SuperTrip 2024 Other Poems

Prairie time/Exhale Eternity (Montana, March 2024)
Something calls me
when we drive through the prairies.
They are unbroken, as I am,
though we are scarred
by mining and farming
and other people’s lives.
They remain, as I will not.

Called out, called to,
I am stilled. I am heard,
flowing deeper, spilling wider.
I am the road curving through snow.
I am the purple of the shadows.
I am a hundred million stalks
of last year’s corn.
I am a Communion
of breath and geologic time.

Bethzatha (on John 5) (Paris, March 2024)
The place of miracles is full of lepers,
ungenerously waiting
for an ungenerous god,
who does, on occasion, have scraps
tossed into the yard,
as if to dogs, or chickens.
Then He passes by,
on the way to prayer, or to a party.
He stops to speak to you.
He asks you what you want.
He looks you in the eye and says
“So do it. Do it now”.
And you must choose your truth
and walk away,
or keep to lying by the pool
and blaming him.

Sunday in the Cemetary au Bagneaux (Paris, March 2024)
We walk along the avenues,
among the monuments,
a quiet company, a common stride,
many miles already walked this way.

It is Easter Day.

The daffodils are brown or gone.
A bee heaves on a flagstone.
Greedy daisies, splaying their petals at the sun,
crowd out the violets.

It is late this year.

We turn into the sudden scents of spring
and the slow greening of trees.
The breeze also smells of coffee
and of roasting meat.

Friends are gathering.

Extraordinary song bursts out
from hidden birds on hidden branches.
The furthest cherry blossoms open.
Apple blossom falls.

We turn to find the source
of the soothing sound of sweeping,
brush on stone, the snip of stems.
There is a woman, tending to a grave.

Two women, one with flowers,
one with water, pass.
A car crawls by. A family pays respects.
A child frets and is comforted.

Instructions (Paris, April 2024)
Plant lavender for me,
fragrant and drought-hardy.
Do not water it,
with tears or watering can.
It was created to withstand
the drought. My doubt
is settled now, either way
and none return to say.

Plant lavender for me.
And, let it be.

Folk etymology (Bordeaux, May 2024)
“La flèche” is French for arrow,
from the ancient root for “swift”, “to flee”.
“Das fleisch” is German for meat,
from the ancient root “to tear”, “to peel”.

“To fletch” is to give a thing feathers,
which may, perhaps, be wings,
or, at least,
to make a sometime-stick fly true, kill clean.
“To fledge” is to leave the nest,
to learn what it is to fly, to feed oneself,
to flee another’s feeding.

“To feed” is to nourish,
from the ancient root “to bring forth”,
which is, for a tree
(from which a stick might come,
in which a nest might be),
to bear fruit.

On John, Chapter 7 (Biarritz, May 2024)
There is a sequence to the things of God,
though God knows no time,
or all time, or is everywhen.

God is both the axis of space-time
and the plus-one beyond the limits of its counting.

God is the fist, clutched around the ball.
God is the hand, cradling the egg.

God is the palm, scooping through the pool,
making the water of it move and swirl.

God is a hand plunged into being,
drenched with time that flows
with the currents of its making.

Sunlit Rosemary and Sage (Dinosaur Provincial Park, September 2022. Reworked on the Camino, May 2024)
When my time comes, I want to die
with rosemary and sage at my bedside.
I will reach out and crush them,
with whatever strength remains.
Close my eyes. Breathe them in.
No longer know where I am,
or when:

a mountainside in Greece;
a Balkan balcony;
the sun trap in the garden
of my mother’s final home;
the great plains of the new world,
under prairie-skies,
where we came together, and to rest.

It doesn’t hurt that they are symbols:
of memory, of sanctity.
That may be a comfort to those who watch,
if there are such.
I want them for their scent,
their fragrant summary of self,
the oldest part of memory, the last to pass.

As I wait, the strip-light hum
will be to me the sound of bees
hungry in their tiny flowers,
free from all the potency
of their crushed leaves.

Through my closed lids and dry skin
it would feel like all those sunlit days.

The Power of Sorrow (Madrid, July 2024)
The power of sorrow is hard to wield,
as a two-edged sword.
It lies in its water, the dissolution of tears.
It lies in its fire, the heat of an anger
that steels, anneals resolve.

The power of sorrow demands precision:
indulged it stagnates,
stands like stinking water
breeding comfortable hating lies, like flies;
unfostered it festers,
rots the heart in dankness,
grows a toadstool soul.

But seize your sorrow. Drag it into day,
like Jacob with the angel,
though there can be no winning.
Let it blaze a path for others
as you limp away.

Women eating fruit (July 2024, Quebec City)
Eve looked down
at the core, the pips in her hand,
and up at the unflinching eyes
of the snake, its tail still curled around the tree.
“I understand”, she said, “I see
that only I could be the one
to make the world the way it is.
I am resilient, curious and good at pain.”
“The Father knew this.” said the snake.

Persephone looked up
at the face of the messenger,
and down, at the slight purple hue
of her hands, a stain, a bruise, betrayed, unfree.
“I understand”, she said, “I see
that only I could be the one
to make the world the way it is.
I am inspiriting, powerful and born to rule.”
“The Father knew this.” said the god

First woman looked down
where she saw the first strawberry,
and up, at the abundant sky
of the sun, who had her stop so fragrantly.
“I understand,” she said, “I see
that only I could be the one
to make the world the way it is.
I am great-hearted, generous and made to love.”
“The Father knew this.” said the sun.

We are not all the same (Charlottetown, July 2024)
When I tell people,
“I don’t dream”,
they argue with me, as if
I were not a reliable witness
to my own experience.

Very, very rarely
there are nightmares,
or so I assume,
from the fear that wakes me.

But dreams? No.
When I tell you this, you will say,
“You DO dream!
You just don’t remember.”

People always do.
No one is able to tell me
what the difference is,
or how it may be meaningful.

Meditation at L’Anse-aux-Meadows (July 2024, L’Anse aux Meadows)
Two figures tower in one sky:
one,“Almighty”; one, “All-father”.
Two figures hang on two trees:
sacrifices “of Myself to Myself”.
This, Odin tells us in his own words.
This, Paul tells us, is who Jesus is and why.

Both seek something
through extremis, through hell,
through and from the cold earth,
that only they can win:
one from the withholding void;
one from His withholding Self.

For one,
we are told, it is atonement,
gutting forgiveness
from Himself as Implacable Lord.

For one,
he says, it is to wrest
the Power of Words
from the roots of all that is.

One cost three days of this,
one three times three.
We know that both did this
on purpose, with purpose.
We do not know if either knew,
whether it would work.

Newton’s Cradle (August 2024, St John’s)
Life can persist without momentum.
The swing slows.
The ball settles, comes to rest.
It waits,
perhaps frustrated,
perhaps at peace,
perhaps the cold, dead thing
it always was,
nothing but a metaphor
aping life, with swing, with noise.

And then what?
Boxed up, packed away?
Another hand? Another swing?
Whatever:
it can do nothing.
There is nothing it can do.

Heart Chakra (August, 2024, Ontario)
I can feel the plants around me
eating the light,
turning it into colours, into bone.
I feel them feast.
The light is buttery and sweet.
I feel the hunger of the grass
straining upward at the root,
turning light into blades,
A million tiny ladders
reaching to the sky,
Perhaps there are angels climbing them.
for certain, there are ants.
Perhaps they are the same.
It is as it should be.

I can feel the trees around me,
fishing the sky,
turning light into stanchions, into time.
I feel them ache
beneath the superfluity of light,
I feel them brace against its weight,
the splaying of the leaves.
Perhaps they are catching angels
falling to the grass
and making leaves and sap.
It is as it should be.