t mean the obvious, that he is a big, handsome, fit guy. I mean that he flows across the rock in a kind of slow-motion meditative ballet that made me appreciate human motion, the way a great dancer or skater does.

What potential joy do we all resist?

I had all my defenses ready – gyms are full of poseurs. There was not a one in the place. Nobody there wanking on about their brand-name anythings. Nobody preening for sexual display. Okay, to be fair, they might have been, but i was too busy trying not to fall off things to notice, and anyone i did notice was similarly absorbed in dealing, at whatever skill level, with the wall. Or, they were watching others with the kind of frank appreciation that is the best of shared physical passions.

Ah, but to climb things is frivolous. A whole building for climbing things? What are we, kids? Well, no to the first charge. And to the second, yes! What is frivolous about seeking to relate to the most marvelous fact – that we are alive and we can move and breathe and feel? And the gym is just the training ground for the real lover – the mountains. One of the staff i met that day was Anna, hopping around cheerfully on her cast, having broken an ankle in a recent climb. She is just itching to get back up on the rock.

As for the kid thing – well, what, i sometimes wonder, would our corporate, or governmental, world look like, if workers kept up the habit we generally lose after elementary school – go out and swing on something, slide, climb something. Remember that we are alive, and how lucky we are to move; to move in whatever way we are able.

You see, that was the most refreshing thing about the rock gym; the palpable sense that people respect each other, accept each other at whatever level of ability or lack thereof we each bring to the wall. I felt welcome, i felt respected and nurtured and encouraged to be at home. Churches could learn from that. Which reminds me, they didn’t seem a proselytising tribe, either. Take Victor, for example. A man of enthusiasms, quick to act. And yet, he patiently waited many months, for us, his friends, to be willing to check out this interest that so involves him and his kids. And was entirely content to let us go at our own pace. Ready, willing and able to teach, yes; but also there for his own sake, happy to leave us where we’d found a comfort zone and go off at his own rate.

Today, i went a second time. This time, no kids, so i could get to grips with the wall on more focused terms. And lo, i was still fat, middle-aged and stiff. But i had a whale of a time. And at one point, clinging to various hand and footholds like the world’s most self-doubting fly, i overheard two teen boys nearby. Looking at my silver-haired friend, one said, in tones of enthusiastic respect, “Dude, check out the old guy.” “Yeah,” said his buddy, “he can really move.” And i turned my head to see them scrutinising with unabashed keenness, sussing out my friend’s style, trying to see how he did it.

I promptly fell off the wall. And simply lay there grinning to myself, sweaty and covered in chalk. It might never happen, but it might also come to pass that one day, some young climber will say, awestruck, looking at me, “Dude, check out the moves on the old lady.”

Hello. It has been too long since i’ve written for Fifth World Journal. I won’t make lame excuses; the truth is i’ve been too caught up in life, in the day-to-day drama, but also in feeling, in experience, in the vividness of the season.

For example, there is the gift i was given this week just gone by – a whole river, complete with sky, beavers, heron and copious other water fowl, and the most agreeable companionship in which to experience it. That is to say, at the insistence of my very good friend, Victor, and for the first time in all the years i’ve been here (since 1985, minus 4 years abroad), i got in a boat and got out on our river.

Edmonton, once known as Pehonan, gathers about one central fact, the North Saskatchewan River, the Swift Flowing River. The River Valley is laced with trails for all seasons, and i’ve traveled many of them, on foot, by bike, skiing. But to ride on the burling green water, glide over shoals of stone, skirt the sandbars with their raucous avian festivals, that is to be here.

Neither my companion, Katja – an intrepid young woman from Munich, staying with us while conducting some research – nor i had ever been in a kayak. Victor had rented a two-person kayak in honour of his mother-in-law’s birthday, and insisted that we must not let the chance go by. So, he drove us to the launch at Emily Murphy park, we unloaded and pushed it out into the cool, brown-green current. Bossy girl, me, i took the stern seat, keen to see if i remembered anything about steering, given it had been 15 years since i’d been even in a canoe. It didn’t take long, in the event, to settle into a rhythm, the double-bladed paddles singing through the water, the sun sparkling on the water. We talked a bit, of this and that, and listened to the river and the day. One of the great joys in life is to find companions who are both interesting in conversation, and able to keep from cluttering up the doing of things with too much commentary.

It was, they say, the hottest September 23rd on record here – +33 Celcius, perhaps more – but on the water, all was fresh and clear. Victor came out on one of the footbridges in the East end to greet us, and ask whether we’d seen the family of beavers who live under the Wayne Gretzky Drive, their lodge cleverly tucked out against a piling, out of sight from the shore. We had, and had circled back to eyeball them at leisure; they looked scraggy, i have to say, so maybe we saw some young adults rather than the senior couple. The old man heron we saw downstream, though, had that crabby elder stance that herons perfect.

We came to shore below Rundle Park, gliding past old tires and rusty metal garbage. The river, not at its most elegant there, provides a convenient backwater in which to dock. It shone and sparkled, and i’m sure we did, too. Not in any mythic way, for ours was hardly an epic journey, just a couple of hours in the sun, paddling through the ancient waterway that first defined this place. And the bank up which we muscled the kayak was steep and prosaic. And we loaded it up on Victor’s family car, and sat and drank bottles of cool water. And it was simple. The real world. In its proper season. Not too much in the telling either. But go there. Be there. What else is there?

So, here we are in the heat of July, full summer in Edmonton. Yesterday, i spent the morning up the street with folks we know, clearing up the debris of a mighty wind; five trees down, three cars smashed. It was spectacular to witness; one tree was completely lifted up and out, cored from its nest of roots, reminding me of nothing so much as a big carrot in hardpacked clay, the kind that breaks off just below the surface, rather than surrendering to the twisting yank of the impatient child gardener.

In the calm after that storm, it seems appropriate to post this, also – my first poem in French. I wrote it this spring, inspired by the restless wind, migrations of swans, cranes, geese, and the feeling these things awaken, the call for change.

In my case, i’d been fortunate enough to be asked in on a great performance project, Quatre Voix, Quatre Voie, directed by Jocelyne Verret-Chiasson. The core of the project is the work of four lovely and talented women – Jocelyne, Pierrette Requier, Magali Gibbons and Josee Thibault. Together, they weave a tapestry out of their disparate takes on one unifying theme. This year, they worked with “water.”

One poem that Jocelyne brought is a piece commemorating the collaboration between Micmacs and Acadians, defending their lands and homes against the English, in the valley of the Memramcook River. Jocelyne is Acadienne, and had written both French and English versions of the poem. Together, we found Elisabeth Paul, a Mi’kmak woman from Eskasoni, who translated the poem into Mi’kmak. My task, then, was to learn and perform this version, Amlamkuk. It was a very satisfying experience, and the result, a multi-language duet, accompanied by Jocelyne’s husband Ernest Chiasson on hand drum, was a hit. And being part of this Quatre Voix Quatre Voie – along with accomplished English/Cree language poet Naomi McIlwraith, this year’s other special guest – reawakened my interest in sharpening up my very rusty school French. (Notwithstanding that in France last summer, i was told in a small restaurant in a country town along the Loire that i have a lovely native accent, i do not parle elegantly).

The final straw was attending a beautiful event at our downtown library, this time a duet between two immigrant writers – Peter Midgely from South Africa, presenting works in English/Afrikaans/Xshosa, and PEN Canada Writer in Exile Rita Epeschit, working in Portuguese and English. It was beautiful. They are beautiful, both as people and as observers of the world in their writing. And, walking home with my daughter, who’d fallen asleep in her stroller, i marvelled at the many languages that surround us here.

One day, i aspire to write in Ojibwein, in the language of my father and grandmother. And in Mi’gmaq, the language of my grandfather’s people; perhaps also in Polish, first language of my mother and her ancestors. All these ways to express the human experience in our world.

In the meantime, i offer the following – Chanson D’Avril, the poem i wrote on my walk home from the library. That it is readable and at all correct is thanks to the gracious Jocelyne Verret, who edited this poem for me, over great coffee and croissants down at Spinelli’s Bar Italia, in the golden warmth of the later spring. Any errors that remain are my own. Merci, Jocelyne.

This poem may take flight in another form in the future, but i won’t say more at this time. I will close by suggesting that, for those of you who don’t read French, I’ll post an English version at some point; in the meantime, you could plug it in to Google Translate… but i won’t vouch for the results, except that i hope they make you smile.

Chanson d’avril

J’ai vu ce que tracent les grands oiseaux dans le ciel
Et c’etait mon coeur.

Dans leur sillon j’attendais un chanson qu’est né au pays des magnolias
Et j’ai entendu ce que chantent les soldats et ceux qui commandent les soldats
L’air du péril, de mon péril.

Mais vois-tu, j’ai humé l’arôme du vin sacré
Où maintenant on trouve seulement des plantes recemment nées
Et à cause de ça, je me rappelle que c’est l’eau
Que compte le plus dans la vie

Je marche, accompagnée par le soleil, et je suis émué
Par un souffle que je connais, un vent peut-être connu
La voix de la terre au reveil, le vent porteur des possibilitées
le baiser du renouvellement, ou la tornade qui destruit ces demeures somnolentes.

Oui, j’ai vu les grands oiseaux en plein essor

Anna Marie Sewell/Edmonton and thereabouts/April 09

Well, it has been a year since Prime Minister Harper officially apologised for the Residential Schools and all their atrocities. Have things changed?

I can’t see any difference yet; but i go around hopeful, listening in case i hear a different tone in people’s voices. I am known for my wishful thinking, but i do think just possibly, there is a slight awareness that wasn’t there before. I think it matters that non-Native people can’t so easily say they don’t know, never heard of it, had no idea this happened, let alone that it has a lasting impact.

Of course, the radio coverage i heard this morning mentioned – as usual – the impact of the schools on our native communities; as if this is not something that has damaged all of Canadian society. That’s the next step i’m hoping for, that people will recognise how the damage wasn’t just to Aboriginal people, but that everyone is affected. And no, i’m not saying there’s grounds for everyone to get compensation. That rightly belongs to survivors, though of course it is not healing. What i am saying is  that everyone is the poorer for Native communities having been so brutalised. We all live with the impacts. Not just in the obvious ways, when we as a society reap the whirlwind of crime, poverty, social welfare costs…. but we have all lost the languages that are lost. We have all lost the stories, the medicines, the songs, the history of connection to this land.

On this first anniversary, i am thankful anew for the things that endure, and for the ones who have kept the languages, culture ways, stories, songs and medicines alive. Here’s hoping for a meaningful renaissance.

In my own yard, the pine i planted this day last year is thriving, though growing only slowly. Slowly. That’s the way healing can be when the wounds are grievous. That’s the way broken trusts are rebuilt. That’s the way scars heal. The way forests regenerate. The way a deep root gets set.

All My Relations

AMS

The light comes up in a particular way around here, depending on the time of year. Now it is June, close to the apex for how much light we might expect of the sky on any given day. To watch the dawn arrive is something – all the different ways that can happen for a person. Did you watch the night through, protecting one you love? Did  you wait in fear, praying for the light? Did you leap out of bed because you could not bear to be sleeping through this miracle of translation, shadow into colour in a dance unparalleled? Were you running all night? Dancing? Loving? At war? What sound awakened you? Or was it the silence? All around the world, a long indrawn breath, as the sun reaches into dark and dreaming.

Were i a different person, i’d be out there already, in the cold dew, under the clearest sky, taking the covers off the tender ones who needed guarding from the called-for frost. The much-exaggerated frost, to judge by the view from my window.

Tonight i walked alone. In joy? Or in sorrow? Rage? Pain? Peace? Yes, yes, sure. Throw in envy, lust, pride, selfishness, greed, celebration, clarity, humiliation, longing; imagine it however you like. Here are some poems for you.

One:

the evening sky is red and north-listing
lopsided with fading light

one bird wings through
empty blue

air
there is air
and there is a body
walking through air
a part of it, but apart

cut a figure from shadow and reflection of warmth
the day has passed
this wingbeat
meets neither resistance nor reception
no horizon
just the fade

like a dancer in a frenzy
with no partner
a spectacle
nothing spectacular

just a bird
alone
evening darkening
you can’t see what kind of bird

it does not matter

did she hope to touch the sun?
it is gone
nothing but a lopside of fading light now
wing etched
unspecified bird
empty blue
…..

Two:

Long ago on a gravel road
Dust and uncaring dampness
Realisation that there was
No spirit waiting
To whisper comfort and right answers
Just the road
Feet
Breath
A choice to make
Own
Live with

A father’s passing
Sets you on your feet
Whether you were ready or not

Walk
Fall

A choice to make
Open road.

….

Three:

why not learn to sing?

…..

Four:

A lover
said he’d asked his mother
Why she was so cool
To a person he cared for

Angrily, passed on her reply:
To frighten off the faint-hearted.

I laughed. This is not romantic, it turns out.
I walk alone, showing my teeth to the wind.
Perhaps if i’d tripped, fallen gracefully
Peered up fluttering
…..

Five:

War mare

Genghis Khan and his conquering hordes
Rode mares to war
Drank mare’s milk sipped mare’s blood
From swift little cuts

Courage heat pace
Honed to a point
Of contact
The deal is
Relentless speed

Imagine something more unlikely
Than a war mare imagining
upon her skin
apple blossoms feathering down
…..

six:

warm air

when the air is warm
you could promise anything
anything at all

words are so light
…..

As for the rest, let it be. If everybody heard about the glories to be seen, imagine the roads, paths, streets, the very wilderness choked with poets straining toward some solitude like constipated bears, and all the happier that there is an audience to notice their lone splendour.