A CALL
Five times a day
Moslems climb their towers
to interrupt my prayers
Category: Travel
INDIAN RIVER, ONTARIO 2004
INDIAN RIVER, ONTARIO 2004
Above waterfall
In circle of highest pine
green showers down
By the waterfall
body rests in hammock
cells rush to the sea
Below waterfall
power beyond soap and rub
washes off city
Lying by the bank
trees holding blue hammock
lift it to the sky
Indian River
Great Blue Heron stands
wise Tibetan monk
JERUSALEM STONE
JERUSALEM STONE
Church, house, grave, wall
no give at all
JERUSALEM
JERUSALEM
Three days now on the Mount of Olives
watching the old city postcard change
from two to three dimensions
IN PREPARATION FOR ISRAEL
IN PREPARATION FOR ISRAEL
In preparation for Israel
I have the poems of Yehuda Amichai
If I read them I may need fewer maps
If I read them well I may need no maps
If I read them very well I may not need to go
DON’T WORRY MATE
DON’T WORRY MATE
Up North working the neighbour’s calves
One of those mixed farm forty cow
no corral kind of operations
good folks though and they help us out
We’re branding and cutting and vaccinating
in a lean-to off the barn in shit eight inches deep
No room for a horse or a rope
so you just have to grab those calves
and throw them down right side up
so they’re dry enough to brand
The farmer’s son loses his grip on a catch
and the calf tries to bolt past me
I turn quick, grab the head and come ‘round
fast to where the farmer stands flat footed
with that big syringe in his hand
needle pointed forward
Into my shoulder, skin, flesh and the bone
dumping the whole shot of multi-task
vaccine
The next day the arm hurts bad
and it doesn’t look too good
So we drive down to Mossbank
to see the old Aussie flying doctor
who must have gotten off course
to land in Saskatchewan
He gives me some medicine
and says come back in three days
I say I’ll probably be fine by then
and it’s sixty miles round trip
He says “don’t worry mate
you’re vaccinated for shipping fever”
And I’ve been traveling ever since
CHARTRES CATHEDRAL MAY 9, 2001
CHARTRES CATHEDRAL MAY 9, 2001
Standing at last
in medieval thought made visible
one hundred and seventy three of the most
beautiful stained glass windows in the world
ten thousand figures in glass and stone
Feeling the light and form form feelings
Dorsey and I drift apart
pulled for a moment by different magnets
I look up I have no words
I beckon her over she crosses the rough stone
I kiss her gently hold her a moment and
point to the small center window
high in the west side of the south wing
Where light breaking through cloud
throws fractured beams
through centuried dust
in an exact way and at an exact angle
that it has never slanted before
and will never slant again
We wander in awe
together and apart
light candles, marvel at the art
Famous labyrinth where penitents
crawled three football fields on their knees
Without knowing it had once been there
I miss the Minotaur in the middle
As evening falls I sit on a stone step
by the central altar
watching
for a long time the sun as it sinks
rising in the West Rose Window
From the center
each ring moving outward
moves towards me in explosion 3D
Again I have no words
The words are
From the unquestionable hand
of the undeniable God
a universe flung forth
in crystal cacophony
and order
THE BELLS OF LE CROTOY
THE BELLS OF LE CROTOY
In the little village by the Baie
bells still wake you every day
And since not all the churches agree
we wait while each has its pretty say
then snuggle back for a little nap
because a bell is just a bell
and we’re on holiday
If we had really listened
we might have have heard them say
We are the bells Jeanne d’Arc heard
breaking over walls of prison stone
the morning of her walk to Rouen
and then never heard again
We are the bells Jules Verne heard
rattling rough shuttered windows
get up lazy writer and grasp that pen
you have leagues to write ‘fore you rest again
We are the bells that the fishermen heard
on the mornings behind their names
on the monument to men lost at sea
heard last before going to sea
GREECE 2001
GREECE 2001
We take the boat back to Athens
cold and windy and a little rough
Dorsey lies down all the way
If she is Helen returned
she might again cause the launching
of a thousand ships
but she would not sail on one
I have an ouzo and man the bow
swells rising through my feet
feeling the eternity of the sea
When the islands are out of sight
I still feel and could steer
by the shape of the waves
THE SHEEP OF HOLLAND
THE SHEEP OF HOLLAND
Sheep soft on the soft wet grass
between our house and the old windmill
Sheep running in the distance
a long row of cotton candy
pulled by invisible string
March lambs gambolling
on the sides and tops of dikes
The black cloud of hoof and mouth
gathering over England
strikes as we leave
Watching the news in Atlanta
my farmer fear pulls me back
Memory revises
I stand in the bare fields
look at the bare dikes
Taste the burning wool