Poetry

Carol writes poems about a mood, an idea or experience…

This is an extract from Carol’s prose poem Fundy! about the experience of running on the ocean floor in the Bay of Fundy.

Early morning.

Five Islands, Minas Basin.

On the beach, hundreds of runners anticipate tide’s retreat.

Our racetrack--the ocean floor,

our competitor--the tide.

The event--Not since Moses,

clever creation of runner Dick Lemon.

A full moon hangs above Long Island,

nicknamed Dick’s Island for his love of community.

Dick’s annual event is choreographed by the moon, the tides,

the fact this beach can be reached without rappelling down a cliff.

Among participants--a buzz.

To race the ocean floor feels daring,

an act of impudence that will be punished should we linger long, get lost.

In this bay, waters move fast.

Weather is mercurial, antique cliffs unstable.

Humans must be cautious, but adventurous.

Across the seabed, islands stand.

Topped with green, their red cliffs are eroded, tide-twisted.

Their deformities revealed by water’s retreat,

as exposed as Marilyn in a breeze.

Music, Highland lilted, ceases.

“You’ll run around that rocky outcrop,” the jovial emcee tells us.

“We call it the Old Wife, then turn, head back.”

The Old Wife--a dark face, craggy, sullen.

Is her face a warning?

We creep forward.

The mudflats stretch, seeming benign,

but the experienced warn of hidden stones, slippery seaweed, rocks.

“Be careful.”

The starting gun.

A tide of people, noisy, joyful, flows, pink-clad, across red sand.

Downhill, through clear water,

laughing, yelling, cold-shocked.

Sand becomes mud, molasses thick.

Slipping, sliding, we re-taste childhood liberation.

Hearts kick up as mud grasps, clutches feet, slides shoes from heels, cheekily.

Runners, resigned, discard sneakers,

slop barefoot, like the early dinosaurs and crocodiles that trod this land

three hundred, forty million years ago, when Parrsboro—

tiny, fossil-famous Parrsboro—

sat on the Equator and soaked in the sun, sultry as Morocco.

Pausing, runners stoop to ocean floor, swipe mud wedges.

between fingers-- the soft, buttery lick of it,

the grains, fine, numerous--salt, of course, and sands,

magma crystals, gravels crushed and washed from glaciers

that oppressed the land four times in half a million years.

Those glaciers scoured the earth and rocks,

scraped and ground the land.

The last chip of the last glacier melted thirteen thousand years ago,

allowing the earth to rebound, expand.

Meltwater drowned the Rift Valley and birthed the Bay of Fundy.

Thus, it is the Bay’s rocks, her seams and faces that are old.

The Bay herself is young inside, much younger than she looks.

Those overbearing glaciers bequeathed a rock blend,

seasoned with all major rock types from all geological ages.

They left a mineral soup, rich and varied, like the best chowder.

Sunlight strengthens,

points to orange mud, seaweed-moulded rocks,

sea moss, grass green, fluffy as baby hair.

Ocean mud, examined, will not leave fingers. It clings and stains.

Runners rub it on shirts then squint in early sun that slants low,

pricking eyes, passing along fissured cliffs,

drawing them from darkness to light.

Some cliffs are dual-faced—sunny below, brooding basalt above.

They illustrate the laying down of red sandstone through peaceful river flows,

disrupted by molten tantrums that ripped Pangea apart.

The basalts are remnants, obstinate lava nubs.

A few cliffs combine colours, feature hardened molten drips,

that line the rock like icing, applied to still-warm cake.

A runner—Moses—passes in white robes, long locks,

One hand clasps his sneakers, the other his commandments—

Thou Shalt Laugh, Thou Shalt Run for Thy Life…

Families, couples, old and young, jog, walk, stumble,

laughing, all laughing.

A boy poses, mud-soaked, grey. He’s a statue, remade in mud.

Serious runners pass—the 10k crowd, pursuing a competitive time.

Volunteers, flag the way, shiny with cheer.

“Good job. Keep going.”

Vibrant flags flutter,

keep us to the route, lest the ocean, rushing in, claim us.

The half-way point:

Volunteers offer water bottles.

“Don’t throw them on the ocean floor. That has happened before.”

Really?

Returning, we’re closer to the water.

The ocean, still obligingly retired, lies left,

a distant glimmering, maybe a mile away,

preparing its return, like an actor awaiting a cue.

Legs speed at the sight of that blue.

In the last two hours of a tide cycle, the flow accelerates.

The water can rise an inch a minute.

At Five Islands, the tide hits the back of two islands,

then swings around both to close in fast.

The race hasn’t lost a runner yet,

and the tide won’t catch us.

We’re near the finish line.

Highland rhythms call us in.

The channel of clear water splashes cool, so welcome now.

Trudging, nearly there,

the ripening sun atop our heads.

Back up the sand to the tape.

The crowd cheers each filthy arrival.

“Well done. Good job.”

Cameras snap.

“Seemed a good idea last night, eh?”

This poem is about Carol’s relationship with her step-father Roy who suffered from dementia.

Old Friend

Old Friend, I walk right by you

until the curve of your brow and the silver curl of your hair halt me.

It is you slumped in that easy chair.

Thin, husked by illness,

your bones protrude, protesting their mortality.

I stand stilled and sad, shocked.

“Roy?” Your wife leans in, strokes your arm.

“Roy? It’s Carol, come to see you.”

You wake, glance up.

Your eyes, larger, brighter than before, reflect a child’s simplicity.

“Do you remember Carol?”

You don’t, clearly.

Unsurprising, as your mind is sick, and time has changed me too.

Unconvinced, you study me.

“Little Carol you called her.”

“Oh Carol! I like her!”

Your eyes brighten with memories

that seem unconnected to me as I stand there amid the noisy distress of the ward.

I sit beside you and, emboldened by the past, lift your hand to mine.

“Hello,” you say and you smile, wide, unguarded.

Your eyes state you don’t know my face,

but I see that memory warms your mind.

Perhaps, like a flame that heats the flesh

memory needn’t be understood to be felt.

You struggle from your chair and we walk.

You talk nonsense with frank intimacy,

your eyes relaxed, your tone, confiding.

I nod and smile, your thin arm in mine, as we stroll the room,

two old friends, just walking and talking.

This one is about a big mistake…

Too Late

Three o’ clock in the morning, I awake sweating,

steeped in cold foreboding.

Don’t do it, it’s a mistake,

pull out, it’s not too late.

But it is.

There’s sweet flowers, rich cake,

plump satin shoes, jaunty red sashes.

A grand fancy fuss all arranged.

I can’t say no, I’ve changed my mind.

My friends in hotel rooms, now asleep, will think me a fool.

And the expense, the waste…

I could pull out, face the shame,

but I won’t.

I’m a coward.

I will get up and put that dress on.

I will do it.

I know I’ll rue it.

Too many people suffer from domestic abuse, this poem is about the need for healing

Violent Imprint

If you can, let your shoulders fall,

let them support your head and neck with ease.

Your shoulders rear like battlements,

so high and hunched they fence you in.

Above them, your face sits pale and tense,

awaiting another sucker punch.

Breathe slow, let your features soften—

your eyes, your brow, your mouth, your chin.

Try to let your limbs loosen,

put down your drawbridge, let life in.

Relax your gut, your spine; your hips.

Release that core of opposition--

your self-protective ammunition

Let it go.

Allow your mind, your heart, to open.

Breathe deep, unfurl.

He has gone.

Throughout my life, I have suffered periods of anxiety and depression. This poem is about the frustration of feeling a kink in the brain.

Re-wire

If I could, I’d re-wire me.

I’d cut my hair, maybe shave it bald,

make a precise cut across my head,

remove my brain, place it on a table—

after I’d disinfected it, of course.

But first, to get my courage up, I’d put on my blue dress,

the one coloured like summer and sea,

the one that makes me feel optimal me,

and I’d wear my specs so I could see.

I’d sterilize tweezers, get a sharp instrument,

maybe buy one especially.

Then I’d slice, lift off the tip of my head,

and place it on the table, calmly.

It would be difficult, of course,

perhaps you could help me.

I’d stretch up both arms, reach in,

encircle, then yank out my brain.

I’d place it on the table top. I hope it wouldn’t bleed a lot.

I’d look down, grip my tweezers, unravel my mind like spaghetti,

peer in, examine it for shadows, ancient shadings,

clues to long-ago violent happenings,

some remembered, some mere feelings,

that wired me too tight,

leaving me reactive as a lithium-ion battery,

tense, with a learned loathing for authority

that lives, like a jutting lower lip in me.

I’d scan my mind for frayed edges, worn links and telomeres.

I’d cut them out, precisely,

put them aside to bin later, tidily.

Then, I’d re-arrange my brain, assemble it,

put it back, re-set the tip of my head,

and sew me up, neatly, with flesh-coloured thread.

I would.

If I could, I’d rewire me.

This is about the restrictions imposed by anxiety

Confined

I do not elevate my joy,

won’t extend pain or pleasure,

never force my limbs to strain in splendid endeavor.

can’t talk loud or wave my arms, looking for attention.

No. I keep calm, tame.

Like a fern floating in the darkest ocean,

I live not too fast, not too slow.

Needing energy, I skip coffee, stick to tea.

Can’t eat much--loathe that bulging belly feeling.

Too much booze sends me reeling.

Don’t like heat or stinging cold.

Avoid huge crowds, and raucous noise.

Peace is good, but not isolation, that bleeds to morbid introspection.

My body is strong and fit,

I don’t feel it.

I envy the reckless, the devil-may-care-less--

storm wave surfers, smokers, drinkers,

heroes of insouciance.

I try to break free, put my toe outside the line,

but my nerves won’t have it,

they scream and shout, tighten the straightjacket.

Mandate a life of cautious moderation.

Quiet

She doesn’t impose herself on the morning.

She slips into her day.

Not because she disdains loud clothes and opinions

-- we all have opinions—

but because she won’t scare the bird from the tree or the deer from the yard.

She needs to see the ripple lace the lake,

the ray touch the bough.

Today, there’s a man on his deck with coffee,

observing thin mist that blurs the sea.

She smiles, fancies she feels his peace, his contemplation.

Farther on, a father and son run,

hand in hand along the dock.

The boy’s laughter is high and bright,

his legs and his dad’s keep stride,

life jackets, sun hats on,

anticipating fun.

It’s important to slip into the morning,

there’s time for noise and opinions later on.

Accept

Accept your sadness, my friend said.

Let that gloom, by turns weighty then emptying,

fill the body that longs to resist—

the heart that wants to thump its opposition,

the limbs that pace,

the eyes and thoughts that gaze outward, not in.

No, not in.

Accept the slowness, the darkness,

the deep, deadening blankness.

Do not try to outpace or drug it.

Be still.

Let sadness sit in you.

It is not sickness, it is not ocean,

it will not drown you.

It is always hard to say goodbye to family…

Leaving

It’s dark, too early,

dank with a creeping English rain.

We stand, strained and pale beneath the neon glare.

Commuters hurry by, time-pressed.

“So many up so early,” you say.

I agree.

We’re polite, wary of the goodbye.

“Thanks so much for everything,”

“No, thank you for coming.”

We find the train, hug, eyes embrace then avert, shining.

“We’re so lucky you could come.”

“Yes, so lucky.”

One more hug, a tighter grip, and you leave abruptly.

I hope you’ve gone, but know you will have waited.

That’s what mothers do.

I would too.

I see you as the train pulls out,

your face composed, hands folded, waiting,

hoping for a last glance, a last glimpse.

I bang on the window,

but you miss me.

Your head turns. Your eyes search each passing pane.

But I’ve already gone.

My eyes mist. My stomach swirls, sick.

I should have sat in a different seat, beside a wider window.

I should have banged harder.

I watch the sun lift over English fields, English spires.

I set the images in my mind.

But it’s your figure on the platform that stays with me.

I’m sad that I left you.

I hate that you missed me.

This was written about the last time I saw a friend who died on 9/11

Walking

I saw her on the path ahead.

She didn’t see me.

It was September. 2001.

Morning. Dank. Grey.

Leaves drifted, decayed,

smoothed the path to treachery.

But she walked lightly:

a smart coat above slim legs;

her hair, styled for a journey.

For she was off, over the water, to a breakfast meeting in a silver

tower that stood by its twin on the Hudson River.

That I knew, so I didn’t shout, not wishing to delay.

Instead, I watched her walk away,

watched her step, alone, down the narrow path.

I followed.

Now, it seems the gloomy scene,

her solitude and slight figure, so slim, were a warning.

Foreshadowing.

It seems she was being funneled from us, stepping away from the living.

It was the last time she took her child to school.

I wonder, could she, even then, have turned and said,

“No, I’m not going.”

Or was it too late? Was it fate?

I wish I’d called her name, caught up,

put my arms around her.

It would have been a goodbye.

But what would I have said?

“Safe travels, Chris. I’ll see you when you get back.

Have a great trip.”

I wrote this one after reading a newspaper article…

Prints

The random sweep of a storm revealed them,

just as the passing power of a glacier once concealed them --

footprints, submerged one million years ago.

Released at last from ice-borne sand and clay,

the prints emerged to tell a pedestrian story,

of a small group, a family perhaps,

members of the hominid species Homo Antecessor, Pioneer Man.

They’d been searching for food, heading upstream, away from the sea,

sleeping, maybe, on a nearby island to escape the bears and cats that stalked them.

The waves, as if to frustrate humanity, released their prints just briefly,

then destroyed them.

But the prints piqued our curiosity.

Were they ‘us’, the world asked? Were these our ancestors?

Or did Homo Antecessor—long since extinct—live and die without

contributing to our self-obsessed gene pool?

It’s not yet known; the truth of our connection.

We may owe those ancients the sentimental debt of blood,

or the debt may be mere empathic curiosity--

the warm, respectful, glance of one species to another

acknowledging our kinship in life, and death.

For we can relate to that small group,

traversing the Thames Estuary.

In them, we feel our vulnerability.

They too were cold and hungry.

Were they warmed by cloth or body hair?

Were their nights lightened by story and the brightening power of fire?

No burnt, ashy remnants have been found.

Theirs may have been a silent life, unspoken,

but one marked by individual and communal struggle, as ours is.

Vulnerable, they were, but intelligent, as their flint knives and scrapers attest.

Standing now on what became a peaceful beach, we picture them:

the slight, stooped figures of beings caught between ape and man.

Their children maybe broke away, to laugh and chase each other,

as ours do.

Splashing, shrieking, shocked by the sea’s frigidity,

feeling, maybe, like my girl who crouched to sand to trace I am free.

They were a small group: cold, hungry, but curious and creative,

a tribe of early humans, Homo Antecesseor,

gradually moving upstream together.

When I was a small child, I loved visiting my grandparents and getting up early with them while my mother and siblings slept on.

Morning

Something had woken the child.

She stiffened, lay listening.

Yes--a trilling alarm clock, hastily silenced,

then the gentle movement of bodies,

subtle sounds that say morning has come.

Blackness still chokes the day.

The small form of her sister lies diffuse and wild in sleep.

Mother slumbers,

Peacefully preserving a privacy denied her waking hours.

But daytime is slipping downstairs.

The old house creaks with every step,

mocking attempts at stealth.

The child waits, feeling the beckoning warmth.

Grandfather will have lit the fire,

it must be darting to life,

chasing away the darkness.

The kettle will be steaming briskly.

The radio, low and friendly, the busy world in the room.

She slips from bed,

crosses the floor, creeping, creeping.

The door moans as it opens.

She pauses.

Glancing at her mother and sister, she urges them—sleep on.

Tiptoeing down steep stairs,

clinging tight to the bannister,

she sees her own white, reflected figure emerging.

Standing, hand on door, preparing her entrance.

“Hello little one. Why are you up so early?”

Grandfather, pale and thin in vest and long johns, shirt warming at the fire.

“Is that child up already?”

Grandmother, half-dressed, smiling, welcoming.

“I’ll get you some tea, love.”

They ensconce her in the brightest, warmest spot.

Tea and biscuits.

The dark-eyed child watches them prepare,

the easy habits of long familiarity--

cornflakes and curlers, newspapers, tea.

But fresh, clean light sneaks in the window.

They must be gone.

The bang of the door, receding footsteps.

Alone, she might gaze at a magazine,

explore Grandmother’s shoe cupboard.

Soon, Mother will awake, and softly, sleepily, assert her authority.

The special time will be over.