Summer

If I crept away from
the monitor and proclaimed
that summer has arrived,
who would believe me —

the rain finished falling,
the sun now swinging high
above the horizon, a lantern
inside the dungeons of
a lingering winter?

Or is it the weather reports
of warmer days, languid on
the sidewalks and lawns,
lingering like a considered kiss
on the lips of blooming flowers?

She has crossed the bridge
and summer smiles, so young,
so innocent, so unaware that leaves
will soon turn color and wilt
like loves forged in the heat

of a summer afternoon.  In
the world of bits and bytes,
the days are never hot, nor cold —
they are just days, a calculation
of the passing of time

bereft of events and consequence,
like breathing until it ends.

Once Ago

You crept in with
salt wind breath, sails
full-bosomed, heralded
by every harbour rat,
the creak of spars along
the horizon’s proclivity
and remembrances of
your smile, touch’s taste
a long, sweet finish
in my memory.

Today, you were  preceded
by an electronic burp,
five thousand clicking bytes,
a warning from the spam filter
that you might very well be
infectious, worm-ridden,
your very purpose poison to
the realm of memory,
your smile blinking, ‘you have
mail, you have mail’.

Footprints

Imprint a pattern
on sand, just above
the line where waves
weave blank — and
I think of a  you
and others melded —
a pattern — of words
and opinions — events —
words woven into
a cloak against the dark
and the cold — stories
about — how wave
and rock are balanced
on a sentence neither
of us remember —
and yet the whole
universe depends upon
our interpretations.

Why Words

This constant chatter
and natter which eats
at the bowels of every
action, which transforms
the most unlikely moment
into another war —
words, sheep, cows
roaming home down a
country road, stopping
traffic, halting progress
and impeding any rational
thought — words
the wind which blows us
around like leaves skittering
down a November street
lost from the tree
and the event of being
the glorious green
growth of another summer.

The Edge

The sun has almost dissolved
into orange turning night
and lights gain strength, giant
steps adorning the street;
door mice nailed to
house fronts; bronze burning out
of window’s mouths.  We are
shadows on the deck, a small
arm of the shadow army occupying
back yard, driftwood on
patio, dark wine darkened deeper
in frail crystal.  The argument
with too much strength has almost
played itself out and decisions made
so long ago are again
undecided, stretched, tortured
on the rack of present, risk
rank with the fury of
all the deaths which never arrived
on the eight o’clock morning
train and those which snuck in,
door to door salesmen swinging
scythes, slicing through
the flowers of the next minute —
so, let us begin again and sing
the disharmonious songs of our children.

Air Show

The sky growls like thunder
and then they appear,
rappelling on their threads
of power — jets tripping
though the air.

I remember my mother’s
stories, the walk from home
to somewhere, how she
shuddered when a crow
took flight, when bullets
flew from a strafing plane

and the man beside her died,
as she cowered in a gutter.
My grandfather lost his horse
to another round of bullets —
a toast in the pub of power,
a toast to the power of force.

The jets strafe our house
and hover, for a moment before
diving to the airport, five men
who entertain through a Canadian
summer, far from the drums of war.

I remember my mother’s anger,
I remember my mother’s fear,
I remember my mother’s words
as she talked about those years.

The sky growls like thunder,
I look into the sky and see
the snowbirds flying through
the vision in my mother’s fear.