Line-a-day Poem Complete

a tapestry
tracks of deer, coyote scat, feathers
where footprints, pawprints weave with
What once sought death now has found it
Remnants in a heap
Naked, abandoned on the path
Approach pinions, black as velvet
The dog, the boy round a bend
A trio of vultures soars on spools of air
The child looks up into silence
threading through scrub grasses after a toad
The dog, nose to the the ground, surprises a garter sake
cloaked in white flowers
poison ivy in autumn scarlet, by squat junipers
down Rose Crossroad, hemmed by
The boy and his retriever shuttle
Flight, immortal
for garden flowers.
‘blue devils,’ a thorn’s excuse
Heat, in abundance;
to deliver chocolate.
fiction conspired with cash
missed the moment when
By one day, the cottontail
Too late, the rabbit.
the speed trust leaves the barrel.
Rather, its velocity:
love which brings its end.
It’s not the calibre of
Take aim, sight with care.
hear its rhythm, poetry.
Without plot, beginning, end,
is pure folly.
to read the shoreline as prose
Resist temptation:
as the tides advance, withdraw.
reduced to grains that glimmer
Wave-weary, sun bleached,
to become so like the sand:
It’s alright, okay
etched on rock by winds, by waves.
History, climate unmasked,
gauge pits,etch deep lines.
Centuries of freeze and thaw
A cold countenance:
Tuesday, a harsh about-turn.
Monday — cloudless, sun-happy;
A perfect Janus.
One turned to Spring, one to Fall.
Winter’s two faces:
create an ambush that sears.
apprehension, both absent,
Anticipation,
without some foreshadowing:
But, without either,
A last chance for innocence.
and when truth overtakes hope:
not really knowing,
The moment between that point,
Illness? A deceit?
clothed in the trappings of dread.
how it lurks in the shadows,
You sense it breathing,
This time, you feel something near.
Apprehension:
the event, the bows, ribbons.
in the preparing, as in
as much in waiting,
The celebration
A birthday? Christmas?
promises desires, fulfilled.
Feel its warmth, how it teases
You sense its goodness.
You know something is coming.
Anticipation:
set Sirens’ songs to gunfire.
Learn now, how a shipwrecked mind
whatever surface.
of how nine-tenths lurks below
Mundane examples
but on wet pavement floors you.
cushions against rough terrain
It has rubber’s feel,
what connects you to the earth.
Check out the thin sole,
with rat shit in fine boxes.
grains of rice emerged, to blend
from what grey waters
from what sweatshop those shoes came,
Don’t bother to check
Choose fine goods, foods to consume.
Take a fifty-dollar bill.
Sometimes, only sometimes.
What you see is what you get.
‘At face value:’
who draws them into her heart.
glitter, bend boughs toward Earth
Encrusted, ice jewels
garments fashioned by winter.
Cedar branches wear
Snowgeese embroider the sky.
Loons dive into veiled shadows.
near the watermark.
on bedding of shore-worn shale,
A garter snake basks
at the hem of tufted clouds.
on elms with bud appliqués,
And in weaves of waves,
freed from scarves of ice, waits Spring.
At the edge of lakes,
transforms landscape into bride.
A lace veil of soft, bright cold
still green, summer green.
on laneways, stones and grasses
And yet, new snow falls
humanity languishes.
roadsides, ruins, prisons where
from quarries, beachheads,
under the weight of these stones
is rubble and blood and hate.
of the staircase toward peace
when all that remains
who it was cast the first stone
Why does it matter
joyful steps to her future?
one hundred and twenty-three
how can she not take
in snow-squall bold November:
Such an offer, made
They spell “Will you marry me?”
Each orb carries one letter.
lined with plump pumpkins.
to the lower waterfall,
Oak-leaf strewn, rough steps
loses himself in colour.
drawn to the sound of its light,
its sole prisoner,
Caught by a prism’s spectrum,
He can see, can hear.
understand what it is they hear.
to those around him who don’t
calls in counterpoint
He sways to his own rhythms,
What does the boy hear?
His calls, a plea for something.
a single note, at random.
Wordless, he cries out
He sits apart, averts his eyes.
How to love the boy?
wherever he looks around him.
Few understand what he sees
his vantage all his own.
Heavy set, teen-tall,
What future, the boy?
not at what the future wrought.
to the past, its promise then,
Better to look past,
at least not as closely.
Better not to look,
spider veins, pockmarks, wide pores.
Reveal him, a landscape of
transferred onto skin.
Years become topography,
His face displeases.
to one dimension: surface.
frames his vision, confines him
An iron mirror
sees his life in retrospect.
Bent, curved, lined, he lives,
protects better than the skull.
Mesh, when bent, curved, sewn, stapled,
of titanium.
a post-modern construction
Or not? Love’s fabric:
who fall from where they were bound.
Slender strands release lovers
rent by deception.
as fragile as gossamer
The fabric of love,
knit the savaged skeins of love.
Without excuse, beg trust to
seek forgiveness?
words of humble penitence,
Or would he whisper
on shoulders unbent by guilt?
to cloak lies that rest easy
Weave no excuses
in arrogance, righteousness?
Would he speak aloud
or naked, shawled in tatters.
robed in slick silks, beaten gold
from consequences
Knew no escape, no rescue
She expected it.
Their hearts beat in counterpoint.
not really hers to possess.
the child was not hers,
as he grew within her womb,
From the beginning,
echoes with his own heartbeat.
Instead, a room of concrete
breeze-easy, pastel.
how calm would feel: Petal-soft,
He thought he knew it,
in what he believes, he seeks?
What if he finds no refuge
Is it more? Or less?
The same as quiet offers?
What does calm bestow?
aloft with rasp and cackle.
soft and sure, offset by terns,
their three-note secret,
the conspiracy of doves,
No pleasure comes from
craved by the sole penitent.
Blue jays call, insult the calm
Chickadees complain.
Morning rain spits and sputters.
Too much, too much noise.
undone: no drops reach the ground.
A double rainbow cliche
on desperation.
High clouds gave rain leave to fall
Rain: yes, yes, yes, yes.
till rain offers them lilies.
They glide past falling petals
burned ochre by drought.
Old World Swallowtails from leaves
Hard to distinguish
A fall of sun brings Riesling.
Tendril vines twist ’round wires.
Sharon roses thrive.
In a green county, proud corn stalks,
Rain makes summer grow.
Bleeds more with her arrow out.
Wounded, he flails, falls and folds.
she draws back her love.
From a continent away,
Now words cut him down.
hoist him to her trophy wall.
siren calls to pull him back,
She used weapon tears,
to seek wisdom on his own.
He wanted to leave,
her bow taut, arrow ready.
How she had pursued him then,
He was not as sure.
demanded a home from him.
She vowed she loved him,
by love’s elasticity.
Limitless, it can be bound
It’s invisible.
No trellis supports its weight.
Openness defies form.
openness lies, unguarded.
Without shield or hard-grown shell,
or mind, it transforms.
Whether carried by the heart
Love as carapace?
The warp, weft of life — altered.
Tissue — hardened, constricted.
anger transforms heart.
As scissors alter fabric,
Calm, tame your anger.
shatter surface, silence, calm.
Such weapons, such aimless hands
where soft clouds shimmer.
they shoot toward deep water,
With rifles, handguns,
stays calm as they reload.
The wide bay, shawled by sunset,
line the roughhewn rail.
Beer cans — one, two, three, four, five —
Three men on a porch.
treasures, ideas, unlocked.
whether on paper or on a screen,
home to wide harbours;
imagination, spirit
Words anchor minds, bring
above the high-water line.
Histories, written, survive
that heed but the moon.
spoken stories lose to tides
All ephemeral,
by the hands of history.
Before letters, cavelines drawn
in evolution.
images and sounds from worlds
The language of life —
framed the child, formed the woman.
her presence, her love, etched deep,
Like lines in a hand,
this friend for fifty-two years.
A song in praise of
with birdsong to end darkness.
Silhouette landscapes merge
its lover, silence.
Loneliness lies awake with
No light before dawn.
till her eyes close to their light.
She will kindle love with loss
for eternity.
gives her just reason to mourn
The death of a child
mourned whether full fair or plain.
All creatures, worthy of love,
Her tears bless the earth.
or real? Her calm tames sorrow.
This woman: a myth
A saint, man-made, thus undone.
lust-red, would taint his palette:
Brush stroke caresses,
No man could ever paint her.
She’s a madonna.
Only a harsh hush, man-made.
No songbirds. No Chorus frogs.
fields without flowers?
in forests bereft of trees,
What will children hear
that churn songs and soft feathers.
to turn great blades of steel
that rouse high towers
Their melodies, lost to winds
Dead birds cannot sing.
their heads bowed to melody.
Wild sheaves sway to its rhythms;
ripples, rifles them.
as wind calls to high grasses,
Hands pull at harp strings,
summoned by the call of wolves.
after midnight calm returns,
They lap, slap, clap till
even at this no-tide shore.
Waters play restless,
the thrust and parry of waves.
spike-crowned mergansers en garde;
watch the tournament:
his audience at ringside,
We, the visitors,
red on aqua silk, rampant.
as his own, hoists his standard:
claims cliffs and shoreline
a fox with dance and a feint
Saturday morning,
in their mother’s silk-draped womb.
they fail to hide the new life
make themselves so small
in aqua tuck under her wings,
Two little bridesmaids
caresses her bare shoulder.
her spouse of twenty minutes
Poised at its apex,
spans a rare-bird habitat.
This bridge to Eden
of stem orchids, dyed turquoise.
gold, sequinned flip-flops; a bouquet
her gown, high-waisted;
on the bridge to Bowman Beach;
Blond, tanned, Eve waits
for his return from nowhere.
A concert grand, notes, books, wait
he touched, survive him.
rooms where he worked, whatever
Infused by absence,
still infuses memory.
even as music lingers,
Places cry empty,
a hospital mattress, stripped.
Glasses by the bed,
without breath, the balm of voice.
All absence rings: muted,
metaphysical.
not inside walls of cells or
No haven for thought,
No sun-blessed glade or bower.
No cloud-crowned mountain summit.
No beachside haven.
to return from or to.
Absence: Nowhere
their mastery, unchallenged.
At least, at this island’s shore,
to the pelicans.
grant superiority
Top heavy, these pines
leave a morsel for a tern.
pouch a fish, swallow it whole,
glide, soar and plunge,
The two-legged creatures that can’t
It’s not their ocean:
stoop, pan for shells at high tide.
White women, mainly sun-hatted,
The entertainment:
roost in one of four pine trees.
Eighteen pelicans
on shores of hourglass seas.
if they deposed grains of sand
as would be diamonds,
Life eternal: valued less,
What’s life without death?
in memory, still prevail.
Life force, animation, soul —
fills the chamber.
absence of life becomes large,
In the aftermath,
severs their intimate bond.
only the absence of breath
Without injury,
survives the dying moment.
Their resemblance lasts,
similar in looks, habits.
they become one another:
Like those much-married,
Life is nothing without death.
A lifetime: long? Short?
nestle in fate’s filigree.
Jewels of experience
triangulation.
palm, crosshatched in diamonds,
A life line of crowns:
diamonds in winter’s crown.
As a colour, colourless:
Replace that cliche.
as a colour, blue as ice.
The nature of cold:
becomes itself, unadorned.
the room emptied of Christmas
Without scent or lights,
Chains of gold, ornaments: boxed.
Exit the balsam.
where cell walls wait to be breached.
Spirit, soul: free in her mind
seeks freedom elsewhere.
rejects her physical self;
She, shackled and bound,
her essence; when she lives, dies.
Her body confines, defines
A prison of cells?
Bones, flesh, gray matter, veins, blood?
What is she, she asks.
under lips, that smile — her skull.
the mask that hides what she knows:
She stares at her face,
in a mirror framed with vines.
Her sharp reflection
to life’s choreography.
in the arts. To pirouette
Well schooled? Yes, of course,
a new dancemaster for death.
Wanted: dead or alive,
a gas station and buses.
His lifescape: a pub, petstore;
Stops at each corner.
without lights, five roads converge.
His intersection:
as wheels turned toward Somewhere.
he watched through tattered curtains
not nearly a home.
His house near the bus depot,
He lived tough at first.
blind to how she makes her own.
luck rule her life; this woman
fairy godmothers,
for one hour; portrays how
She speaks of herself
and dreaming of sugarplums.
Equal measures of dollars
Good will, good business, joined.
His cavalcade, commercial.
Santa on Main Street:
the embers of memory.
flourishes unblemished, fans
what he was to her,
Still, his essence at that time,
Now so long ago.
wine, whispers: all real or not?
Midnight flamenco, tangos,
she feared, yet followed.
when it was her turn at last,
When he came for her,
let him lead them anywhere.
student guides at the world’s fair
He charmed them: boys, girls —
the summer she turned twenty.
Now she remembers
steps, fluid as a dancer’s.
tall, slim; hands loose at his sides;
how he crossed her street:
how he walked down her front steps,
Now she can still see
felt the heat of his pursuit.
found his features beautiful,
a serious girl
when almost a woman,
Forty years ago,
coming but strives forward still.
blind curves: she cannot know what’s
twisting up, around
a steep sinue of a road,
Or must she travel
her soft words to slip through stone?
where gravity enables
courses ready-made
Does she, like water, follow
Is the way easy?
filtered with each narrowing.
impurities in the flow
following fissures,
Forging canyons in the mind,
Torrent or trickle?
find their voices at the core.
distilled words, drawn down, down, down,
with bedrock and shale:
in a taught conspiracy
Water, gravity
ephemeral as a breath.
their substance, significance —
less than gossamer:
Like the emperor’s fine clothes,
Folly, such folly.
dream of ruling the cosmos.
presume a role at centre stage,
Their prayers, secular,
no longer call to their gods.
Guests at the table
To dream? Impossible now.
Waves, wind in conspiracy.
twisting and tossing.
caught by juniper branches,
A dawn of anger
as leaves turn toward the sun.
Minds, hearts tuned to melody,
with this assembly.
Their refrain cannot compete
Listens for her fears.
sees a plane, white on sky blue.
She hears the addaggio,
screen the stage from her.
a grove of stooped backs, straight spines
Trunks block her sight-lines;
sneakers, heels, red ballet flats.
bronze sandals, hiking boots,
Plum painted toe-nails,
she sees only shoes and legs.
From her low deckchair
imprint on eyes that still weep.
Fear, hate: skyline ghosts scrape heights,
with images from hell.
or omnipresent, overlaid
Memory, fleeting
Perhaps has forgotten how.
so doesn’t listen or hear.
He never asked her,
she tells him, she shows him what.
What she needs from him:
shroud him, steal him from her.
tatting, a pattern of holes,
Memories like lace:
One theft begets another.
She should have been warned.
many words, some of the tune.
till he no longer recalls
as an air to hum
that theft, remembered only
For ten years, plus two,
stole for them an anthem: “we.”
overrode their histories,
with rhythmic refrain,
Seduction, its melody
They met in a song.
cloaked her, blindfolded her eyes.
Confidence, experience
How not to be caught?
one theft begets another.
She should have been warned:
disguise the clothes of a storm.
that warp the weaver’s pattern,
A sash of weathers
in the same yardage of sky.
Lightning, a rainbow
Did they fall if no one saw?
Could young pinions lift them?
Were they frightened off?
would whistle in taking flight.
The wings of three doves
A philosopher’s puzzle.
does that make a sound or not?
and no one is there,
If a tree falls in the wood,
Pose the question well.
without audience. They’re gone.
At 10:00, the next scene: silent,
nest in a huddle.
the adult, two juveniles
In 9 a.m. sun,
among silver-green berries.
to shelter in junipers
easy to follow
Her example, how to fly,
Does ‘mother’ leave first?
A matter of choice? Instinct?
New wings, tight-bound in the nest?
A predator’s call?
to abandon soft closeness:
What stakes the moment
warmed by feathered breast and sun.
under a cascade of vines,
Two, closed-eye fledglings,
on a back deck’s cedar rail.
A dove’s shallow nest
is no one’s child anymore.
gives evidence her daughter
a mother’s birthday
no longer celebrated,
On July the 2nd,
with a boat and body bag.
An object to recover
beyond requiem.
in the silence, in the depths
Her spirit submerged
Ledges underwater know.
Baystones on shore understand.
Why no chickadees?
no longer a soul to save.
An object to recover;
beyond requiem.
in the silence, in the deep,
Why no warblers, no blue jays?
At dawn, not a sound.
Weighed down, she swallows the lake.
or flickers of fireflies.
in whip-poor-will calls
she no longer finds wonder
Her back to the land,
at summer solstice sunset.
she’s blind to cirri, radiant
Awaiting nightfall,
and brings a lesson of stones.
She abandons words
Virginia Woolf beside me.’
Loons’ common laughter, gulls’ cries.
quiet water, stones.
‘I need beauty, a place of
What was she thinking?
down a lane of spent lilacs.
Her final turn off pavement,
black above asphalt.
she drives through clouds of mayflies,
Sand against windshield:
that run through, burn her fingers.
sifts through sands of discontent
seeks worlds in prayer,
a penitent, forsaken,
Clothed in rags and gold,
the cruel silks of perfection.
The spirit struggles, caught in
what is gained? What lost?
or a curse. In the striving,
Salvation: a prize
or by what it is they find.
defined by what they seek there
waystations or home:
journey to sanctuaries,
Pilgrims all and each
unravel irredescence.
From thin nylon threads, sure hands
define the seasons.
nets raised at sunrise;migrants
Vigil,ritual:
crave beauty, indigo wings.
Covetous, the watchers wait,
to catch a warbler.
paths, through forest leaves and light,
Nets strung, loose across
a traveller trav’ling light.
marked, not scarred; in hardship’s wake,
lined, yet beautiful;
wishes to age like her friend:
That second woman
full twenty years her junior.
She creates for another,
Fuchsia clothes her.
Black, white, grey: not her colours.
Not exactly,no.
woman for her younger self.
A garland, crafted by one
run-off colours, curled.
Within lies Spring, hand knit, in
Blue tissue, ribbons.
Why shout, wake her for nothing?
Whisper her name. She sleeps, still.
Dribble wets her hands.
Dosing, she breathes well: no pain.
She is ninety-three.
What becomes you? Must I choose?
or loathing: In wood? In stone?
sacrilege, homage
To sculpt as worship or as
I turn Picasso.
onto stone-cold April earth.
A eulogy of snow falls
recite liturgies.
breakers in exultation
Long-shadow sunrise;
stone but colours hands in prayer.
Light–broken, scattered– can’t warm
in stained glass fragments.
Find a heart sanctuary
Ask no such questions.
To answer, dissect a heart.
A lover’s, mother’s or child’s?
Which death is harsher?
Voracious grief consumes worlds.
Conversations fail.
the wave to steal their future.
She forgets the children, sends
throws off her mantle.
she dresses herself in flames,
A victim no more,
seeks vengeance, retribution.
Earth, deflowered, denuded
To yield is weakness.
the hard one she learned from Earth:
She takes the lesson —
she smoothes her shifts of snow.
His designs on her, fruitless,
Scowls her cold ‘welcome.’
She ignores the willing sun.
No one has told Spring.
Kudos or oblivion?
Doesn’t know for what he hopes:
impatient, pulsing.
as waves wait below March ice —
He waits for judgment
Breathless, he hands his work in.
Their weight, heavy on his chest.
Too late to change them.
a loser’s pitiable picks.
Each found object, drowned:
Afloat, it steals the surface.
shrieks as it streaks down the glass.
precise cut, force fed —
a slab of thick styrofoam —
Now he adds `ice,`snow`;
a box of condoms, still wrapped.
a rusted padlock, open,
an empty pill box,
join a cat’s eye, rubik’s cube,
A dime, a penknife
with water, silt, his stuff.
An aquarium: heavy
His offering, pales.
she IS that tortured torso.
It is no surprise —
obsenities, defilement.
Scarlet lips, parted, scream out
blue papier mache.
her self study, scuplted in
Another classmate:
lines, as transparent as she.
rolled and tied, suspended from
Parchment confessions
transfers words onto paper.
One girl in his class
speak to him of his likeness.
The expanse, the emptiness —
Surface, all surface.
white as the bay in winter.
What he ‘sees’ is white,
Few images, no words come.
The teacher’s demand blinds him.
a four-month challenge.
assigned to sixteen year-olds,
Define who you are:
with its well of cold wisdom.
theatre as oasis
The survivor’s masque:
a husband, a daughter die.
The facts, complicit;
expiation, catharsis?
altruistic warning or
But why speak of it:
Otherwise, where’s the drama.
This cannot end well.
a conspiracy of dread.
Between actor and writer,
stakes them as her own.
unadorned on a bare stage,
A second woman,
lend her language urgency.
ERs, ICUs, IVs
her own crown of thorns.
the dark aura of her grief,
One woman wears words,
Death does not take holidays.
Christmas garlands, tinsel-draped;
beside the toll road.
stranded in weeds, untended
A shrine’s wooden cross,
which is the fairest of them…
Mirrored, mirrored on the bay,
the spectrum of flames.
framed by strands of cirrus clouds;
Flawless complexion,
headland pines in silhouette.
Freshwater sea, hard-shouldered;
Upstart? Unwelcome?
insinuates its profile.
A rival sunset
eddies, with the current. Dreams.
Becalmed, adrift, she floats on
between east and rest.
the surface; a thin, black line
A boat’s wake bisects
languid, liquid, beaten gold.
the sea assumes its mantle:
mainland hills and bays,
Embraced by island cliffs and
She invokes that sun.
that can draw her to its night.
Not any sunset, but one
Eyes closed, she seeks a sunset.
crow-black trumps sheep-white.
In the tangled sheets of her mind,
She cannot find sleep.
Lesser birds flee South.
fields, peppered with stalwart crows.
Cornstalk stubble, white
in the elegance of swans.
In pale sunlight, take solace
Geese fan to the bay.
down a harsh diagonal.
We take flight, career
no human tread to tame them.
pads much larger than a dog’s;
Fresh tracks to the left:
Even the wind, quieted.
Stillness, such stillness.
to worship on virgin ground.
until we stand, as pilgrims,
We follow on faith
suggest a way to the shore.
Boot prints, small paw prints
in perfect semicircles.
grasses trace the wind’s cycles
Distant waves chant as
into a white-powder bowl.
A pause, a breath, then
Pass trees grown tall without soil.
We ascend the soft, steep slope.
Geese mutter, shuffle.
below dunes, high as ten men.
We walk the shoreline
Grace in every pas de deux.
A morning choreographed.
white against slate-grey.
tundra swans’ fidelity:
Stark on calm waters,
Slaves to gravity can’t fly.
If they fall, they fall hard, hard.
toward a trapeze.
Like acrobats, lovers reach
What is this circus?
Stairs spiral down to nothing.
Part dollhouse dream, part funhouse.
handpainted cups, plates.
acrylic skulls, lace curtains,
In miniature:
Nature’s trick and treat.
Vampires: mittened, in boots.
On Hallow’een, snow.
by hands at her strings.
not easily satisfied
Jazz is a woman
leaves her like a breath.
rests in her palm, lifts soft wings,
A saw-whet, banded,
lines and lines of waves.
their histories strung along
Cormorants file East,
Still, still a robin.
Groves of skeleton shadows.
Grass, frost-white at dawn.
pearl gray, scarlet fringed.
weaves a shawl of thanksgiving:
October sunrise
Crack against concrete.
Mica wings glitter, flutter.
A dragonfly falls.
in this holy wind.
on a wrath of God dark day
Nothing stays the same
Spiders and prey swing.
the architecture of webs.
Against the wild wind —
a double rainbow.
and blue boots, the boy catches
In yellow slicker
toward monochrome.
maples illuminate paths
A walk through fire;