Imagine us all, he said

awynart

        ...    ...    ...    ...

If we do not see each other again
in this life or any other, let’s agree
to each take the time,
whenever we can,
to imagine us all standing at the rail
confused but delighted at the endless,
deathless sea before us
with no need to speak of desperation
for once.  Imagine us all
in sunset, in sunrise, under a laughing moon.
Imagine a shared moment
where it didn’t need to make sense
that there was no sense to the voyage.

~~ Excerpt from "This Ship", by Tony Brown.

________________
*  Thanks to permission from Tony Brown, who several years ago told me I could share any of his poems, and will do so again in an upcoming issue of too-long dormant Salamander Cove in July/August.

Time

Finds

Grande vente de garage at Parc Ile Saint Quentin yesterday.

 What I found:

____________________

a leather-boot keychain, for 25 cents

A lovely green stone necklace, 50 cents

   Two pen holders and 6 drawing nibs (new!!), $1

A black and gold-colored metal wildcat pin, $2

Artwork made from pressed flowers, herbs and seeds

from Quebec artist/botanist Julie Corbeil,

signed and framed,  $4

(This photo doesn't do it justice.)

A little hand-carved wooden figure by
sculptor Robert Jean, of Saint-Jean-Port-Jolie, $1

When I brought him home, I put him next to another carved wooden figure
that I got some years ago that's actually an incense holder.
They seem to be getting along just fine together.

I was not so sure, however, about Francis and François.
Francis is a wooden deer with broken antlers, carved from driftwood, gotten in Vermont.

"Francis"

This carved horse, now called  François, was sitting on a table
 at the garage sale,  ignored by all the passersby.
He reminded me a bit of Francis.  I, too, passed him by -
but then went back.  Something about those eyes. 

His backside includes this gaping hole
that resembles a mouth, howling.

Here's an imaginary (photographic) intro between the two sculptures
as they size each other up.

"Hello, who's this you've brought home with you?"

May I present François, I said,
emphasizing his finer-sculpted points.

Francis checks him out.

No comment.

 François waits.

I'm taller than you, Francis thinks.

You can join me in sentinel duty at the window,

he says, authoritatively.

Because photographers can manipulate perception,

here it would seem they are the same height

and Francis appears more friendly.

As in all contrived, anthropomorphic stories,

a happy ending trumps a not so happy one.

 I truly do not know if Francis and François will get along,

or if the perpetually smiling wooden man won't occasionally

feel like frowning --  but in our world, inanimate objects

don't speak or feel, and so can't really tell us.

And yet they do, when imagination takes over,
giving a tiny, decorative clunk of metal

one pins on a garment, to "accessorize",

the ability to leap, to dream.

"Can I go now?"

Tree Talk

awynfoto2015

Good morning, Maurice

you show-off, you,

conspiring with the sun to make

your limb-shadows dance on my curtains

just so

27 years ago

It's like you're on this long, long journey that never ends, and the
voices in the back keep asking:

Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?

Visitors

. .   

 Little brothers, taking some sun

Frag Jots

awynart

Hanging up clothes in the back yard yesterday

a wave across to neighbor Clement

and his dog Charlotte

who then walk on over and

Clement tells me the tests are back, he has
cancer of the blood and that

despite eating six pieces of toast every morning,

he's still losing weight.  
The neighbor on the other side is moving out
for lack of sleep, on account of her downstairs neighbor who 
despite several visits from the police

(and eviction notice from the landlord)

rampages on.

This morning we'll have rain,

(so the weather people say).

The community garden folks want us there at 9:00
to stake and rope the plots.

A second cup of jumpstart dark-roasted Trader Joe coffee

and I'm off.  Should I or should I not take

an umbrella?

mini rescue

On the way to work this morning, a bee
drowning
in the visitor cat's water bucket.
Lacking a twig or spoon to extract it,
he used his car key - bee stopped
flailing, struggled aboard, got a
short ride, then wobbled off
into the grass. Recovery imminent.

Had he left bee in the carport,
the cat who'd come soon would get curious,
probably get stung - doesn't
need another wound as badge of survival -
like its frost-chewed half
ear, compliments of one more winter
worse than the two last.

Creature headcount stats so far this year -
less bees
   more stray cats
Life coming life going, now
spring, and revival -
until the wind changes
and the drinkwater in the bucket freezes
again.

Whispers from the not-yet garden:
Be back, bee

Welcome back

The snow geese in autumn honk and fly by on their way south, but seldom stop.  During spring, however, as many as 500,000, on their way to Baffin Island (Nunavut territory)  descend en masse on  Baie-du-Febvre, on the shores of Lac Saint-Pierre, Quebec.  Why here?

The 5,000-kilometre journey requires a lot of energy. Prime sources of energy are the residues of maize crops left on the fields from the previous autumn, and they are safe here in the Biosphere Reserve, from natural predators.  They will spend several days in these staging areas, then continue on to the Canadian Arctic, arriving there in June.

Some snippits from a local spring geese migration report

April 12 - Sunday - "Respect"
Observers are urged not to cross the fences or approach the winged visitors in the field, to let them feed and rest. This is a crucial step in their migration where they will accumulate the energy they need to continue their journey.

April 13 - Monday - "Against All Odds"
10:30 a.m. An estimated 200,000 snow geese suddenly arrive in Baie-du-Febvre sector.

April 14 - Tuesday - "Migration Stable"
An estimated 175,000 to 200,000 geese in Baie-du-Febvre sector today. No less than 40 varieties of birds including a golden eagle and two eagles in our area spotted. Also several varieties of ducks.

Spring is really here.  The geese have come back.

Reset

spring rains
warm winds
snow gone!

muddied boots in the hall
Maurice our tree
breaks out in buds

saved seeds dehibernate,
clothesline gets re-strung -
which perennial will be first
to wiggle through, reborn?

River Watch

Last week, along the St. Lawrence,

near the port

_________________________________________________________


 Early this week,
along the St. Maurice

Foggy morning walk across the old railroad bridge

Winter hanging on

 

 

  Let the melting begin!

One bent and grasping

toward the snow-dented tracks -

these bare-limbed trees the sentinels, its watchful companions,

each rooted but vulnerable

to  nature, to man.

Observation

awynartcardpoem@2015

not yet

awynfoto2015

Found today

David Pratt, Gonzotoday, Jan. 21, 2015.

Outscape, Inscape

Yesterday, at the library

Inside

Outside

Tree, bird, words

Some Hidden

thoughts and unsaid words

collect and build in

pools of verse, like land-locked trees

that try to fly.  (How many ever do?)

These quirky pre-launched poems-to-be,

in  struggling to expand their reach,

find here a way yet to emerge,
  to coax the word buds through.

One makes a tree, draws it just so, dressed up as 'poem'

with words that show it's all in vain this stealthy surge,
that tries to just prevail -- cuz all

too often what you get is simply soup (and lacking worth);

deep down inside you know it's doomed, and that it will just fail.
And yet, one learns and can evolve.

Like honing, hearing (new resolve!), and this

type task's of value, yet.  So try  another one.

xxx

xxx

xxx

xxx

xxxxxxxxxx

                                                              

                                                              Dawn! –

                                                           rooster tells

                                                    us, 'Here comes sun'. Look,

                                                             o’er the treetops, greet the

                                                                sky,   the   snow-filled   fields, the    frozen   brook

                                                                   two squirrels   chase,  in 

                                                                         morning’s light on

                                                                          banks   deep, cold

                                                                            & white. O life!
                                                                                  Another                                                                                                                                                                     D                                                                                                                                                                        A

                                                                                        Y

                                                                                    !!!!!!!!!!

Watching

awynart

I worry

you worry

they worry

we all worry, 

wondering

when

At Dawn, Revisitation

awynfoto - 19 January 2015

The Snow Mind

Though one be accustomed to

winter's flakefall and drift,

tree limbs encrusted with snow,

or cedars' boughs iced and

heavied in the wake of

each freezing sweep

as January's cold gels dreams of
spring thaw, keeping one frosted
in the moment,

no thinking, no feeling,
no sight nor sound should permeate,
so that one can behold

the all and the nothing,
be-ing, non-thereness, and the
That that just is.

Inspired by:

THE SNOW MAN
by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;



And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter



Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,



Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place



For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

 It was -29C last week.  Yesterday it warmed up to about  -17C  and we got new snow.

Early morning, I saw my elderly neighbor out the window, already shoveling.

awynfoto-19 January 2015

 Partout, l'hiver.

C'est ça. C'est bon.

awynfotokard, 19 January 2015

*Blackie #3, a neighborhood stray, inspects the new snowpath. 

The keys you're given

 On Remembering the Discovery
 of  Two Grand Old Masters 

I.

And when you can no longer speak

or move 

                 or think
                              or see,

will Beethoven enter the room

to remind you of when you first met?

You thought you heard an echo
in his deafening howl

of something deep and known,
of some collective fist

 screaming out "Not Yet! 
Not YET!"

(the one one thrusts toward the heavens

to rail against Death's grip
or life's 
cruel unforeseens)

II.
"You must listen to Mozart," said the bearded professor,
 "for he is Purrfection."   ('Tis true, what he claims, 
Wolfie calms and delights,  sometimes you sense "God" 
and that music heals  - you later found so) -

but sometimes the fire in your belly is such,

 no contentment can quell, and its sparks burst right through,

 to plead with the universe, just one more 
try.

(Some flames don't die.
"Not yet, please,  not yet,
. . . not yet!")

III.

Beethoven's fingers,  on keys with no sound,
a world gone silent, can't hear his own screams.
(Like Van Gogh's anguished eyes,
 face thick-slabbed and framed,
 the museum warns DON'T TOUCH!!!
 (As if you need fingers,
 to feel his cries.)

IV.
Two worlds collide, arms reach to explore,
 yet to learn of the Gray that hides, that obscures
in the world of Either/Or's -
That's not the point. 
Hierarch toward  mastery

or highest Peak - or just stumble 'round -
until journey's end,
so to speak. But are Heaven or Hell
 the only two doors?

V.
Poor mortal, you want it both ways -
 to get the prize, but not end the chase;

Paradise on earth, and Heaven ungated

(no pre-vetting, no measuring, no "scale",
no rock-hard rule that says 
you graduate or fail.

VI.  
Schiller oded the 4th of the Ninth

with  thunderous joy sparkled by gods,
exhorting us to seek The One
o'er the canopy of stars -
but his There's not a there, 
nor a place out in space,
and The One seems more sensed than e'er known,
(some have shown).

VII.

And when you can no longer be who you were,
find yourself in a room all alone
in which even Mozart doesn't come 'round anymore,

 remember  -
That you have gone to the stars and back
(and not just once or twice)
on rides hitched with all manner of extraordinary souls, 
genius and lessers alike.

 VIII.
 Art, music, and words, and above all, great love
take you there, bring you back, keep you sane.
 You suspect there are slits in that canopy where
 even oft-blinded mortals can peek  past the Peak -
no need anymore
for a key.


__________________________________

*First draft publication

Blitzbuzzed

awynart

Too much attention to a mountainized molehill clouds the purview . . . 
you can't press PAUSE or mute the buzz, it's now too shrill.
Escape to sleep?  Evade time's march, as whirlwinds of every sort
sweep past?     Look, when you awake it's all still there, at every edge, in each nook.  
It's all around, you cannot hide, don't try.  
At each new crash you still rush to look,
it's all a game (they've said as much). 

Those mountains still beckon. 
Just don't get trapped in the woods.

  ____________________________

*The above art image is tweaked from an early original sketch/watercolor  in an ol, forgotten practice notebook.  It seemed to fit the mood of this draft piece, a spontaneous reaction to having too many things coming at one all at once -  but rather than question the urge to instantly react, this imaginary person attempts to reset the clock to allow for time "out".   Or something like that. 

Decide

awynfotokard

Solidarity

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