Calibrations

We need a machine
to tell us if you love me
as much as I love you.

To calculate
what could go wrong
and when
and maybe even why.

So I can anticipate
regulate
mitigate
brace myself
for your inevitable departure.

===

Will comment on others' posts this weekend!

Episode

Rain in the background of '70s sci-fi on TV.
It's dark. The evil scientist has our heroes
in a trap. His cave is a labyrinth. The only possible
direction is further in. Curved walls studded
with fragments of mirror, polished corundum,
agate, jasper. Flashes of jagged reflection,
an optical trick. Just off the screen,
out the window, something flickers. When I turn,
it's gone. This happens again. Meanwhile, our heroes
have a plan. They'll use the power of thought
to bend reality, the only way to escape
the twist of the villain's mind. I face the window.
Sooner or later that flicker will come again.
At the last desperate moment, our heroes
will win. If I watch long enough I'll find out
where the light is coming from.

[This is a revision of one I posted here a couple of years ago-- just in case it looks familiar to anyone.]

maman

you are leaving us
this I know
your eyes I see, altostrati,
cover the Perseid intellect
that is, was, you.

your word-tangy tongue is gone,
slinger of a billion firecracker faux-pas,
insults, misfire compliments
"oh you look so fat and brown"
your fuse switches never quite turned on.

the year before my black lab died
her eyes turned to milk
her atomic bark turned mutish
and I knew it was time
when she could no longer stand up.

now you my mother are confined,
a wheelchair, "a seat belt" (lie
lie, they are strapping you in)
because the fiendish yogi, fitness nut
decades before namaste was a brand
can no longer be trusted to walk without

the fall. the fall last Fall
snapped your humerus, your brain in two
you could not eat, drink, read (read!
you of a billion bedside books)
nor speak, nor even weep

and I lay awake all night with you
held your hand while you hallucinated
three men (your brothers? two of them dead)
asking you to come with them. No!
Don't go. Don't go. Don't. Go.
I hope I said. But now, o my
beloved star of the west. I don't know.

We leave with a label

Something’s wrong:
my kid is always happy!

When the ice cream slipped
off his cone, he said, “Oh well,
Next time.” He laughs at time
outs, grins at injury.

Outside the one-
way mirror: “Dr. Aspie,”
the psychiatrist who confirms
suspicions.

I reach for
my son, but this book has
no words. I fight
to describe the pictures
with enough emotion to hold
him beside me. To prove
to the other side
of the glass that
I’m not the reason
we are here.

The psychiatrist enters
and asks him to name
his best friend, his favourite food
on earth. My son orbits
our chairs in a helicopter
of words and giggles:

All propulsion
systems at maximum!
 
He always    
this oblivious? Dr. Aspie
wants to know. He turns to me
and says Welcome
to Aspergers.

Same

You are approached by a big bird, emerald and gold,  

perched on the right shoulder of a guy on a bike.

Last summer the same guy walked past you with

the same bright bird on the same shoulder. You assume

the same string connects bird leg and human finger.

The name, you also assume, remains the same:

Yellow-Headed-Amazon from Guatemala or Belize.

As far from home as last year. As rigidly composed.

Things re-occur: waking and sleeping, seedtime and harvest,

rain and snow. You are walking a path you’ve walked before.

As always, questions pop up: Where did the guy get the bike?

When the string breaks will the beautiful bird fly home?

Parent support group

We slouch in plush seats and sigh.

We rise to surround her shoulders and pray

the cancer goes.

I’ve never seen my boy seizure like

the dad on my right. Never seen my girl 

through open heart surgery like the mom

across the table.

We laugh in the face of absent

resource teachers. We clasp blue 

hands around each 

mismatched mug. 

We pass the chocolate.

Tramping Trails

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 the girl 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.

Sarah's intro

Hi:

Thanks to Angeline for inviting me onto this poetry blog for the merry month of May. I look forward to reading your blogs and will try to post the occasional poem. I've been meeting a certain bird while walking along the Chief Peguis Drive and since birds are a favourite subject for me, a poem is in the making.

Sarah Klassen

What may happen

Cloud-scattered morning, promise
of break-up. Fling off the chill, come out
together, you and the sun. Why wake
except to this, the blue-green
springing world, delirious
with itself. You, too, a little high
on tree sap and mud, resting bare
feet on the sill, window open to let in
new verbs. Write them on a fresh leaf.
They all sound like the shape
of a bird's wing. They are all
synonyms for "surprise."

To Make a More Imperfect Person

Teach me to yell like a Wookie, yodel like hell. Gone are the days of overthinking Marvin K. Mooney’s intonation, of symmetrical houseplant vines and silence. Wild child, give your mother words for all that’s alien: hyperdrives and naps. Make me forget the names of acid-washed bullies and the reason I ever left the room. Teach me that 4 pm is made for Froot Loops and disco. Reclaim Narnia for the Naiads while the rigatoni burns. Who says it’s rude to praise gawking shoppers for their resemblance to stegosauri? Oh baby, make me toss the experts, believe in mermaids again. When I sees dust, show me magic: crack clay pots to let the light sabres shine through. Grant me earworms and wormholes, earthworms and whims. Introduce new pairings: the synonym for comforting is keep your distance, the opposite of late is just stay home. Smear my smug chin with peanut butter tickles. Teach me to hide my Aunt Jemima and Oh Henry in the folded arms of sweaters. Give me VW buggies, no one to punch. Make me choose between losing you at Value Village and starring as your abductor on Canada AM. Train me by Lego trail and terror to walk bravely. Flush my watch, my key – everything but my reasons. See me hang loose like the empty junk drawer – ready for anything.

Opening Day (written 5/1)

Hail dodges the marigolds
I planted yesterday,
melts
on contact
with earth's warm embrace.

The soil opens up,
releases
spring's secrets.

Grey backdrop gives way
to pink.

May is going to be just fine.