Le départ

Quelle est la couleur de mes jours, tu me demande ? Depuis que tu es parti ils sont sans couleur... celle des foins séchés au soleil sévère, du fourrage pour le bétail à l'odeur de la terre moisie - oui, c'est ça : mes jours ensevelis, ils attendent que tu vienne les déterrer et leur donner de la couleur aussi vif que le soleil rose-orange qui se couche sur le champ d'aôut.

The Barrens

In the barrens

Nothing grows

But silence.

Roots can't find

Their way

Through crusted earth,

Skin so thinned

It's thick with armour -

Spring buds locked beneath

The invisible, impassable,

Where no sun or rain

Can find them.

The arctic tundra,

Quiet, desolate,

beautifully barren.

My womb is barren

Also, where In the dark

things grow unreserved.

Fighting their way through

Thick, obstinate walls with

Corkscrew determination.

No seeds no fish no buds 

It mothers and feeds

And imagines beauty.

The Empire

To Exterminate

exterminare

expel

armenians led to the desert

to die

100 years ago   now

no one came     no one stopped it

1.5 million tortured

raped starved   finally to rest

in their blood  and excrement    waiting

for death       asking

why?

it was a quiet little genocide

one hundred years to remember

one hundred years to forgot

Cedar Bog

She darts in and out of the cedars that line the old bog,

decides on a deep muddy hole to cool herself off

and emerges black as the bear who spent his winter there.

The storm is near, palpable underfoot as the thunder tears

through trees and she chases the beast through green

and gold prairie grass.

I look for cover but there is none, vernal budding just begun;

on the path I wait for her return while the rain falls and drowns

out all but a retriever chasing the roar of colliding clouds.

A discreet fissure

A sliver of light

Hope revealed

Through this delicate paper skin

art: anonymous

With a soft harvest breeze

September dips its toes in,

And the sun leans into dusk.

play

play with me in the night
among the daisies growing wild,
in the clear blue of the quarry
off the old farm road;
dance naked under moonlight
promise me your love
promise me you'll play forever
here, with me
beneath the blue-pink glow
of summer's setting light
where the cricket's song is the same
one they sang before you were born,
and your father
before you.
play me a tune on your old
ukulele, play seek 
and hide me, hold me close
so no one will see 
me cry.

je me demande :

le vacarme fondera-t-il avec la neige ?

le confort retrouvé au soleil ?

l'espoir pousse-t-il comme une mauvaise herbe ?

yeux fermés

souhait soufflé

sur un pissenlit. 

..... -----

    « Ay ! Pouvez-vous m'aidez ?

            -- M'aidez-maydé-mayday, gazouille le corbeau à la fenêtre du deuxième étage.
            -- Je réponds...  »

un-

       The monarchs remain unattended to,

       Community love letters sit in a heap,

       The words lodged in left & right ventricles

       Of a grief left unfinished.

       These are the days

       of a poet undone.

photo/art: m. hébert

inner child

the memories nag and chafe

at my core -

crippled,

I fight full surrender

night 

and day, and

night: the young girl stands 

naked before me 

in my wakeful dreams

alone and cold, she already knows

not to wait on a warm blanket;

she's always known the world

is a cold, cold place;

knows nothing of soft spots

on which to land her tired mind,

signs of strain visible

in her blueberry eyes

            relief, release

is what she wants, and here I am

four decades later, asking

would you like a ginger tea?

while my lips attempt soft words

that hang hopelessly,

helplessly.

January

.....................................

The winter wind nags at me
Burning at my bones

When I dare walk against her;

Offended that I deem myself

A worthy adversary

She tosses this scarf across my face

Mocking me, my gall:

Go inside where you belong!

Her grating voice comes at me

Up from the icy pavement

Rushing snow my way

Cylindrically, 

Playing games

She's bound to win.

 photo: M. Hébert

sculpture, Leo Mol

what i saw

              Before its ascent

              Into the winter white sky,

              Full moon cotched on blue. . .

moon haiku

The Day After

I gaze out the window,

just a filmy barrier now,

hoping for some sign of life.

The streets below are quiet,

too quiet.

I wonder if they've left me behind.

Did the gods forget about me?

I am forgettable,

reveals my reflection.

I place my lips near the glass,

Dragon breath

steaming circles, waiting

on my warm fingertips,

to write the words

I was here.

Shining

from "Your Last Day on Earth"
by Carla Hartsfield

The trees have always been here.
That's what they want us to think.
How do I know?
I finally heard them today.
I lay down and watched
inexplicable mouths.
Their leafy droning flipped me out.
I saw the pocket mirrors of souls
vibrating in solitary unction.
I thought, where has my mind been?
Believing wind infallible
and me, an amateur linguist.
Why listen to these noisy intruders?
To syllables quaking
like random dreams
why hide under quilts,
pretending amnesia.
The prophetic ones.
So much happens to shut up the gifted,
the raw hearts,
human and otherwise,
beating and glistening on a forest floor.
Leave us alone, that's what I tell you.
Forget eternity rushing overhead.
If the trees are lying I'm willing to believe
they didn't really mean it.
I'm trusting in delicacy
and shining.

Tilting

Tired, I leaned hard, 
so  hard 
into the wall 
- stone wall
There was no 
soft place to lean, 
not now, not 
Now my right shoulder is 
sore, I am tired
and bro
ke
n

street art 79 Os-Gemeos Lithunia

Vowels

invisible
on her tongue
unshaped syllables
conspire to come together
and form the scream
that could release
her
     make her visible
again,
if they weren't
too far for her
to touch.

Détente

upon god's hard earth

she lays

fallen from grace,

paralysed, severed

wings by her side

she waits.

..........in her dreams

she has learned how to fly,

running from monsters

that chase her awake;

with wonder and lust,

her tears all that's left

to offer her god,

she 

contemplates 

the sky.

photo: K. Vojnar

History, her story

 

Comfortably, screaming, struggling with the story given us, we live in histories inherited; in joy bestowed, or fought, fraught with fear, engaged in hopeful beginnings, squeaking delight, squirming our way out of a hostile womb, weeping, still. History claimed, unclaimed, with ease, in anguish; this, we say, is my story.

spare change

a thousand hands reach out it seems,

tears and fears and broken dreams

flow through cold concrete city streets.

               a Loonie offered 

to cleanse my conscience

on these autumn nights - 

the calls of too many,

too many plights 

amassing next to blue BFIs.