Roots and Hooks
the last sips
taste missing stories
slipping into small days . . .
life has no recipe
of elements chosen
from stone age caches
of hunger seeds
kept dry
until tears awaken them
to acquaint
the salt marsh
with the dance
of tides
sound seeps
rippling the moment
as code flees
into the layers
of paint and faces
where the tendril coils
and rings
the essence of the story . . .
the saga always
at the centre
of family
urging roots
to hook the stars
The Blank Verse of the Young Skier
I had done hikes this way before,
both clockwise counterwise
between Mount French and Piggy Plus
around Mount Robertson.
The continental divide traced
that ridge of cols and peaks.
I planned to skinny ski the loop
one winter I was young.
The counter clockwise route was picked
as the west col was smooth
and opened on a glacier
where ski teams summer trained.
So easy through one col then east
just one kilometer to find
the Piggy Plus and Robertson’s
two hundred meters up.
That steep and jagged rock was striped
with bands of snow and ice,
but to this sharp and narrow col
the climb went very well.
Now whiteout visibility,
I could not see my boots
but knew there was a ten foot face
from ridge to snow beneath.
But knowing was not seeing where
and whoosh! I found that drop
and dropped, and stopped, and hoped the worst
was passed, for now, for sure.
Still zero visibility
and skiing on I fell
each time I stopped, because I could
not discern down from up.
As shapes and shades began to loom,
some climbers there seemed shocked
to see a man emerge from white.
. . . Was it . . . a reckless thing?
The Tribe
when I arrived lots had left
but the goodfire was high
as more were attending
from the spirit borders
newcomers closed the circle
tending logs of ancient lore
as elder voices chorused
the litanies of dignity
there is a hole in the wind
that funnels the horizon
sounding the legend
of the sunset aura
we were figures in the vision
we are the voices to sooth
the ghosts of every story
and calm a lake of time
Rant of Ages
Life is a process and a bit of a princess.
Explaining the world by having a mover
is like answering a query with “Answer!”
A grasshopper feels in the wisdom fields;
inedible/edible/my genes are getting tight.
Time is a maker that needs things to pass.
The sole thing humans create is meaning.
When is there an inconstancy of time?
Where does physics fade to religion
when we ultimately divide matter
plowing it into a nameless field?
Knowing there are few answers
questions sometimes have to do.
I would like to be preserved, in amber.
It is Even Stranger Than That Master Jack
The things we are do not occur in time,
it is their stir that causes time to be.
To see the wall where we record our life
you must stand back, yes, away, away back.
The elemental units interact
creating space and pace and cognizance.
The universe, with us, has just one course
and flow results, along one path of age . . .
Emerge repeating truth if it exists.
Please know that even if you understand
there still is unpredictability
and inner space that precedes the particle.
It is not loss that causes pain to us,
but love, and insufficiency of time.
