Tag Archives: Courage

BIG BOYS

BIG BOYS

The deep sadness
The red anger space
The hang on tight we
Might end up in the next county passion

All hidden behind the great wall of control
That terrible land where I locked
the little boy who could cry

And if I open the door to one of these
will they come bursting out
And with what years
of build up force behind them

I know big boys don’t cry
I don’t remember why
would they die

SHAMAN’S HEART

SHAMAN’S HEART

Two centuries back I look down at legs
covered with buckskin white as whitest sand

In the valley below are the tepees

I go to my home
my wife rises to greet me
I speak her name
like water laughing over small stones

Feel full and more with a love for her
as warm as the sumer dawn
strong as my manhood rising

I am a chief and the son of a chief
not brave enough to deny
the life of a brave

Though Shaman at heart
not Shaman enough to break
the heart or the will of my father

I hang by my flesh at a sundance
and lead the young men to war

Say goodbye to my wife and babe in her arms
ride off to the folly of a raid with no cause

As spirit rises from body
my enemies honour my courage
cut my heart from my chest and eat it

Neither friend – nor foe – nor father know
it is not the heart of a brave

ICARUS UNBOUND

ICARUS UNBOUND

Within the greater urge
of man to soar and fly

It is not uncommon
that some may try and die

Salmon must return to spawn
birds must south and northward fly

The Buddha and the Christ
give focus to the martyr’s eye

The fault lies not
in these unalterable things

But in the material
with which he built the wings

DRAGONS

DRAGONS

Beyond the maps of the ancient world

“There, be dragons”

Beyond the ways of parents and of peers

“There, be dragons”

Beyond the days of preachers and
of teachers

“There, be dragons”

Beyond where you know or
have dared to go

“There, be dragons”

A toe tip, a step, and a stride
Heart, arm and sword,
steeled by the fiery breath
How sweet the dragon’s meat,
and the maiden’s
Another mark on another map
“Here, be dead dragons”

WORD DIVISIONS

WORD DIVISIONS

You can know your native language
and still feel all alone
as pilots talk to pilots
in a code that’s all their own

Yet not even one to one
can they share that love of air
or touch the other’s feelings
of the fear and beauty there

Sailors talk to sailors
of wind and sail and rope
of nights upon the ocean
of courage and of hope

Yet the words just can’t convey
their love of sea and air
nor touch the other’s feelings
of the fear and beauty there

And though cowboys talk to cowboys
in a special kind of drawl
there’s still a space between them
the words can’t tell at all

Not those nights of cold and stars
with coyotes on the air
nor the call of open spaces
with the fear and beauty there

Watch as lovers talk to lovers
in ways only two can share
as they build between them
a framework light and fair

While a web that’s spun of maybes
hangs so fragile in the air
that one false word can shatter
into pain, the beauty there

And yet

There are still some crazy poets
out riding hatless in the sun
still trying to do the very thing
we all know can’t be done

Still Quixoting for a language
that can speak to everyone

GRANDFATHER

GRANDFATHER

My grandfather came to this country from Switzerland
by way of Brazil, working first in the kitchen of a CPR
hotel in Winnipeg. One wonders if he could have
dreamt that one of his grandchildren would own one
someday: perhaps he did, the pioneers of this country
had such a store of courage and of dreams that we may be
drawing on them still

And then to the prairies of Saskatchewan to try his hand
at farming. Prospered in the 20’s, replaced the packing
crate house with a large, verandaed mansion. Planted
ten thousand trees and created a special kind of oasis:
with flowers that bloomed all summer and fruit that
yielded sweet and tangy wines

Widowed early, he raised seven children through the
dirty thirties: Emil and Arnold and Walter and Werner
with daughters Rose and Ann, and Earnest lost at war,
who, so the story goes, appeared to him on his death bed

“There’s Earnest now, coming to get me with the wagon”

These things I remember as old family stories

My real memories are much more of the senses. The
senses of a 4 or 5 year old which seem now to melt and
run together. I remember not the man so much as the
aura of the man. The richness of old cheese and tobacco
the feeling of peace and the sweet rhythms of the earth
that surrounded him and warmed me as we sat together
in his favourite room so long ago.