POETRY
Red Warning - Mutability - Abbot and Hastings - Siren on a Rock - A Love Letter to My Dad - A New Beginning - Today
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Mutability
My eyes water as I walk down
The long hot street.
You mustn’t think I’m crying
It’s just the moment’s sign of aging.
I hunger less for carefree youth.
I thirst for full acceptance
Of the ever changing now.
Abbott & Hastings
A young woman,
gaunt with
curly blonde hair,
stands in the corner
of the sidewalk
Her things circled around her
A white bag stuffed full
A small suitcase locked up
Long black quilted jacket
Hood up around
A pinched white face
White sneakers on sockless feet
in the freezing Vancouver Street
As I pass her by
In my well-to-do state
A comfy roof over my head
food whenever I want
too many clothes in my closet
I wonder
Where does she go?
When she needs a bathroom
Years ago, a manager told me
In her tiny Downtown Eastside office
It’s OK when they only come in
Not to avail themselves of our services
A living room area to meet others
A chance to see a social worker
or an addictions counselor
But just to use the bathroom.
Siren on a Rock
She sat on obsidian black rock
poking out of the churning sea
her long golden locks waving
seductively in the accomplice wind
her voice rising and falling
under those cerulean skies.
The men on the boat looked and listened
enwrapped in those dulcet melodies
“No! No! No!” he cried desperately
bound to the mast with ears stoppered.
But they jumped into the seething sea
and swam furiously, crying out, to her
Helpless, with tears sliding down
red weathered cheeks and a whiskered chin
He bore agonizing witness as
one by one, they gradually sank
down into those dark depths
The boat floated away silently
her sweet voice still rising and falling
Ullysess wept.
A Love Letter to My Dad
I love your gusto for life
A man of the senses
Sitting patiently at a Chinese restaurant
Holding a table for our family of 3 or 6
Unable to wait at this morning dim sum
Savoring a bowl of congee
Or a plate of beef crepes
I love your patience in this and other things.
Casting your reel into a still lake
a fishing net at your rubber feet
Readying your rifle at a Mallard duck
in the water alongside your hand painted decoys
Crouching behind a bush, waiting
for the doe to stop and stand motionless
Tinkering tirelessly with the engine of your
yellow Datsun that I once crunched the gears
Listening patiently as I show you my new hobby,
A small Canon camera with a built-in light meter
Decades ahead of your boxy black one
with its few simple knobs, big negative plates
and its companion hand-held light meter
I hear in your ringing silence
the begrudging acceptance
And maybe more
When so much later I become like you
Trying with this recalcitrant camera
to capture the way you painted the flush
on the young bride’s cheeks
in your black and white photos
the deeper hue of red roses in her bouquet
Or on paper and with a paint brush,
capture the same palm tree
leaning drunkenly on a sandy beach
I adore the way you seized life by its throat,
the genes that swim in my blood
A part of you forever in me,
my beloved father
A New Beginning
I remember
cherry trees blooming fully
Stepping lightly up three flights
to the corner apartment
I remember
Laying the large worn Chinese rug
over the anaemic wooden floor
Unpacking and filling
all those empty welcoming spaces
Making our very first marks
In this hopeful Vancouver life.
Today
I wake up today
Happy that the sun rose again
and that it chose to shine
Gleeful I’ve got all my teeth
Less so that my hair is less
but consoled it’s not a wispy shadow
Thrilled that my legs carry me
Short and longer distances unaided
Delighted that my eyes allow me
to see different worlds in words and
view beauty in things and beings
including uneven pavements and
treacherous roads winding ahead
Blessed to have an equal half
to navigate life expected and unexpected
Not to go gently into the night together
Cheered by motley others in my life
and the possibility of more entering
Glad my brain and heart works okay
Happy I’m above and not below ground
Today.