A Sense of Place, Page 2

  None will see much grey hair;

  Each knows too much sorrow

  And fracture to ever

  Be whole again.

  The Busses are Running

  The busses are running

  This predawn awake,

  Too early for daylight

  Or tourists or trains,

  The lonely hearts, broken,

  The addicts, the whores

  All gather and wander

  And pool their change

  It’s 5:35 and already the day

  Brings a sadness

  Long before the sun.

  Their teeth are not perfect,

  Their bodies are tired,

  Their jokes are too forced to be real;

  They’re single, they’re fractured,

  They’re pockmarked, they’re pricked,

  And like vampires they’re hiding

  From all the sun’s tricks,

  And they all share the night

  ‘Cause it’s dark, safe and warm;

  It’s a quarter to six and the

  Shadows are starting to form.

  If the world is an ocean

  (And some say it is),

  Then these would be deepest by far,

  Yet there’s something like friendship,

  Like kin-ship, like trust,

  When you’ve gone so far down

  You can only look up,

  And the first train goes by,

  And the first crack of light,

  And the first morning bird takes

  Its first morning flight,

  And there’s something like sadness for

  The slow death of night,

  As the rest of the world now awakes,

  Thanks their Jesus for giving them day,

  While the lonely hearts, broken,

  The addicts and whores

  Fade away.

  Under Overhead Train

  Traffic rolls

  Under overhead train

  I watch its slow flow

  Head pressed white

  On cold glass

  As we pass into

  Night

  And the city lights

  Waver and wink

  Slow crawl

  Barely moving at all

  Red lights brake

  Lights pulse

  To the Beat

  Of some forlorn song

  Strummed on the underside

  Of this lonely

  City

  Alone in the vastness

  Of millions

  Hearts bleeding slowly out

  A story

  That no one wants to tell

  No one wants to hear

  Each one a sad page

  Each one turned without

  Consequence

  Or care

  And if that book burnt

  Another volume would

  So soon replace it on

  That bottom shelf

  Where the traffic

  Black with night

  Crawls on its

  Bloodied knees

  Under me

  On this slow

  Overhead train

  British Columbia

  Bus on Boxing Day

  High whine, wide-eyed driver

  Wheels the full-bus, slow;

  Who’d have ever thought on

  Boxing Day,

  With all this snow,

  There’d be so many

  Lonely people.

  Christmas day,

  Not even

  Twenty hours old—and all

  These strangers gathered from

  The cold. I wonder:

  Where are all the smiles

  Now? Those laughing tears?

  Boxed and packed away

  With wreaths and lights

  And other Christmas cheer?

  Driver speaks: at this next town

  There’ll be a break,

  Enough to smoke a cigarette,

  To urinate, to grab a cup of tea.

  But no one is moved,

  At least not

  Visibly

  December’s Dogs

  Skis stand tall

  Never slouch

  Always ready like

  Stiff, faithful dogs

  Silently sniffing the

  Open-door air

  Waiting for December’s

  Snow.

  Shrouded Forest (west van 12/06)

  Walking in the shrouded forest

  Freshly trimmed by winter’s breeze

  Mossy blanket, soft, under foot

  Dancing creek between walkways

  Sun exploring, piercing clouds

  Sending rays between tall bows

  Fungus grows on low deadfalls

  Buds now ready to explode

  Strolling in this West Vancouver

  Shrouded paradise

  Walking with our matriarch

  As she shares her sound advice

  On this early, Tuesday morning;

  Nowhere where I’d rather be,

  With my sagely, white-haired auntie

  Leading my family and me,

  Stopping frequently to feel and

  Smell the parkland fair,

  Breathing in this fresh, cool mountain air.

  Summer on the Shuswap

  Summer on the Shuswap means

  Snailing behind Alberta’s rubbernecked drivers

  It means being an impressive local

  To swarms of tourist chicks

  It means smiling—all the while

  Counting down the days till September when

  She is our lake again

  Walking Home on a Snowy Evening II

  snowing silence

  windless night

  stifled by

  this mothball void

  no crow

  no owl

  just black on white

  everything is crystal clear

  swallowed by this cold perfection

  I’m mute,

  minute and terrified

  naked

  blinded

  slowly

  buried

  still

  alive

  Victorian

  Rose-bellied clouds slow crawl

  Daybreak mosey, Victoria morning

  That celestial shock of salmon-spawn pink

  Is so short lived

  Replaced by dull grey

  And strengthening sun

  Swipes that orgasm of first light—

  A reminder from the ethereal to the real:

  It’s just another day

  First frost on lawn

  Each blade

  Heavy like a forest

  Somehow lovelier under

  Weight of backpacked ice

  So fragile: as if each blade would

  Break, but thoughtless

  Sun soon resolves this crystalline

  Landscape

  Into simple Victoria lawn: dull green

  Under dreary, high grey sky

  Ice stretches out on small

  Victoria pond—impossibly thin

  Hoarfrost fingers painted around and in

  Its mirror reflecting the slow

  Rose glow in such

  A fresh winter yawn

  But sun again,

  With day’s slow growth, again, will push

  Platelet holes in surface sheen

  And by high noon only borders will

  Remain of what was that morning's

  Mirrored perfectly

  What then of us, my lovely summer queen,

  In midst of this impermanence?

  When sun, ice, cloud, and winter’s snow

  Seem prone to constant change

  With such callous indifference,

  How do we, such ants to this,

  Hope to hold on forever

  To our warm love’s winter bliss?

  White-Water Creek’s Argument

  White
-water creek

  Folds over woodland park

  Rare gale-forced winds

  Have left this forest floor

  Strangely

  Opened

  Soft sunlight slowly pierces

  Running water as it drops a foot

  Forms ponds, then ponders, wanders on

  Down to ocean’s edge past

  Ledge upon rounded ledge

  So carved by soft flow’s ceaseless

  Argument

  Not so long ago those wild winds

  How they did laugh and blow

  Trees tried to test their argument

  Which ended in splinters of descent

  Tall trees humbled to their knees

  And backs all bent and broken

  Should not have taken up the strange debate

  Should not have argued with wild wind’s

  Harsh words spoken

  And now

  Lain down

  As white-water creek

  Continues its relentless speech

  And takes submissive leaves and branches in

  Its persuasive gurgling din,

  Its watery argument,

  Down to the ocean’s edge

  Over soft-spoken ledge,

  After ledge

  After ledge.

  England

  London

  London, Oh London,

  Where did you go?

  I cannot afford to

  see the Queen’s home

  Can’t you see

  how you’ve destroyed

  the romance of this once

  so noble town?

  Oh London,

  I shed no tears

  for you see no wrong

  has been done

  your heart

  rings true

  where only pounds sterling

  will do.

  Trafalgar Square

  The lions of Trafalgar Square

  In chilled May rains sit

  Still and stare

  As tourists brave the cold downpour

  To pet and comb their metal hair

  How many climbs do they withstand

  As tawny tourists gather 'round

  And click their cameras just to

  Show their friends they've seen

  These bronze four

  Who guard this war-like ground

  But tourists, locals, all the same

  Like candles all they wax and wane

  And birth and die

  And come and go while

  Stoic lions ever there

  Lay proud and stern

  And guard the air

  That covers all

  Trafalgar Square

  France

  Pillow—a harmless little ditty

  Her name was Maria

  She came from France

  She embroidered my name on her pillow

  But then came the dawn

  I had to move on

  And find something to rhyme with pillow

  Greece

  Greek Heat

  We wait in this

  lean-two highway

  bus stop

  standing still

  trying to

  capture

  the minute

  difference

  of less hot

  the shade brings

  stand like

  donkeys

  lined up

  behind

  the sliver of dark

  stretching out

  from the single, leafless tree

  in a barren field,

  as motionless

  as the

  oppressive

  heat

  Peloponnese

  Old man sits in a rented room

  Not so far from home,

  Reads a page and edits, slightly,

  Like he’s done a hundred times before

  His aging wife waits, patiently, not

  Thirty miles away;

  She smiles and rearranges

  Home-cut flowers

  In a slightly different way.

  When he was young, and full of

  Pride, his words flowed surer, then.

  There seemed to be such unity between

  The writer and his pen,

  And she would wait, so hopefully,

  Their home so spotless clean;

  She believed all his energy

  Would compose something worthy,

  Of a sale, something so they

  Both could buy that seaside

  Villa in the postcard Peloponnese

  But days turned weeks turned

  Decades passed, his weary pen

  Never neglected, each new piece,

  Each new rejection,

  And she would hold him, cold,

  At night and quietly say, “Darling, it’s

  it’s all right, it will somehow be ok.

  I can still clean

  Their houses, and make enough

  To keep those wolves at bay,

  The bill collectors far away.”

  His compact nod,

  A slight response to her

  Kind words of faith,

  But doubt seeped in, like hoarfrost,

  And began to crumble him.

  He took odd jobs, he edited,

  He brought in autumn apples, and

  All the while composed lines of passions,

  Imaginations,

  Memories, of hopes and dreams,

  That would, some day, sell wonderfully

  And send them to their waiting vacant villa

  In their postcard Peloponnese.

  His eyes, now old, she holds his hand,

  His shallow breaths unsure,

  His manuscripts all typed and bound,

  All boxed, on shelves, and on the bedroom floor

  Close to where he’s too soon to breathe his last death breath.

  She knows it’s all been wasted,

  But she cannot change the past.

  He dies, she dies, the manuscripts

  Are burned and tossed away,

  The cleaner finds the postcard,

  And adds it to the flame.

  So was his life then wasted, as the

  Words he whittled down to length,

  Words to be read by no one,

  Words, he thought, of such poignancy and strength?

  What is the value in creation?

  The worth of imagination?

  The strength of conviction?

  When nothing he created ever

  Made the printer’s press—

  Or is the value the creation, the

  Imagination, and the conviction, regardless

  Of the rest, regardless of sales and salty dreams:

  The blue and white villa in their

  Sunset Peloponnese?

  Song

  Grasshoppers singing

  while I’m dry song

  sitting, widows-open-crawling

  through this part of Greece…

  like poking along

  the blistering

  Okanagan

  in early July

  stuck behind a whole mule

  train of Albertans

  who’ve never seen a corner before,

  let alone lakes and mountains,

  god forbid, the odd garbage-can bear appears—

  worse yet,

  my father’s too cautious

  (chicken shit) to pass;

  never stops at the lakes

  for a swim

  like all those tourists do;

  after all, we’re from this

  tumble weed and rattle snake valley,

  littered with old mines,

  ddt canisters,

  and timber-ribbed,

  flumes, gone-dry.

  Grandpas on both sides

  worked on the new (now 50-year-old) flume;

  both were fruit farmers,

  both died of chemical cancer

 
using stuff the

  government said

  was perfectly safe.

  The grasshoppers sang

  all day there

  in waves of heat you

  couldn’t even walk in.

  Had to stop picking

  from noon till four

  almost every afternoon

  during cherries.

  We’d go to the lake then,

  almost

  mournfully,

  knowing we’d have to get back

  up 14 foot ladders

  and pick till near dark.

  I was 14, then, and worked for

  my school clothes;

  now I’m 34 and sitting on an aging

  bus

  crawling up a steep, chalk slope

  flanked by ancient chapels

  set in the bone-dry cliff-sides

  in this so-dusty part of Greece.

  All this comes back to me

  12,000 miles away

  because the grasshoppers

  are singing that same

  song

  under that same sun—

  but this time in the scorching Peloponnese.

  This bus only goes so far,

  only as far as

  the next Okanagan town

  where I will

  again

  remember —

  And no matter where I

  get off, find some room

  and lightly settle,

  there will always be some small thing,

  like a malevolent noose,

  that will pull me back

  over oceans

  to my land of sage and cactus—

  there can be no escape from home.

  Holland

  Ruddy-faced European Girl

  Ruddy-faced European Girl,

  with your charms all well preserved

  in ancient ink and on canvass,

  would you walk with me

  through Amsterdam

  and gently hold my hand?

  I will buy you flowers

  from he who sells them

  by the water...

  you know the place where

  the bearded man

  fishes daily in the mired canal.

  Ruddy-faced European Girl

  your limbs are well pronounced;

  you’re sturdy, like a farmer,

  but you’ve got such a

  pretty, tempting mouth.

  Your bones were built for birthing

  large, bull-like men,

  your wide hips invite imagination;

  you smell of sweat and flowers,

  what could be either a wholesome

  or a prurient blend.

  Ruddy-faced European Girl,

  I don’t want you for a lover—

  would you simply walk with me,

  take me to the galleries,

  show me all your favourites?

  Would you let your laughter

  jump out loud

  as we share a morning sidewalk coffee?

  Could we run a beach together,

  feel the chill of cool, cool sand?

  Would you simply

  escort me