BREATHING IN WINTER
In Saskatchewan in winter
your breath is certainly plain to see
And while I don’t actually believe the story
that you can warm it in a frying pan
and hear all the words again
I can’t help thinking how nice it would be
if I could just inhale really, really hard
And get back that awful dumb thing
I said to you this morning
THE OLD WILDCATTER
Sad as a West Texas duster
he sits on a cracked vinyl stool
Remains of youth and charm
slip through a dry-hole smile
Still drilling from habit
the wild lands of women
Still praying for gushers
HI HO HI HO
Work
I sometimes think about it, but not too hard
Like, shouldn’t there be a different word
for doing what we love or hate, for money
Like how I got to drive big trucks at eighteen
that I dreamed about at eight
and they paid me
Like playing cowboy and riding the range
where the deer and the antelope play
and getting paid
Building buildings bigger than Lego
and getting paid
Maybe work is about being serious
but I seriously question that too
I mean, what can be more joyous and serious
than a child adding one last block to his tower
or me, as I write this poem, and look up
to see it is 1:25 in the morning
A MOBIUS TRIP
Always an emigrant, never an immigrant
one foot in each country for thirty years
more running from than running to
more neither nor than either or
Always abandoning in some way
family, friends and dependable plans
and any constancy demands
Half desperate, always in search
for new ones who will give enough
and not demand too much
I keep my Canadian in Canada
and am careful when I pack
I stow my Texas twang at the border
and pick it up on the way back
Flying from Calgary to Toronto, Eda asks
“How come you’ve started to talk in a drawl?”
Just as the captain comes on the blower to say
“In order to avoid a big storm on our left
we are now flying over North Dakota”
Staircase – Faculty of Architecture at Warsaw University of Technology, Poland
FALL
The stillness of fall
is more still
than the stillness of winter
It is the stillness
of waiting for winter
ODE TO ACHMATOVA
And what is this sweetness
You have brought to our table
The gnawing at the bone of our pain
CRAB APPLE LOVE
You’d be crabby too
if you’d been through
what I’ve been through
Yes, you might be a little crabby too
if all your relatives looked down on you
Sweet Granny Smith with her stem in the air
pretending she’s green as the unmown grass
has a worm hole or two I could tell you about
And there’s just no living with cousin Mac
since that damn computer came out
But enough about them, let’s talk you and me
how I’m so much more than an ornament tree
About how lonely I am, and inviting you in
your teeth in my flesh and your lips on my skin
So if you’re looking for love that’s true to the core
I’m telling you love, you’ll be looking no more
If you’re looking for a love that’s going to stick
I’ve got plenty of pectin to do that old trick
And we can be jammin’ all night and all day
if you’ll bring some sugar, and meet me half way
THE UNVEILING
On the first anniversary of my mother’s death
I find myself in the middle of New Mexico
the day late, and a prayer short
I stop my Catholic nun friend, now
married and converted Jewish
and tell her of my plight
Also the hope that she
or her husband might have
some words to fit the occasion
The answer is yes, the word is Kaddish
and they are meeting with the Rabbi
to arrange the Friday Shabat supper
Myself, Dorsey, Paul, Maryrita and Dan
now five, the number of her children
sit in circle in the hotel lobby
Paul is a new Rabbi and a very sweet man
he forgets some of the words, Dan helps
I say “her Hebrew isn’t that good,
I don’t think she’ll mind”
I am touched that the prayer is of praise
and not of mourning, and the idea
that whatever good I might do,
my brothers and sisters too,
are her gifts to the world
This may be a poem about salt
there is something about salt
and her gift from our eyes
as we share
THE FIRST MOTHERS DAY AFTER THE LAST MOTHERS DAY
Slowly it dawns on Sunday morning
that you didn’t call nearly often enough
and didn’t send nearly enough cards
or thank her nearly enough
And even if
you put the cattle racks
on the big grain truck
and filled it with flowers
till it ran over all four sides
Even if you drove it to the cemetery
and dumped the whole damn load
on her single rose grave
it wouldn’t be anywhere near enough
A TREE IN THE FOREST
(for the grandchildren too)
If you travel
to the far ends of the earth
And do not send her a postcard
were you really there at all