Love Note

– After Walt Whitman

I may appear to you as a “tattered coat upon a stick,”*
my gate, like a comic, tripping over a rake,
my luckless visage, a vacillating army of lumps,
but what is that to me? Should your amusement
be full and friendly, I will celebrate you, and me, and sing,
“For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”

It is hot August and my birthday is in cool November
but birthdays, for me, come every day, when
I arise before dawn and see the wonder
of my splayed-out partner,
and by my mind’s eye, see the beauty of our grown sons,
their partners, all together, like a choir,
a single breath, a Kyrie, a hymn to greet the sun.

I walk down to the mystical margins of the sea,
where the shore shakes itself like a wet dog,
and there, hardly surprising, is a love note,
written in seaweed, addressed to me,
addressed to you.

*W. B. Yeats

May a recognition of our essential oneness turn the tide away from our current polarization and give us the grace and space for differences and diversity.

Like many today, I practice my faith privately,
I go to the church of Shell Beach, Hart Lake, and Slack Point.
I’m greeted by sister Maple, and cousin Douglas,
and by a small but wondrous, assembly of Arbutus.

I have kneeled in moss among sword ferns and lifted my eyes
to the conifer boughs, through to the greenish blue of a patterned sky,
and said, aloud, the heavens declare the glory of God, and felt
the presence of Love, the Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Sacred Heart.

Despite all this notable company,
I don’t look for greatness in myself, how can I?
but simply, for a generosity of heart.

For we are made, I have read, not much inferior to the angels,
which gives one hope, yet I fear that that distance
is greater than my will with its hidden desires.

It cuts me quick and lays me open, that gospel of peace,
and forgiveness.

And I see, behind a heavy veil, within myself, there lies
a kind of malignancy, that darkly delights
in whatever news confirms my prejudice —
that hollow height, that, like hatred,
can only thrive when context is ignored.

As context calls for time, and a breath of humility,
to see one’s self from a distance, as one among many.

And in that distance, I hear the bells in steeples,
calling me to quit the forests, lakes and beaches,
and reenter the splintered community of souls,

where, Mary and task-full Martha, Judas and cunning Caiaphas,
the wasted prodigal, the jealous elder, the fine Samaritan,
ruthless Herod, hand-washing Pilate, Peter and the struck-blind Saul,
are all, well represented in the local parish.

And all of us, discretely drawn, to follow Mary Magdalene,
to that ancient tomb, and wait for the unknown gardener,
to speak our names.

Having never lost everything in a fire,
I’d like to think I’d see it philosophically,
take the distant view: things are replaceable; or
the transcendent view: earthly things are transitory.

I’d like to think a house is a house,
the bedroom (with Deb’s own colour scheme and feng shui,
and my son’s painting over the nightstand),
simply a comfortable place to sleep.

My little office, rows of dusty books (ah, some signed),
replaceable; journals and photo albums, yes, harder.

The living room (funny how couch cushions
shape to our bodies) and the kitchen (nicks and cracks
in the pine table), what are these rooms?
merely places to gather, as family (laughing, crying,
retelling stories of the nicks and cracks).

Clearly, I’d like to think my old Ford Ranger
(and all those prairie-to-mountain miles), unworthy
of recollection, so too, my forgotten guitar,
(which just now reminds me of my old band).

Oh, and that little project in the garage
for Thanksgiving…

I’d even like to think a neighbourhood can be exchanged,
after all, people pick up and move on.

I’d like to think this, because here, in our mortal world,
it’s true.

Except for this weight that keeps calling out the loss;
except for the other truth, that none of us live in the ethereal,
in the abstract distant, but in the trusses and rafters of everyday,
in the retaining wall of life’s moments —
growth marks on door posts,
birthdays, anniversaries, graduations — sorrows and joys
stamped in stucco, drywall, hardwood, set
on a foundation of relationships.

For every space we come to occupy,
we bring some dreaming, yearning, piece of ourselves,
an imprint of hope, which we materialize, by hand.

Until we know, subconsciously, intimately,
that a house is not a house, but a haven of memory,
a frame of reference — meaning home.

To lose it, forced to flee from it,
seems a kind of death, unique to itself.

And it’s not enough to know that time heals,
for even time will not heal all.

So let us grieve with those who grieve, 
for we are all inhabitants of this incarnate earth,
this vale of tears;
let us make of ourselves, channels of mercy and compassion,
mirrors of our Creator’s own love.

After the drill of ducking under our desks
and hiding under newspaper, I went outside
and sprawled on the coarse sod
at the edge of the schoolyard,
searching the cobalt blue sky,
waiting for the world to end.

I folded my hands.
Two puffy white clouds formed and drifted away.
A sparrow came and sat on the chain-link swing.
The shadow of a maple grew long and covered me.

And Kennedy hung up the phone;
and Khrushchev threw his shoe;
and I walked home — the long way —

past the cenotaph, past Matkowskie’s Cafe, with the wondrous
pinball machine, past Gus in his grader, grading Centre Street,
who grinned and waved; past the alley by Jane and Barbie’s house,
to Railroad Avenue and the grain elevators, looming like guardians,
past the barber shop and pool hall with its clacking mysteries, then,
turning at the clipped caraganas and Mrs. Swain’s bright begonias,

through the green door at the back of our store,
the Arborite table in the cramped kitchen, already set,
and mom, looking up, a strand of hair falling across her creased
forehead, and dad — folding yesterday’s Yorkton Enterprise,
                                         headline: Deifenbaker Daunted —
looked at me, and demanded, “Where have you been?”
And I said, with unreasoned assurance and composure,
“Making sure there’d be school tomorrow.”