Weeding

I squat before I kneel, finally
collapsing to a cross-legged sit,
my hands busy as dandelions and grass
and false clover come out
by their roots, some more easily
than others. The pile of unwanted
plants grows beside me and the
clean, black dirt is exposed, waiting
for new seeds hanging from soft, white,
floating umbrellas to find
their way to fertile soil.

Nature abhors a vacuum.

I stop and push a strand of hair
off my brow, feel the sweat trickle
between my breasts and hear
the buzz of insects as they survey
my sumptuous flesh in search
of a tasty meal. There is now
a smudge where my muddied hand
brushed my forehead, fingernails
encrusted with embedded dirt that
will take repeated scrubbings
to come clean. I look at the heap
of weeds, at the spaces between
hydrangeas and bleeding heart
and wonder who is the victor here,
to whom go the spoils.

The Webcam

You gazed upon your lover today,
seeing the remembered face,
the smile, the white teeth
and lips, those lips you
long to kiss, to touch, the eyes
full of love, looking longingly
at you through a looking glass
of unattainability.

Autumn Letter to a Dear Friend

October 14, 2008


My dear Simone:

It is autumn and the fall colours
remind me of you.
I walk through tunnels of foliage,
limbs overhead, fallen leaves underfoot,
and bask in the luminous golds,
glowing coppers and ruby reds.
The world is ablaze with their glory
and I rejoice in its beauty,
taking photographs with my mind’s eye
that I would send you,
if I only could,
so that you might see them, too,
as I do.

I inhale the scents of the season:
decaying leaves and pine needles,
earth and wood and mould.
I long to send you my impressions,
to have you see and smell them,
to hear the honking of geese
as they pass overhead in their ragged vees,
and feel the rush of their wings
as they fly past.

There are so many things I want to show you.
Today on my walk into town past the cemetery
I stopped to marvel at the maples,
how they were ignited by the sunlight
and seemed to burn with neither heat nor flame,
but an inner luminescence;
and I thought of you.

Coming home, I gathered leaves:
mostly yellow, some tinged with orange and red,
one edged in green with a golden heart.
I placed them between pages of my diary
so that later I might mail them to you,
arranged under glass in a picture frame,
or as surprises,
interleaved among the leaves of another book.

This weekend past I drove for hours
from east to west and back,
and every crimson sumac and golden oak
that lined the long highway
was etched in my memory
so I could tell you about it.
The photographs I took
do not do reality justice.
It is the pictures stored behind my eyes
that I wish you to see;
each is tinged with love,
and suffused with longing.

For it is not just the fall colours
I want to show you,
but the tints of my own soul:
the reds and golds and coppers
that peel away from my heart
and flutter to the ground
only to become brittle
and crumble to dust;
the love I long to lavish
and the words I may not say.

I will not mention this to you,
but quietly accept the inevitable,
as do the leaves that burn defiantly
in the face of winter.

Your loving friend,

Edouard

Dirt

The dark loam pours out of the box
onto clumps of dirt packed close
by winter’s chill and weight of snow
and ash from the wood stove:
rich, life-giving soil from
vegetable parings and apple cores,
eggshells and grapefruit rinds,
coffee grounds and tea bags;
nothing is wasted.
Scrapings from dinner plates,
tips of beans and celery leaves,
corn cobs and avocado shells
all thrown in together
to rot, metamorphosing
in that polyvinyl cocoon
into the black earth
that cradles the new year’s crop.
Parsley stems and tomato cores return
to the soil that grew them;
tough stalks of basil nourish
next summer’s pesto;
and all this flows onto my spade
and I spread it and bury it
and crumble the clods of clay-packed dirt
which, after years of mingling
with spring’s spoils from winter’s waste,
is still hard and rebellious
under my shovel and rake.
A clang of metal on limestone and
shale brought up by winter heaving;
these will not decompose.
They will not become soil
in my lifetime.

Guinea Pig

Guinea pigs are the animals of choice
for elementary-school classroom pets;
they live extremely boring lives
and are amazingly content to do so.
Provided with enough food,
They will eat till they burst.
Their cages smell, no matter
how often they are cleaned.

My best friend had a guinea pig.
It was black as coal
and when it died
it was cold as coal.
My girlfriend’s mother asked me,
me, an innocent bystander
unimplicated in the rodent’s demise,
to dispose of the remains.

Why couldn’t she do it?
I still don’t know.
Even my girlfriend was uninformed
of the fate of this pet.
Perhaps it slept, lying as it did
on its side in its cage,
unmoving, unmoved;
and I wrapped it in newspaper like a fish from the market
and deposited it without ceremony in the can
holding next week’s garbage pickup.

I still harbour resentment
at this manipulation of my youthful devotion,
at my friend’s mother’s betrayal,
at the disposal of this lifeless corpse
belonging to something she once loved.

You have only to wait.

You have only to wait, they will find you;
like tendrils of fog they will infiltrate the cracks,
will seep under closed doors,
they will spread outward across the floor,
lapping at chair legs, licking at baseboards.

They are the good intentions,
the broken promises,
the words spoken in anger,
residue from ill intent.

They carry with them the hatchet unburied,
the sharp-edged grudge,
the dull anger of denial,
the horns of hate.

You cannot outrun them
for they stick to you like burrs,
clinging to your clothing,
staining your lily-white hands,
darkening your innocent brow.

They are the karma that grows,
the debt unpaid,
the sorries unsaid,
the guilt of neglect.

They plague you with what ifs,
should haves,
might have beens.
They replay scenes you’d rather forget
and you burn with shame
and with sorrow and with guilt.

These are the sins unconfessed;
no priest can absolve these iniquities,
no number of Hail Marys will wash
the blood from your hands.

You have only to wait.
Memories forgotten will surface
like the weathered bones of dinosaurs,
grotesque and monstrous,
in the eroding rock strata of your defences.
Every bone exposed, every hurt feeling,
every harsh word is there.

They do not remain buried in the past,
hidden behind the screen of humour,
of good deeds,
of an exemplary life.

Someday all the ill once afflicted on others
will return to haunt you,
to creep in through your bedroom walls
and crawl under the covers,
caressing you with horny hands,
tweaking you and tugging at the blankets
until you can stand it no longer,
until you cry out in your sleep,
“I confess! It was I! I did those horrible things!”

For when that day arrives,
the day they find you and foul you
with their fiendish residue,
that day you will learn,
perhaps too late,
that love was all that was necessary,
forgiveness freedom unfettered,
tolerance a virtue above all.

You can wallow in the despair of past decisions
or you can open the door,
the window,
and your heart.
For life is short and love
is everything.

The Fantasy and the Reality

In my mind
our bodies entwine
like sinewy adders
and creeping vines
our souls unite
our breath is one
we move together
like a snow-white swan
gliding on the lake
under silver moon-glow
one swan above
its reflection below.

***

We are not one
and never shall be
for though I love you
and you love me
we cannot entwine
but are kept apart
by other claims
on our aching hearts
and though we may live
on either side of a wall
our love is friendship
and that is all.

***

How can we live
knowing our fate
the love we’ll never
consummate
neither to embrace
nor kiss tenderly
or join like the swan
on a moonlit sea
feeling the ache
of love unfulfilled
a fantasy only
tinged with guilt.