Thanks once again, Ariel, for pulling us together, and thanks to everyone for your poems and comments. It's been good to have this virtual writing group as an incentive to keep writing new stuff. Now I've got a nice stack of drafts to work on, and am hoping some of that May energy will carry on. See you all next May, if not before...

Routine

Fridays: take the boy to school,

ride the no. 10 downtown, walk

to the Y. Locker in the second aisle.

Stow backpack and coat. Smile at her.

Weird today, isn't it? Who are all these people?

Is there a holiday from school?

(she means: good Lord, these chicks

make me feel old)

I'm sure glad to see you here!

(she means: at least there's one face I know.

I have not told her my name. She says

she doesn't remember names.)

She tells me— voice lowered—

I have to take these pills four times a day,

or I'd die (a solemn nod, blue eyes wide)

I had a seizure and it damaged my brain.

Once she tells me: It was so hard

when it happened, I couldn't go out.

I couldn't remember where I lived.

She's in gym clothes. I go to the pool.

You're such a speed-swimmer,

you and that other guy!

and I can't tell her otherwise.

Just smile and shrug. I'm glad

to see her, too.

Crossing

Here's where they indented the riverbank,

cut away grass and wild roses stitching

the hill together, took sand for concrete,

exchanged Gabriel's Ferry

for Gabriel's Bridge,

flatboat and cable

for sky-blue painted steel.

Here, across the river from Batoche

and what remains of Fish Creek

my brother and I would climb

the bank's cut-open face—

slipping, kicking up sand-spurts—

then scoot down the slope.

Scramble up again, slither and tumble

till feet, hands, clothes were sand-brown.

Something had happened in these hills

but the ferry was gone;

we pronounced Gabriel like an English name;

we saw only later that the bank,

overgrown again with grass

and roses, was not meant to look

like this.

J.J.

The scrapbooks tell a tale

if you can read it:

his interests, points of pride

displayed in clippings from the Valley News.

Steam tractors, threshing crews

in photo after photo

grainily reproduced in newsprint.

Main Street in 1910. Fire in the old hotel.

Webs of small-town connection: anniversaries,

awards, school choirs, bowling teams.

To anyone but himself a partial tale—

episodes, self-contained, out of sequence

like reminiscences over coffee

at the downtown café.

His link to all these weddings, deaths unclear—

a seemingly unfiltered mass of news

gathered in his all-embracing attention.

Or likely, there was more within his ken

than I could ever guess.

Sunday

[Thanks!]

Blown

Bouquet of balloons in the back seat.
You swat, adding fingerprints
to the latex covering drifting fists
of noble gas. In the rearview I get glimpses of road,
your heated cheeks, the cars nudging
the few feet between us
at the lights. I don’t ever expect more
than glimpses. How we both got a mouthful
of crabapple pulp today when all you were after
was a single bloom. How you substituted dandelion
for daisy when the oldest charm
rattled through your head: She loves me,
she loves me NOT. And started shedding yellow.
Lately, you’ve relied on I didn’t mean to...
Which means everything I own shredded,
everything I own fragile. Like a balloon
floating into the front seat, static
electricity
a stranger’s kiss.

In the language of flowers

Rosemary is for remembrance.

That's how it starts.

Pansy for tender thoughts:

Peony, dahlia, delphinium.

Salvia, alyssum, petunia.

Daisy for innocence:

Marigolds and blue lobelias, like Grandpa's.

Love them and they will grow.

Columbine for folly.

No calculation of sunlight, no thought

for the roots of elderly shrubs,

their greedy thirst.

Dandelion for oracle.

I didn't listen.

Marigold for jealousy

of gardens down the street

crammed with lilies. Cruel

in their flourishing.

Poppy for consolation or

evanescent pleasure.

Spindly and worm-eaten, for a short while

they bloomed.

Waking

An amateur's new reflex camera,

a joke to get them laughing.

An instant clipped from a sumer afternoon.

Who are they? I ask.

They're in a field, row of trees behind them

Skirts to their ankles, white blouses.

And the men— shirtsleeves, suspenders,

hats perched high on their heads.

So easy to mistake their age.

That's Judith, Grandpa's first wife

(looking down, sun in her eyes)

and that's your grandma there

(hand smothers a giggle)

And then the figures lift a little, become

stereoscopic by some mixture

of daylight through yellow curtains,

my mother's voice reciting names,

my eyes' new skill at shifting focus.

There's the surprise:

my grandparents were once young.

If they could just stay like this,

resting lightly on the Kodak paper.

Are there more? I ask.

Eigenheim

This August day of wind, heat.

Dust from cars' arrival.

This white wooden church, these

steps to twin front doors.

These handshakes, this embrace and kiss

of aunts from far away. This hymn,

my voice faltering on the refrain.

And after,

this path from front steps to graveyard,

these hands holding, this roar

of passing pickup on the highway,

these strawberry leaves among the stones.

This raw earth enclosing my uncle's body.

Our family's name on this stone and this.

This place that holds our story.

THE SEATTLE ENGRAVING COMPANY

It's against the law
to remove the dead
from water.

There are rules to everything
ordinary. I take this for granted;
tell her the shape of trees

in the north is no different
than moonlit maples and sweet gum
pyramids on her front lawn.

An august afternoon's wind
interviews us with hushed
declarations—

She says I’m uncouth
because I don't have time
for kids, golf and social clubs, or child brides.

A loon on the lake calls to its partner.
Memory clouds lakelight with embarrassment.
I had wanted to marry and asked

her. Laughter,
ruthless as textured coal
answered me, her meaning rich and slow.

The loon’s partner returns with a song.
It will take years for the echo
to die.

Driver's Ed

Making supper, chopping carrots,
getting ready for kiddy soccer, my dad is
in the basement trying to repair my dryer.

And a teenager ambles in late, because he had his
fourth Driver's Ed class, drops his backpack,
says "I just watched someone die, I think.
(we stop what we're doing)
"I was waiting on my bus, heard
a screech, looked over. An SUV
was rolling and rolling toward me. It stopped
maybe a meter from my bus, right
beside me. A lot of blood. Even
if he was buckled the vehicle
was so smashed up Mom. The roof,
completely caved in."

The bus driver ran over, people
tried to open windows;
a man was yelling to turn off
the ignition - it might explode.
Someone taking pictures on their
cellphone instead of calling 911.

My son stayed on the bus, knowing grown-ups
don't want youth underfoot in
emergencies. Hoping the man was wrong
about explosions. Wishing the driver to safety.
Willing voyeurs to be rescuers.
Watching people huddle helpless, then turn away.

He's been asleep for 20 minutes now,
six hours later. I've checked and checked;
there's nothing on the news.

Reeling

For the residents of Slave Lake, AB.

sweaty fingers
slipping on the car handle

burnt plastic smoke
sour on your tongue

yips
from what could be the dog

following Marie from room
to frantic room or the kids, clutching

their phones
like they were going to text the fire

out, earbuds still in.
there.

the car door
swinging slow slow an accordion

wheezing open.
The light

flickers on. you turn
your head your nose

streaming.
COME ON. NOOOW.

And they spill out the back door
in gouts like a thumb on the end

of a hose
and there is fire in your peripheral

vision as you swing
into the drivers’ seat and stab

the wrong key at the ignition
and there is fire

three doors down and the sky
is full of ash

and sparks
as you scrabble the right key

into the slot
and black plastic smoke

makes you weep
as you rev the engine into screaming

life and it is three slow steps
to the car

and you have idled in the driveway
before, sat and honked

and waited for them
and as you drive

away
from the fire, listening to their ragged

breaths
and small exclamations

at the fireworks of right angles
of wood siding brick vinyl siding

going up
as you drive away

from the tree you mulched
every year the tree and everything

every thing else
you have

going up
you’d like to bottle

their hesitations, their ragged
breaths

and as you lurch onto
the highway

sniffling, trying not to speed
or drift into the other lane

your daughter says
“Dad I’m not wearing my seatbelt!”

Fade (2)

On the footbridge, our brisk walk arrested, we face west

to watch the sky turn pale. A scattering of thin lines

sketched against the pink horizon: seven geese

blacker now and closer, louder. Seven more

skimming treetops, angling down. Geese converge,

each flock a wave of moving wings. Approaching,

they take on shape, heads, tails outlined against

the sky's last slip of color. Feet brake to land.

Noise, a growing gabble of calls, amplitude of honks.

Dark now. We zip up jackets in the cooling air,

thrust hands in pockets. The children want to go.

Not yet, I say. A little longer. Watch.

Noise fades with the light. Geese on sandbars,

in the shallows, settle for the night,

silhouettes against moonlit water.

Quiet now. We shiver.

Blogger!

Hey all,

As you all probably noticed, Blogger went down for the better part of two days last week. They even deleted some content, which has never happened in the 5 years I've been using the platform...

In any event, I have all the comments from poems that were deleted (they get emailed to me as blogatrix-in-chief), so if you want to re-post them, I'll cut and paste the comments back in...

Thanks! Sorry I haven't been around much of late...too many deadlines and too few hours in the day.

Dr. Clarke's Stomach and Liver Tonic

For the love of posters I work on blood
kidneys, skin. Pen and ink at Grip Ltd.

Temperance is a street full of flask-carrying men.
We sort out type area, black letter,

offset white spaces, touch thick-coated paper,
picture it as romantic. We are the artists,

the scrum assembled in taut formation,
heads bent together, though not solving

any of the world’s problems, or worrying
about the impediments typographically

exhibited: youthful follies, hindrances
to marriage, hearts, deficient virility,

pancreatic problems, or balding. Later, this dandy
skill is enough to buy me cheap therapy—

My own silk shirts worn
with sentimental realism, the designer label

marketing affections like an allopathic application
for nakedness. Opium, belladonna, maybe

someone’s manhood cured by swamp root
and patent medicine, or the bartender,

a muscle man in my own travelling
medicine show. Another pint please!

One patient sleeps in the treatment of beer,
his testimonial confirms the success

of such ministrations. How many draughts
will heal my need for west winds, or mystical

July nights sleeping amidst spruce, black birch,
surrounded by water's nudging tone?

Yom Ha Shoah

all taken from today's testimony of a man who was liberated from Buchenwald at 14 by a 20 yo black American soldier who was also present at today's memorial

"Either we love one another, either we hold one another,
or the seas will engulf us, and the lights will go out."

What happened then
can happen now.

Every April 11th I celebrate
my birthday. The day
I was reborn into
freedom at age 14.
I had never seen
a black man until
that day. I was convinced
angels must be black.

When they asked me
my name
I could only reply
with a number.

What made recovery
possible? Memory.
Impressions left of
a lost family -
4 brothers and my sister
Leah.
My mother. My father.
Warmth and security
sustained me.
Everyone I knew and loved
was gone.

I only saw one of them die.
When I was 11
I was sent to the munitions factory
with my brother Abram, & my father.
Abram was 3 years older.
He got typhoid.
When they loaded him on
the truck I ran for him.
He waved me off. They drove
to the nearby forest.

In the silence that fell
We heard the crackling
of machine gun fire
(I never will forget
that sound.) Was that the day
my father gave up hope?
The truck

returned empty.

First Firepit

Shredded paper to start the blaze
twigs and pinecones entice each tongue
of flame
to lick
then rage.
Roasting food on sticks
- stars above and coals below -
the fire flaming wild but tamed
inside the cage. Sticks
sing, branches snap, greenwood
smokes and hisses. Fuel
spent, the embers ripple
heat and speak of
what they'd do to skin
with red-hot
kisses.

Wednesday

April's being good today,

all warmth and possibility.

Boys linger after school.

One a troll, one a Viking.

A mother sits, face tilted to the sun.

A father walks and walks around the soccer pitch.

Batman arrives in a red wagon. In his hand—

and epée? a rapier? Surely a Bat-sword.

Boys walk the ledge dividing sand from gravel.

Survival's at stake. They watch their feet.

Now a girl's in the wagon. Regal in pink sunglasses,

turquoise shirt. Batman pulls, she holds the reins.

Coming Clean

from the front cover of today's Star-Phoenix

Because he loved her
Because she was his baby girl
Because her boyfriend was bad news
(a drugseller who injected heroin in her arms
even when she was only half-conscious)
Because of that, because she had just
gotten clean again. Because. Just
because. Her father loaded
his gun. Tucked it into
the same belt he'd
never hit her
with.

Remembered her coming home, telling him
how her boyfriend beat a man with a crowbar
until he lost consciousness.

There was a standoff. He stood. He stayed.
Emptied 20 bullets in her boyfriend's
body. Traced a sign of the cross
in the blood on his forehead
when he was sure
he was dead.

It was a life for a life for a life:
he'd do it again. Trade his
freedom, bloody his hands
for his daughter.
Any man.

Veracity

The days are fatter, rounder
ripening lush-lipped plums.
The trees are loaded brushes
poised under cerulean skies.
Stand on the stone embankment
a rising river in your eyes.
Birds are feathering downwards
stealing Hansel & Gretl crumbs.
Daylight stretched elastic
weak tea dawn to brass brazen noon;
We'll question the sun's uprising
but in secret, suspect the moon.