Faces, B.C.E.

 

Immutable stone
steatite, limestone
sandstone, granite.
Anthropomorphic
... zoomorphic
inert materials.
Human hands
... worked you
into aesthetic
definable shapes
aeons ago.

.... Your
bland fierce asexual
visages confront me
the inheritor of
art pre-historical
... my steps ringing
through stone corridors
of stone buildings
erected to house
... stone artifacts.

Meant to outlast
your creators
... you yet live
in a mythic
... skin-itching way.
I look at you
and you look
right back at me.

 

 

The River

 

The St.Lawrence winds
energetic coils
through the landscape
of this spring day
like a great serpent
roused from winter's
sere abeyance and
seagulls coast the wind
screeching for handouts
from people picnicking
on the lush banks
sheltered from the rain
by long swoops of willow.

Rain stipples the river
bounces off its taut skin
and waves lap the shore
twisting bleached logs
against the rocks
piled there and
multifariously shaped
tinctured like some
titan's cast-off playthings.

A robin serenades
in glad anticipation
driven to frenzied compliment
and still the gulls
wheel and swoop
teasing us for handouts.

Far on an island bank
a great blue heron
daintily steps among the reeds
its head outthrust and
primordial; at once risibly clumsy
yet imbued with timeless grace.

Fish lunge, leaping for mayflies
those myriad airborne sprites
celebrating spring. In the
distance great lakers skim
the river like great
sea behemoths. The
river teems with purpose
responding to needs
uncoils its sinuous length
hosts, transports and feeds.

 

 

Night

 

Dark pulses warm and moist
on the springtime air
this night. There hangs
a voluptuous moon
luminous and heavy
as woman with child
casting a diluted coruscation
limning leaves
rustling in the slight breeze.
Birds shift in the trees
somnolently ease feathers
beak comforting birdtalk
to one another
their sounds near lost
in the concert of crickets
the creak of the frogs
beating the night
so it shifts and breathes
croaks and trills
like some giant
unknowable beast
like some well-greased
programmed device
a perpetual motion job
turning out generation
after generation of
night revellers
nocturnal emissions
fleeting the darkness
spiralling tree tops
the hunted, the hunters
silent in pursuit or flight
the crickets and frogs
in a rising crescendo
of purpose
drowning the silence
of the chase.

 

 

The Wind

 

 

The wind
impatiently
chases leaves
down deserted streets
where they gather
defiantly
in gutters.

The wind
biting nips
of sharp bits
through the fall integuments
of summer-dreaming people
refusing winter.

The wind
churlishly hurls itself
at life still green
on the lilac bush
waving like wan flags
long after the
colourful parade
has passed.

The wind
leonine in its rage
ravages chunks of clouds
scatters them
in tattered dark hues
across the face
of the hard white sun.

The wind
raging its sovereignty
guides summer birds
on homing passages
through the torrential sky
wings beating
the drum
of winter escape.

 

 

Yesterday's Child

 

 

 

 

Fiddleheads in the garden
slowly unfurling
lilies-of-the-valley
not yet belling
the Manchu cherry
sprinkling white confetti
on the vibrant green
of urgent grass;
swallows executing
their preying arabesque
while beyond, the sun
a pyromaniac's frantic dream
slips behind the house.

Sitting idly on the swing
spring air filters
through the maple's
tender thrusts
as bees target
straight for home
and the mesmerizing hum
of the neighbour's mower
returns growth to order.

The children
never recall other years
only living in the warmth
of the breeze
pulling stray hairs
beyond the spiralling
loops of the bicycle.
Memory of another child
lingers close behind the
flushed faces of
this spring day's children.

Nature's Ethereal Restiveness

 

In a blaze
of spring entitlement
our fruiting trees
treat us to a display
of pink, magenta, white
blossoms that bees
and hummingbirds
respond to, an
invitation to dine
resplendently as
though winter's
white landscape
was merely preparation
for the glory to come.
All our senses
engaged in the
sensuality of form,
colour and fragrance,
the apple and pear blossoms
and Japanese quince
the flowering peas
(Madonna, we recognize
your delicate fingers
on this offering of piety
and nature's resurgence!)
The crabapple ornaments
the hugely magnificent
magnolias, offering
an image of Eden.
Nothing in this world
is forever, the wind
scatters the aroma of new life
breezing the petals
over the changing landscape.

 

 

Entertainment

There's sublime irony
in the North American
television public selecting
both Holocaust and
All in the Family as their
hands-down favourites.

The lovable bigot
is our Everyman,
a symbol whose rantings
all deplore, are amused by
recognize in the other guy.

The Holocaust horror
is the fairy-tale in reverse;
fascinating, repellent,
bearing no relation whatever
to Everyman's foibles.

The one elevated to
delightful eccentricity
the other to a muted aberration,
a fallible error
in human behaviour -
all relating to 'them'.

We're just innocent
spectators in this game
of hunters and hunted;
entertained by it all.