Old Memories of Forgotten Pain
In the clutter
of a box, with crumpled papers, old photographs,
there is an
obituary torn from the local news
more than forty
years ago. What laughs
we had, I
quickly recall: words refuse
to come on other
things, and images resist,
so that memory
stumbles on the fatal rock
of this youthful
poet, student, friend, missed
without
recollection, feelings under lock,
until mere
chance brought back the name and date,
the sense of
guilt that I neglected promises
to put his verses
into print and ease the weight
of obligations
on his children. One misses
opportunities
when circumstances dissolve,
and when his
daughters move elsewhere to find love.
Birth and Death
Not all of them
are overseas, like salmon
Who must return
at the end of their lives to spawn
After smelling
sweet waters, bounding the surf, and on
Over three
quarters of a continent, and the dawn
Of their
survival is their demise, exhausted ones.
I realize there
are a few here, too, always, like bear
And wolf who
wish to preserve the seeds they bare,
Another season
turns, and sleeps away the year,
This was not
known before or recognized in the fear
That overwhelms
me in my journey as I come near
The end of my
existence and my exile
And as the night
draws down in shadows, I reconcile
My dreams to
that reality, though no smile
Gives
satisfaction or hope, only the bile
Is gone and the
rage damped to nothing…
If Only
So much could
have been different if only some little thing
Had been noticed
more than half a century ago,
Some flickering
of light, some noisome creature’s sting
Caught the
attention of one who plodded row
On row in the
darkness of habit and insensitivity.
The wheel would
not have skidded on the ice
And the heavy
weight of attention over that declivity
Could never have
lost its centre of balance twice
As we spun off
the road and then under the snow.
The sun glinted
and then turned black. The spring
Of destiny
slowly uncoiled… why, who can ever know
How mountains,
clouds and attention learn to sing
Or what silences
the cries of the abandoned soul
Until the waking
driver crawled out of the hole.
Frustrated Poetry
Such things as
love or inspiration, what should
I think of them?
Art as the result of pain
And endless
frustration? My life’s not good
Enough, the
guilt of too many years blocks the drain.
If I attempt to
write sonnets and stories, blood
Is not spilt,
and hesitant opinions can never explain
Anything to
anyone in deep trouble—they would
Probably
exacerbate the confusion: so
Don’t cite
neurotic versifiers’ dreams or quote
Cynical
scribblers’ prison notes. Below
The gasping,
grasping surface of the moat,
Crocodiles at
rest will always float.
That’s all, all
I ever can or wish to know,
All else
ephemeral, dust, cinders, snow.
