Friday, December 31, 2010

epistolary

Dear Twenty-Ten,

First: thank you.

Thank you for allowing me to wake up to the most frost-laden trees I've ever seen. Thanks for giving me the chance to walk by myself down the road in the country to drink coffee and eat breakfast in the mornings with people who love me.  Thank you for showing me what it's like to live beyond civilization in the wintertime -- and for making sure that there was always someone to help push my car out when it got stuck and shovel my deck when it got too much.  I loved the silence of those early winter evenings when I'd light a candle in my window to feel warmer and safer.  Out on the deck, if I was quiet, I could hear the gentle movement of horses in their pens down the road, and I liked that very much.

Thank you for finding me a cute little house in Garneau with two people with whom I have long been friends.  Thank you for the white trim on the fireplace and the books on the shelf.  Mostly, I am grateful for the location of this house and for the walks springtime rain with a lime green umbrella.  And for the trees, which bend to touch each other over the road in the summertime, a canopy of green and so many birds.  I have delighted in backyard campfires and drinking beers on patios with sunglasses pushed up into my hair.  I have loved walking to meet friends at pubs and coffeeshops and bookstores.  I will never forget you, two-thousand-and-ten, for giving me this first place in the city.

Thanks so much for providing me with the opportunity to let even more love into my heart (and out of my heart; it's a two-way valve) and for bringing me closer still to a man who is becoming exactly who he'd hoped he would be.  He is ever stronger, ever more brave, and ever more compassionate.  Thank for for the house we bought together, for the walls we'll dress with things that are ours, for the life together that we're continuing to build on.  Twenty-ten, you have seen the two of us take enormous steps --- leaps and bounds --- and we'll just keep on going.

I wanted to thank you particularly for the new friends I've made.  You have shown me, twenty-ten, much more than your predecessors, how to connect with other human beings, how to reach across the void of being just a person and start to form communities.  Thank you for the community I am now a part of, and thank for teaching me how important it is to be with other people, no matter what.  To love more fiercely those around me.

I know it hasn't all been good, twenty-ten, but I know that my melancholy nature, professional shortcomings and self-destructive behaviour isn't your fault; it's mine.  But I am aware now what I lack, and I will try to do better when I meet twenty-eleven.  I will try not to get so caught up in the dramatic depressive tendencies of being a poet.  I will be more grounded.  I will be more organized.  I will accept the things about me that I don't like, and I won't allow those things to affect other people.  I won't allow those things to interfere with my relationships, and I'll love even more than I did with you, twenty-ten.

Oh, twenty-ten, you were a teaching year --- you taught me so much, even when I didn't realize it.  I appreciate you.  I am grateful for the many delights you provided, and I am ready to say goodbye.  I trust that twenty-eleven will still show me frosty trees, colourful umbrellas, and all of the love I can possibly stand.  I hope it will.  If these things are not apparent, I will go looking for them, which might prove to be better in the long run.

Take care, twenty-ten.  I'll miss you.

Love,

Deanna

Thursday, December 30, 2010

things i live for

i live for that, you know.  for reaching out to touch you,
for the kisses you drop on the tip of my nose, for your confidence.
i live for holding hands in the car, or smiling at you across rooms
at parties, or walking behind in your footsteps in deep snow in the yard.

now it's not just those moments, although i've banked them all,
stored them carefully away to revisit and feel warmed by;
it's a wide open future of lying in bed all day in squares of sunlight
from our south-facing bedroom window, fingers clasped under sheets.

we will get a couch to sit on while we watch documentaries
and plant root vegetables in the yard to bring us into winter.
i can see you through the window in the back, coming home,
and i am happy to see you --- i'll always miss you when you're gone.

there are so many things that i'll live for when i get the chance;
so many things to delight in and long for and make plans for.
i will reach out to you always, put my hand over your heart while we watch tv,
and i'll grow around you as you grow old, getting better and better all the time.

Monday, December 27, 2010

this is not a poem

There are one hundred-and-one posts in this blog.  Every one of them is a poem.  Many poems I've never looked twice at.  Some I've hastily edited.  Some I chose for a more careful inspection, and some of those I put into a chapbook I recently made.  This has been an interesting experiment, and I am glad to have done it---it has served me as a writer.

For eight months I haven't had anything more to say.  I am operating a distillery of words.  I used to write the longest, most complicated sentences, and then I'd string them all together one after another.  Maybe it was to prove that I could---that I had the skill to use semi-colons properly, or something?---but this year I haven't wanted string out words like I used to.

This has been my entire life this year.  I have been drawing inward.  It has been a hibernation of self.  I want fewer things.  And by "things," I mean physical objects; I want less stuff.  I want to decrease my territory.  Places I used to drive to without thinking seem a strain, like the strings that tie me to my house are ever-tightening.  Less stuff, less distance, fewer friends.  I am growing insular.  My friends can surely see it, this ever-decreasing world of mine.  I am lucky to have them; I know that.  I will be lucky if they continue to come to me, if their spheres don't shrink too much as well.  I love the friends I have with all of my heart, and it hurts me to see how my insular world is affecting my relationships with them.

And I have fewer words.  Smaller ideas.  Epics are now vignettes, vignettes are tiny thoughts like "these are our things." That one sentence is really all I had to say.

This is me trying harder.  It's not that I will try harder to have more things---that's an aspect of my self-hibernation which I will embrace.  But I will try harder not to draw away from relationships, to continue to build my community, to be a better friend and sister and daughter and wife, when the day comes.  And I will try to write more than a ten-line poem.  I will try to stretch beyond single images, isolated thoughts.

This is me trying harder.  This is not a poem.  This is me trying.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

our things

moving into the new house
our meagre possessions
won't fill it     not even close

it's not so much a matter
of amalgamating objects
as it is a matter

of filling empty space
by stretching everything
my coffee table     your desk

hand-me-downs     all of them
mine and yours were     theirs
before their houses got too full

to contain them
but we'll sweep them up
and put a name on them

a name that sounds less
like mine
less like yours

just ours     i suppose
we can look
at our mostly empty house

and say "these are our things"

Friday, November 26, 2010

later

this is all you remembered
afterwards
all you remembered was the sunlight
and how it marked a square
across the carpet
an odd fixation

Friday, November 5, 2010

scarcity

words are scarce

but i will keep looking
and i will find so many
eventually
i'm sure

halting

standing with toes on the edge
it's not the falling that matters
the weightlessness
or the stomach pressing up into your throat
that makes the difference really

it's the part at the end you can't count on
you can never really plan for
the part at the end that can't be stopped
except by its very nature

it halts everything

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

for ts eliot

thank you, ts eliot
for your grown-up sounding words
for hollow men and mornings
at the window and love songs
of poets mediocre
compared to you

Monday, October 25, 2010

a st. albert backyard -- october 24, 2010

it was the first snowfall and i made you come outside
you were in socked feet and a tee-shirt, didn't want to
but i stood just outside your door lit by the porch light
looking up at the sky and you just had to come outside
to kiss me for the first time this winter officially
while crystalline snowlight fell onto our faces.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

what i can do

i cannot identify the pain behind my breastbone,
can't decide if it's physiological or if it's just my heart
hurting for things i cannot control,
but i can love you.  this i can do forever---
like letting the air in through the window
and breathing.  something so simple:
an involuntary biological reaction.
i will love you until i die, and even then
i won't stop.

another poem

the ways in which you changed my life
are staggering.  you don't know that
because you've gone, already.  you would know,
would have known, if you hadn't
died when i prayed so hard for you to live.

i can't stop writing about it.  it's been over
four years since you died, and here comes
another poem.  another string of words to bridge
the gap between me and you; that impassable void.
an incredible distance.

do you know how things have changed?
who i am?
will you ever?

Sunday, October 17, 2010

building

did you imagine the exact sound
bees buzzing around a hive
like your dream of channels interrupted
by white noise & blur     conventions
so far into the future
only you could have known
only you could guess
at our collective distaste for the wide wild world
the novelty of bees wearing off
walls going up around us
always up
never down
it never stops
never
stops

Monday, October 11, 2010

three small breaths about love

1.

a book in bed
and the way you read it
a put-on voice
to make me laugh
like so many things
you do for that reason

2.

the mountains at night
and i rested on your shoulder
staring through the windshield
just dark shapes in the sky
and the needlessness
of saying words out loud

3.

a photograph of you and i
you're facing away
and i'm reaching out
and little did i know
you were gathering the nerve
to ask what you asked next

Sunday, October 10, 2010

thankfulness

for the smell of leaves and the crack of the spine of a new book
fingers tracing across pages    a tactile diversion (& sight is many things)

for the welcome interposition of loveliness between ordinary things
and for my sometimes wanderings between aspen and pine

also for the way words wander from my intention and are changed
always changing    a living creature no one on earth can control

and also for the hooves of horses and the throats of birds    the sounds
which help in their simple design (& elegant instinct) to improve everything

and also    more than any of these    for the touch of another human being
a connection to leap across the void     a spark that gives us purpose.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

a smooth stone

you went years and years on your own
thousands    perhaps    or even
forever
touched only by wind and salt or a brush of fur
a leathery pad    an animal passerby
but all of it wild    all of your encounters
feral and free and natural as the passing of time
until
a human hand reached out
saw you among many and chose you

you were held in the palm of a hand
how did it feel?  the first time    the first warmth
and beating pulse    wrapped around your smooth curves
a lifetime of coldness and wilderness
interrupted

would you rather have been returned to the sea
never to be touched by a human hand again
only to settle within an atlantic periphery?

or would you rather be kept
held warm in a pocket    uprooted
to some western landscape    foreign    and frightening
but altogether beautiful?

an eternity on your own
is that what you would have wanted?

Sunday, October 3, 2010

displaced

maybe it was meant to let lie
in cool, damp atlantic recesses
loved by barnacles, pondered by crabs
looking up through a greengrey filter
of salt and spray or perhaps something darker
the broad underbelly of a whale

Sunday, September 19, 2010

a new kind of grief

there is much to be said in kitchens
standing in doorways, arms crossed.

i could say everything i can think of
to make you know my heart, everything

conceivable to help you understand
what it is i've been trying to say for months.

and here it is, i guess, pared away to its core:
i miss you.

and the part that hurts the most is the grief
over a loss i'm not sure you realize.

the loss:
you might not miss me back.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

for tanya, it's the fall of 2010 and you are gone

i've been thinking about you a lot
i'm not sure why -- it's not the season
not the usual time of year my grief bubbles up
and refuses to recede

maybe it was going by your old house
that was something i shouldn't have done, i know
or maybe it's noticing again how we aren't the same
how i'm not the same since you left

you make me cry in front of other people
just remembering you; remembering us
makes me cry in front of strangers sometimes
and no one knows quite how to react (not even me)

your heavy presence has been weighing on my heart
more than usual, this one's more stingingly painful
than most alberta autumns since you died
and i don't have much to say that i haven't said already

except that i miss you, which i could never say enough

Sunday, September 12, 2010

seagull

like a slow inhale you rise
from a rocky shore into open sky
white wings reflecting sun

you circle there on currents of air
a keen eye turned earthward
to tidepools gathering treasures

and like a sharp exhale you descend
noisy calls caught in your throat
nothing now but the prize below

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

s.t. as seen from the road, 2009

through an open window
the scent of fresh-cut grass
comes in as if thrown --
a burst of fragrance to bring me back
to that wide, green field
and all the time he took to cut it.
watching him from the road
still working in the setting sun,
i didn't know the things he'd seen
or the people that he'd been.
and how we can't presume to know a life
just by watching from the road.

certain mysteries

somewhere out west
you fell from a tree
like a talisman and were found
tucked into a pocket
your presence known, treasured

she knew you were the one
without looking twice
she chose you among many
and she'll wait for your mysteries
to unfold -- of those things, she is sure.

high level bridge

i am happy to have found a friend
who will ignore no trespassing signs
crawl under chain link
and balance on railway ties
on the high level bridge past midnight

because this is a night i never thought i'd have,
and it turned out to be one of the best ones yet.

average wednesday nights

it's just a darkness, like the sky
but reflecting sparks from stars
so far away they're probably dead already
now that we can see them
what's left of them
through all the lights we made to replace them

it's just a darkness, snaking
through the core of the city
luring wolves from the wild upstream --
one moment they're in wilderness
the next the james macdonald roars overhead
it must be such a shock

this inky darkness, home of beavers
and seagulls and the sewage we forgot
slides beneath us, so far beneath
and outward past our farthest sight
it curves and is lost to the wildness we left behind

looking out at this darkness, we dangle our legs
while cars fly by on the bridge below
just engine sounds and the comings and goings
of headlights, then tail lights, then only street lights
we're not sure where they're going, only
that they are oblivious to our presence up there
perched on railway ties, and the only parts of ourselves
visible are the bottoms of our shoes

it's better they don't know we're there
it's what separates us --
and the act of something wonderful --
from the mundane rigours of their average wednesday nights

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

some days

some days
it's more about feeling
like a writer
than actually being one

Sunday, August 8, 2010

in the first place

it's not about giving up or giving in,
it's about being a human being.
it's about relationships, the reason
we are all still here on earth:
to be with one another.
but here we are killing each other
for things that were never really ours
in the first place.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

a moment at moose lake

knee deep and donning
a pink life-saver around her waist
she squints in the sun
at her brother engaged in crocodile fights
and other imaginary feats.
she calls out to him
wants him to bring his crocodile
wants him to help her build something---
a new world in her knee-deep lakewater.
but he doesn't hear her; he is lost
in his own world, elaborately crafted.
a world he is becoming better and better
at creating all by himself.

a lightness


grey sky and i am a stone pressed into your palm
smooth, flat, blue-grey    a riverbed cast-off
a treasure     maybe     depending on the hand that holds me
but this palm    yours    holds me with a warmth i haven’t known
and i am ready to be thrown freely across water
not considering sinking     not sliding downwards through green
trailing air behind me past unconcerned plants & animals
to the bed of the world where i was born    worn smooth
no i never consider the sinking     only the part beforehand
just the sailing through air in sun-glinting light
skimming the surface
skipping ahead
always ahead
a lightness

Thursday, July 29, 2010

indian paintbrush II

it's not what i expected
from a man on a hiking trip
just him and his dog
out there in the wilderness

i expected something solid
a branch, maybe, or a rock
something not easily broken
that can be jammed under gear

i never expected
something so delicate
something precious and precarious
kept bright and alive

and it sits on the desk
at the back of the cafe
revived by water from a nalgene
red petals dewy and firm

it is looking for the sun
craning its stem for some light
misplaced but so intact    so breathtaking
so perfectly preserved by this man and his dog

it is waiting for a poem to come
waiting for me to remember it
and i can't do it justice
because it's not what i expected

indian paintbrush

when you grew on the hills in abundance
they used you as a supplement
to complement leafy greens
make their hair shiny
take away the aches and pains
of nomadic upbringings    the soreness of wandering

and now

and now your uses are so few
we've got salad dressings
shampoos and aspirin
houses carefully furnished with all of the comforts
of a society based on wants

and now

and now the purpose of your life
little bloom    little sprig
is to simply be looked at
enjoyed for your vibrance    your God-made evidence
your softness and possible danger
blooming in ditches next to roads we've paved
looking up at the sun while i look at you

and wonder where you've been
all the changes you've seen

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

a birthday lunch

delarisse and the brightest sun
on a patio in the town where we grew up
fresh sandwiches and hot coffees
sunglasses pushed up into our hair

talking is easy, we've been doing it for years
but i feel older, now, and a little removed
from the things that used to bind us together
you're a little removed as well

we're sliding slowly into our own worlds, own truths
and the things that were once so important
to all of us, an equal importance
are sliding further away

tell me you'll still meet me for lunch on a tuesday
still sit across from me and know who i am
more than anyone else ever has
tell me all our truths will still exist, somehow

together

Thursday, July 22, 2010

helsar and sweet blue

somebody worked really hard for this
put their hands into the earth
and placed within it a precious gift

and i've promised to do the best i can
with what i've been given

that two-fifty treasure ----

a life's work.

barista disasters

under the stress of the situation
you could see how i might react
to making two mistakes in a row,
to messing up the same thing twice.
you'd cry, too, wouldn't you?

okay, i've been a little manic these days,
though all i've been asked to do
is dose grinds, tamp, count, steam, pour,
repeat
repeat
repeat.

and i guess my mind's been elsewhere;
a place that puts me right on the edge
of an almost-sanity that i'm reaching for
and so very nearly grasping.  so close
i want to cry when i end up catching nothing.

so you could see how two drinks
improperly made, thrown out, redone
would make the difference between happiness
and something altogether disastrous.

planning

room after room after
room trying to see it
trying to picture you and me
somewhere in the middle

a white dress
rings on our fingers

my hand in your hand

Sunday, July 11, 2010

sunday mornings, moose lake

no time for anything
not even for wonderfull
in the sun on the deck

it's always the worst part
the cleaning up and packing in
and loading cars in the gravel driveway

the driving away
through the best air yet
and the lake fading in the rear view mirror

perfect morning

waking to the perfect morning
the sky scrubbed clean and pale
with nothing to hide the sun
and the glassiest stretch of water
calling me out      out      out            out

Saturday, July 10, 2010

the empty well

am i peering down into an empty well
or am i really inside of it, peering upwards?
past the damp, stony emptiness and a lack of words
to the biggest, bluest sky in the whole world ------
if i had to choose, i'd rather be up above
sending buckets down      waiting for water.

through pines

standing on a path in northern alberta
the thick forest of birch and poplar and saskatoons
all white and fresh green refracting sunlight
gives up its thick understory    gives way
to craggy jack pine trunks    limbs growing
only upward    the forest floor a cushion
of needles and moss    a welcome pathway
to secret places inhabited by wild creatures

in this forest you can see so far
past dark jack pine interruptions
far enough to see a deer escaping
fifty yards away or more
far enough    even     for me to run
without getting lost

Thursday, July 1, 2010

unspeakable beauty

the road will be blocked
and the bridge will be closed
and you'll be somewhere across town
somewhere far away from me
i'll be able to see the explosions from my house
maybe i'll climb onto the roof
or just wander out into the closed street
among revellers and passersby
and watch the colours in the sky
mark the birth of our nation
and i'll wish your hand were in mine
and i'll long to see those colours light up your face
upturned
towards manmade miracles
an unspeakable beauty

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

thank you, sky

thank you, sky
for choosing to rain
only while we sleep
and not while we play
outside among ladybugs
and songbirds and ponies
in pastures after long drives.
we really appreciate it a lot.

Monday, June 28, 2010

sebastian the terrible

it doesn't matter how long we've known each other
how many hours we've spent together, learning,
learning about each other, learning together.
after feeling so confident that my hand on his shoulder
would calm his fears so effectively
i have been proven wrong, once again.
he's always proving me wrong, making me a liar
by doing things like pulling posts right out of the ground,
trotting away, eyes wide, nostrils flaring, tail straight up in the air.
and the biggest, most beautiful, floatiest trot---one he won't give me
when i ask him to in dressage tests, even if i ask nicely.
he reserves that kind of talent for covering ground
across the lawn, past the house, down the driveway.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

weyburn

the eyes can only see so far
at least, mine can only

nice not to have interruptions
sky scrapers, apartment complexes

blocking out the sharp line
of a saskatchewan horizon

the brisk but blurry ending
of land and beginning of sky

the eyes can only go so far
but the heart can go forever unchecked

tender shoots

in ways we are old
but mostly we are so, so new
just sprouts from a bud
soft, pale green, tender shoots
still reaching
through the darkness of soil
of a lack of understanding
just waiting to push through
into the the wide, wild world

st. albert is too far away

the neighbours are having a party
or something    there's a campfire
and laughter and the general hoots
and hollers accompanied by beers
and i am just arriving home
from another city    it's close
as far as cities go    but far
as far as my desire to be near you
nearer to you all the time goes

one day we'll get the chance
to joke about the neighbours' parties
when they're our neighbours
and we're pulling up outside our house

you are alive

you are alive
and so am i
and if that weren't miracle enough
somehow we found each other.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

to ted hughes, i haven't found them yet.

got lost in a used book store today
down in the basement where they keep poetry
and tomes on anthropology and wilderness hikes
and i looked fervently for your name
ran my finger across the spines of so many words
over and over, looking for your letters
for the words that told the story of your love for her
all of her madness and brilliance and the things
that made her the most beautiful tree ever dreamed
still branching out, or a bird still singing from bookshelves
even though her voice has been silenced all these years
but i didn't see you there, nor her
and felt sorrow for you both as i climbed the stairs

freedom from

i keep a caged bird
feed him treats
give him shiny toys
and place him by the window
so he can speak to wilder cousins
call out to them about freedom

not freedom to

but freedom from.

north-facing

the light that doesn't come in my window
enters instead the house across the road
i watch the plants in their front yard
growing and growing    they're in full bloom
while my own little potted attempts at greenery
keep fading away   drying up   wilting down
if i could pick up my house and turn it right around
i would    let the living room have sunshine
let the living things in the living room have light
for once in their dreary, north-facing lives

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

for r.g. hancock, with love

he is old spice and the faintest whiff
of cigarette smoke from that one before dinner
a man who refused for so many years
to just curve the brim of his baseball cap

he is working on saturdays and always trying
to do a good job, feed all those girls
who scramble into the bathroom after him
that's the one thing he gets: the first shower

and my memories of crawling onto his lap
thick denim and plaid, comfortable and comforting
giving his cheek a goodnight kiss,
joking about the whiskers left in my lips

someone else

let me help you now
i wish i could have then
when you could have really used it
when you really needed it
needed everything so badly

was it my blood you needed?
was it any part of me?
i would have given you anything
if it could help you focus
your eyes on mine in that dim room

grey light and bony angles
beneath starched, bleached sheets
and a pain so great it swallowed you up
swallowed your words
took the blood right from your skin

blood i am trying to give back to you
a transfusion across worlds
you're a universe away now, so far
and it's too late for my offerings
but i will give them to someone else

there is always someone else

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

pipe tobacco

what are your twenties for
if not for sitting outside
on ikea patio furniture
next to the garneau
at two in the morning

friends introducing pipe tobacco
telling you to hold it right
to not be such a girl about it
to breathe it into your mouth
but not your lungs

blowing smoke against the brick wall
while the light on the corner changes, no cars

Monday, June 21, 2010

an important question

september
in one of the most beautiful places
i've ever been to, ever seen
with my own eyes,
ever touched and breathed
with my own fingertips
my own lungs
you asked me an important question

now going back there
standing on the receded dunes
of a lake once much more picturesque
i know the landscape has changed
and will always change
everything changes without meaning
except for my hand in yours
looking out over water
and wilderness
and the dramatic peaks

that saw me tell you yes

wapiti

always arriving at night
there are only silhouettes
dark pines hiding secrets
like wapiti by roadsides
seen only by headlights
antlers lit briefly, a glimpse
and back into the forest
to a life i'll never know
and a home i'll never see

Sunday, June 13, 2010

highway 21, sundown

alberta, you didn't let me down

we drove south with the windows rolled down
so hot, finally, after so much drizzliness and sweatshirts
the sun refracted through my windshield in millions of heatwaves
and she complained about the heat, about its relentlessness.

but i promised her that the drive back would not disappoint;
that the setting sun would be hazy and low in the sky
and that the ground would swallow up the extra heat
and that the alberta landscape would be seen in its perfect state

and alberta, you didn't let me down
you showed up in your wild, beautiful way.
your golden sunset glow and long, dark green shadows
were exactly what we needed to see.

we could

we could admit defeat
start acting our ages
get mortgages and go to bed
at reasonable hours
stop trying to cook things
via microwaves all the time
and spend less money on beer
or we could remember
what it's like to stay up
until five in the morning
with full glasses     good friends
not caring it's two thousand ten already
or that it's time to throw in the towel

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

wednesday night, 10:20 pm

rainy wednesday nights
are not suited for anything
except being warm and dry
with beers i've never tried
with a friend i haven't known
nearly as long as anyone
but this thing -- learning to know
another person from the start
is something i haven't done
in a long, long time.

interstices

standing in the space between rainfall
an interstice i wish i could fit myself into
this too an area in which i have not succeeded
another place i haven't settled easily into.
life had become rather like walking through rain
(it always gathers on the tip of my nose,
the shape of my face funnels it there without fail)
rather than being comfortably in between streams

except for maybe three places
but only one of those three can be known for certain
as a fit that will never change.

the record collection

she was thinking about his record collection
when it happened   so sudden   a sharp pain
like a bandaid being ripped off    no    worse
a stab wound (& should we take out the blade?
would it be better to leave it in    or worse?)
she was thinking how she wished he'd order it
somehow    categorize all those faces
those people with lives and lovers and pets
who also happened to put out albums
how they should go in some sort of order
and not lie around the apartment stacked up in piles
(don't they get wrecked that way?  it doesn't matter now;
everything's wrecked)    she was thinking
about this haphazard collection of songs from
all of those people    when the letter
the scrap of paper announcing his departure
sat clenched in her hands, opened at last
to a few apologetic words and a cleared out closet
and all these records just lying around.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

for mama

this is about you, mother
about your curly hair
and the way you can't sing
and the way you tucked me in
at night, every night for years
how i would cry when you left
make you leave kisses on napkins
little notes to remember you by
for the long hours between 5 and 9 p.m.

when i was a child i used to dream
you had died, a terrible nightmare
a recurring fright that blurs now
but i remember wearing your green spring jacket
and standing over a casket at the front
of a long, wide room filled with strangers
waking up with my breath caught in my throat
tiptoeing down the hall to see you
crawling in to be warm next to you

it's about calling you my friend
and still missing you when we're apart
(but i'm too old for kisses on napkins
and i'm too old for almost everything
but not too old to cry when i saw you last
it had been almost three weeks,
but hugging you felt like it had been years)

most women dread turning into their mothers
but my worry is the opposite, that i won't be like you
that i will never be as wonderful as you are
that i will never learn how to care for my family
as skillfully and lovingly as you did
that i will never learn how to balance work
and real life, how to live in both worlds perfectly
how to commit to loving five other people more than i love myself

but more than any of these things,
there is a quiet worry that's entered my mind
like a fish hook, barbed and lodged.
that one day it will be longer than three hours
or three weeks, or three of anything
that i will go without seeing you, hearing your voice.
this day, though far away in a future
i don't care to think about
is inevitable, and i will never be prepared for it to come.

brightness

where we would go
wherever we would go
it would be bright white
light leaping off buildings
we'd have to wear sunglasses
oh the sun, the sun
it will be there, wherever
we go, the sun will be
almost too much
somewhere like barcelona
or santorini or some other
mediterranean locale
just aquamarine and that white
and that sky, thin blue
obliterated by heat
you might be too warm
but i would be just right
and you'd look at me
one hand over your brow
shading your green eyes
and we would be the brightest thing on earth.

Monday, June 7, 2010

on digging out

we aren't used to upheavals of this sort
of the painful digging out of our homes
we've already stashed so much of ourselves
in these burrows    packing things away
in places out of sight    we didn't know
we didn't think we'd need all these odds and ends
these little memories and all this junk
but now we're tearing them up by the roots
hauling everything out to a friend's truck on the street
extracting ourselves   wrenching free    leaving
with our tails between our legs and our hearts
still stowed away in a closet somewhere,
forgotten.

a borrowed umbrella

rain today on patio tables
on the garneau block
no awning or eaves
just abandonment

the day would seem gloomy
were it not for mugs of coffee
and a four-block walk
with a lime green umbrella

84th avenue

the trees, they finally touch each other
they've been reaching out all spring
green buds like closed fists opening
and stretching fingers to grasp one another
above the street, its boulevards and sidewalks
and neighbours, some friendly
some strange, some strangers
but the trees, they touch over the road
an old-growth tunnel steering me straight
towards home

Saturday, June 5, 2010

weight

growing up for a long time now
i think it started early, even before
first heartbreaks, the ones i thought
would last forever, would change me
forever, but that was nothing
compared to losing her.
standing at the front of the church
the words on the paper unreadable
through the welling of tears
that could not be blinked away,
and hands clenched with each others'
so tight in the pew in the front row.
but even before all this growing,
being forced down and somehow
somehow
straining upwards again
there was all this age weighing me down.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

lost wolves

somebody tacked up a photo
on a residential power pole
of two wolves in the wild
gazing off into the distance
at some far-off prey, maybe
or at something the photographer
used to distract them from himself.
he didn't want to be eaten
only to snap some shots
of their lank shoulders, grey coats
and yellow eyes, mean and sad.
but why the power pole?
these two mythic creatures
surely belong to somebody
and, obviously, are lost.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

on missing you

the sun was setting on a perfect day
and you were gone.  we were lying
on the grass watching horses graze,
tired of talking about it, our hearts
too sore to remind each other.
weaving grass through our fingers
listening to birds singing evening songs
and you were dying across town, giving up.

my life without you is a reality
that will never feel okay, never
be acceptable.  every day i think of you
and your smile from the driver's seat
of your old green truck and my heart
tries to push right out of my chest,
it's so sore for you.  for the lack of you.
for the lack of myself -- without you.

and for once i'd like to go on living my life
without this shadow of loss, it's a burden
too heavy.  your absence is simply too much
for me to carry every day.  for once
i'd like to think about God and the world
and my placement in it and feel a little less small.

today it's june 1, four years later --
today is not the day to feel bigger, better.
it's another day in the four-year string of days
i've missed you since you left.

Monday, May 31, 2010

four years

i still see you sometimes when i look behind me
like i'm heading down a path without you
and you keep disappearing in the trees
my feet keep moving forward    away from you
and i don't know how to make them stop

it's monday morning and tomorrow
you will be gone   again    gone
for the millionth time since the first of june
four years ago    i keep feeling you leaving me
a phantom pain that never goes away

i was so much younger then
there was too much that i didn't know
like the physical sense of loss
like a limb taken away without warning
how could i ever have known?

i still feel the warmth and weight
of your hand in mine on the last day
i wanted to hear your voice more than anything
i wanted you to say one last thing to me
one last thing to make me as brave as you

but i will never be as brave as you
and i will never be the same

aurora borealis

close to midnight down at the lake
when the beach was still grassy
from a high water line (the water's
all gone now   this will never be repeated)

someone has a bag of gas station fireworks
and excitedly we light them up like candles
in the sand   expecting to be in awe of
manmade splendor on an august friday night

lying in the grass we watch them burn
shooting feebly into the dark sky
extinguishing red and green sparks
and after five minutes it's all over

someone, disillusioned, says
there goes a hundred bucks
and we all start to get up   brush off
wander away back up the road

until the black sky where our own creation
(a feeble magnificence) had just been played
spreads out its vast inky canvas
and every single colour pours onto it

northern lights usually dance
but now they just spill across the sky
a giant oilspill reflecting light for millions of miles
covering the whole space   replacing stars

we stand now on the beach    faces turned up
to watch what God can do compared to
our gas station fireworks and manmade attempts
at creating something truly magnificent

Sunday, May 30, 2010

small song

the biggest cups of tea
or warmest winter quilts
could not cozy up this place
as much as your smile
and your lips to my forehead.

Friday, May 28, 2010

five years later

seventeen and feeling old
life-weary already   all night-time
journal scrawls in coil scribblers
driving my mother's sedan around
quiet suburbs in the rain at three a.m.
playing tragically hip on repeat
wanting to smoke cigarettes even though
i never had before   no reason to crave it
except to accompany the mood
i spent so many angsty nights cultivating

now i'm standing on street corners
smelling gutter-rain and distant lilacs
at one in the morning feeling old
and young   simultaneously   a peculiar ailment
and i never did smoke any cigarettes
instead i share beers with new friends
and walk back to my own house   the key
in my own lock   go to bed with the windows open
the sounds of distant sirens   and the smell
of a faraway mayday tree bringing me back home

Thursday, May 27, 2010

south cooking lake, 2006

you and i are not quite the same
as the two people who once
lay in the grass under aspen
and watched the clouds
talking like it was easy
easier than anything else
side by side, arms touching
all the way up to our shoulders
a treasured touch, a thirst
of mine that can never be quenched
but sometimes just being near you
is enough

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

savasana

savasana
looking straight up
to the blue sky
like vertigo in reverse
it's falling upwards 
expanding forever
beyond the tops
of poplar trees
like alice down the rabbit hole
but instead of earth
it's sky sky sky
and tall craggy trunks
white   then green   then blue
for farther than my eyes
have ever seen before

alberta summer, 8:30 PM

driving next to the sun low in the western sky
she said she liked this time the best
when birds and bugs begin to quiet down
and frogs begin to warm up their voices
to sing songs from ponds we'll never understand
she said she liked the comfortable warmth
of the day's heat releasing from the earth
cooling off slowly towards summer evenings
and long shadows across highways on the way home

st. albert tim hortons on a tuesday night

we spent four days apart
separated by prairies
long distance phone calls
and nonmutual friends

and even though i saw
many wonderful things
i still missed seeing
you squinting in sunlight

and your downturned smile
across coffeeshop tables
reaching across for hands
like it had been years

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

cliffsides

lying on the rough grass of early spring
we squint in the cloud-dappled sunlight
and peer over the edge of a cliff, unafraid
our faces resting on palms so far above
the bottom of a valley and the creekbeds below
and when it's time to get up and climb back down
i want more than anything to remain
lying here between two crisp worlds
at the edge of a cliff in windy sunshine

patrick

we followed a man named patrick
up a mountain where he showed us
stunning valley views and a deer
wandering through aspen stands
and we never felt unsafe
with this stranger, a man
in the woods with a camera
but still we looked behind us
on the way down

dark shapes

late at night and mountains
are dark shapes cresting
against navy summer skies
and though they're looming
with wild animal secrets
and unknown terrain
they may be the safest place
we will ever find

Thursday, May 20, 2010

moose lake III

when you have no more use for the highway
turn right and cross the wide, empty path where
railroad tracks used to be (lift your feet, remember?)
and here it's safe, she said, to take off your seat belt
crawl up from the back seat of the aerostar van
curl up in her lap like you've missed her
these past two hours from so far away.
and when the lake comes into view at last,
sparkling blue-grey flanked by saskatoon trees
you're supposed to wave and feel like you are
coming home.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

harmony

heavy summer air and the presence of wasps
and blackbirds singing from fenceposts
and the harmony of muscle and bone
moving across an open expanse of green meeting
blue at the edge of your sight    as far as you can
see the landscape spreading outward
as if forever   connected now through
hooves stamping rhythms on early hayfields
still stubbled from an autumn cut
and this harmony can take you endlessly
across the land you love more than anything
as long as you're present to experience it

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

after everything

there were all of those times
i asked for your help
doubted your existence
tested, bargained, begged
felt heavy-hearted and alone

and then all of those times
you gave me simple gifts
showed me what you made
sent promises on Alberta skies
and western horizons

and here's the thing
after everything
that's happened
after all of the reasons
to run away:

i still believe in you with all my heart

certain things

certain things
can't be replaced

like iced tea
in backyards
beers around
campfires
cups of coffee
on sunday mornings

your grin
across pillowcases

Monday, May 17, 2010

moose lake II

one summer day
on a walk to the meadow
which no longer exists
(it's a helicopter pad now
blocked off by angry
"no trespassing" signs
and possessing a distinct
lack of wildlife and flying kites)
i followed my sisters
down the root-crossed path
my strides shorter
and steps less sure
only sure i wanted to be in
and to be accepted among them
so i followed eagerly
as they ran past a hornet's nest
stirring anger in its dwellers
and the sting made me cry
among aspen and fir
tree roots and pine needles
while they ran ahead
unknowing

Sunday, May 16, 2010

drumheller, 2007

after driving all the way
to drumheller, alberta
it turns out you have to pay
to go inside that giant dinosaur

but i guess that's not what it's about
there's looking at ancient things
thinking about our existence
touching history

hiking through hoodoos
scaling cliffs in the wind
and standing all together
on the top of the badlands

sitting at a picnic table
right next to the river
drinking wine, talking
about who we want to be

and all of these things
even just by themselves
are so much better than going
inside that dinosaur anyway

Friday, May 14, 2010

japanese koi

japanese koi

can live a hundred years
and even though
they don't belong
they can still survive
a canadian winter
just sliding, slipping

below the ice
turning eyes upward
to the weak sun
through frosted glass
mouths opening
in surprised little ohs

and if even they
who don't belong
in ponds in yards
through canadian winters
can survive it
then so can i

survive anything

any time

she lives her life perched
on the edge of a whim
like a bird we might scare
into flight
or a leaf hanging on to
the branch
at the end of the season
a blustery day

she could go at any time
and any time
is coming around again

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

answers

i spoke to you under the most spectacular blue sky
well you know blue   this expanse of creation    it's yours
i spoke to you so fervently among poplar trees
and chickadees and the bird whose songs
i've always loved but whose name i've never known
i told you i believed in you and trusted you
and i thought about mountains and mustard seeds
and i wrote the word "hope" on pages of my journal
for you to know the pureness of my faith
i wasn't pleading like i did before
i wasn't begging you in tears in the dark
out on the porch    trying not to wake them
this time i was sure you'd do this thing for me
for them   who needed to know you existed
for her   who had the rest of her life to live
as a testament to your strength    your love
you always answer    i know you do
i just wasn't ready for the answer to be no

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

trigonometry

i sleep alone in my bed
which even now seems too small
for my limbs that intersect
like angles on a chart
an unsolvable math problem

and your angles are the same
your feet hanging off the end
of your bed even smaller than mine
all elbows and kneecaps and
sleep lines across your face

someday soon we'll figure it out
a trigonometry of togetherness
angles into complementary curves
and i know without doubt
we'll fit perfectly somehow

Monday, May 10, 2010

with all my heart

remembered tonight
why i am alive
why anyone's alive

and here it is:
to enjoy the world
connect with landscapes
and breathe deeply the spring air

watch horses grazing
hear frogs being born in the pond
see the sun turn pink touching
hazy-green hillsides

everything i know
about the rest of the world
will never compare to

why i am alive
why i know who i am
why i believe in God

with all my heart

Sunday, May 9, 2010

garneau parking, late november

rainwater presses the note to my windshield:
"you aren't suppose to park here"
in strongly intended black ink---
permanent marker mistakes

looking out from the office
i wonder if the words will
remain on the windshield---
a tattoo

thinking about parking outside your old house
---do you know it's painted brown now?
had to parallel park on the wrong side of the road
but no go-away remarks on my already ugly pontiac

i'm losing daylight here
but the fluorescent light hums, interrupts
my careful reading so it must stay off
grey, dwindling light lands flatly on pages

and i must find somewhere else to park

Saturday, May 8, 2010

mctaggert, saskatchewan

all this time
and i keep going back
to driving in a rented van
across endless prairie ground

and the farthest thing
we could see was
just the horizon
for miles and miles

dusk and we're lost
it's just us in the van
and deer running headlong
through wheat fields

on a land like ocean
an open expanse
of wild bottomless skies
and waving gold seas

out there you can see storms
coming from miles away
but we didn't see it coming
did we?

Friday, May 7, 2010

moose lake

sounds like

poplar whispers
secrets from so far up
leaning towards each other
in wind off the lake

twigs snapping
under bare feet
running down the path
to the dock

lonely loon calls
out across the stillness
when the sun is gone
and the water's still warm

one day i'll lie on the beach with closed eyes
listening to lakewater lapping onshore
picturing myself as a child once more

Thursday, May 6, 2010

the land where i was born

all this flying around the world
this yearning to travel beyond
these wide wonderful prairies

this itchiness under our feet
to roam over the mountains
and out towards the sea

this unexplained inclination
to wander farther and farther
in any direction that suits

all this desperation to go --

but all i ever wanted was
to return to the pastures we once explored
to the land where i was born.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

winter again

wandering through road-brown slush
gathering in gutters and repressions on sidewalks
and inside my insensible shoes
(chosen to fit in among lawyers with suits)

wearing mittens in may, remembering january
before i hugged her outside the terminal
and she flew as far away as anyone can get
before starting to come back

and the days following brought the thickest frost
i'd ever seen on every tree, every branch and twig
and i thought how she loved that most
about our winters -- something foreign and spectacular

remember driving through the country
to the place we used to live
being blinded by bright white beauty
white roads  white fields  white trees  white skies

it's probably almost autumn where she is
and here it's supposed to be spring
but the violent wet slow clings to my hair
and mittens that match hers a world away are cold and wet

this may i know it's never enough just to feel love
it's only saying it out loud that's important
only sharing it often, giving it daily
that really counts

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

twenty-three

twenty-three
and making decisions

standing at the bus stop
inundated by sideways snow
a tiny seed of resolution
began to germinate inside my stomach

as the bus slid haphazardly
down mcdougall hill
i thought:
what if i don't make it there at all?
and smiled

that seed had sprouted a bud
and the words came out of my mouth
and i did not give up
and i did not accept mediocrity

for once in my mediocre life

and now i'm waiting for the bud
to bloom
and for the fist around my heart
to unclench

disheartening

it's not so much watching
the spring blizzard pelt
the 22nd floor windows

that is disheartening

but the fact that
i don't even get to enjoy
the gloomiest of views

Sunday, May 2, 2010

talking about michelangelo

coffee stain rings on my table
remnants of poetry and scribbles
recalling from somewhere distant
the feel of pen on paper for miles and miles

remember reading eliot
and not identifying with prufrock
weren't you young?
invincible?

now it's like talking about michelangelo
and you know j. alfred
like you know yourself
because he is yourself

how did it all happen so soon?
this sliding downward toward
inadequacy?

we can't all be eliot
but you could be something
if you'd stop all this giving up
all the time

Saturday, May 1, 2010

any given saturday morning

these are the things we really need on any given saturday morning:

the touch of another person
the pages of books under our thumbs
the rim of a coffee cup held to our lips
the hesitant april sunlight
the singing of birds

anything else at this moment would be a waste of time.

Friday, April 30, 2010

back to the point

back to the point
which was being together

riding out through verdant fields
keeping wary eyes on the cows
and especially the bull -- he was up to no good

sun filtering through trees
making dapples on flanks
and faces and sunburned shoulders

taking turns galloping up the hill
feeling precisely alive
perceptible freedom under the biggest skies on earth

the rest of our lives
was something for later
no plans beyond eating sherbet on the porch

but later is now
and it's all jobs
and cars and weddings and rent --

but --

back to the point
which was being together

Thursday, April 29, 2010

someplace else

after so much dreariness
like

flourescent office lighting
grey cubicle walls
copy machine complaints

it's nice to sit on a bus bench
feel the chill of early spring
and note the fact

that soon something will take you someplace else