SO LET US CULTIVATE THE GARDEN

Of all philosophers in Turkey
the Dervish was
by all accounts the best.
So, weary of their disputations
Pangloss and Candide sought him out:
“Reverend father, why so strange an animal
as man was made?”

 

“With what meddlest thou?”
the Dervish replied.
“What signifies it
whether there be evil
or there be good?
When his highness sends
a ship to Egypt,
does he trouble his head
whether the mice on board
are at their ease or not?”

“What then must we do?”
asked Pangloss. “I had hoped
to reason with you
about causes and effects,
the best of all possible worlds,
the origin of evil,
the nature of the soul,
of pre-established harmony.” 

Whereupon the Dervish said,
“Hold your tongue.”
and slammed the door
shut in their faces.



BEEF IS THE ANSWER

You may be wondering where lies truth:
the noise you hear upon your roof
is not hail, but a cattle hoof.

A cow has tried to cross the moon
but found out painfully and soon
that such attempts all lead to ruin. 

Mad cow – yes – a dread disease;
nothing to put the bull at ease
naught to strengthen failing knees. 

Yet in life’s existential puzzle
when Hunter red you choose to guzzle
and eat his flesh and gravy suzzle. 

Just gobble up and don’t feel down:
don’t let his footprint make you frown;
his methane’s hot, it has been shown.

But beef’s the answer, of that I’m sure:
to keep in place the global poor –
enhance the rich a little more.

THE PERMATEMP CUBE CAMP

 

 

'This is where I work,' he said,
waving an arm in a circle of sad
as though he’d just missed the bus.
'All these cubicles with their little pictures

and could-be contents
of my wife's handbag –
photos of kids and grandkids,
trinkets and confectionery,
lovers and Lotto tickets.

 

'I know a few workers by name,
but lots come from other countries
and only half drink coffee.
The young woman who sits here
had breast cancer
last year and two kids:
so we sent flowers
for her chemo.’ 

'And friends?' I asked,
'Friends?' he smiled, surprised.
'No: this is just the place
where each day
we all concentrate till five.’

 



COMING OF AGE

Your death date is but six years off.
If I live, on that day
we shall be united
by our common age. 

What will it be like
to wake that morning knowing
that this day was your last?

I would like to chat,
compare notes, to see
if you had clues to wisdom
picked up along the way
that I had overlooked.

In return, there would be
little I had learned
that you did not know -
the recapitulating errors, twists,
entwining turns of your life
comprise one strand of
the double helix
that then codes mine.

FATHER’S DAY

 

Twenty-five years of city traffic
have passed this bus stop since
and yet there you are – impossibly so –
your familiar hair and heavy
framed spectacles, chubby stance
that increasingly I approximate,
chatting as was your habit to a group
of three in tutorial diminished thirds
and easy vocabulary.

 

Logic says you've gone
so if it’s you
then logic’s at wit’s end.
If it's you what was our mourning for,
our ritual farewells,
contested will and testament,
the packing and pitching, the selling
the thanking, the struggle to set course
by an orphan’s compass?

What have you been doing?

 

 

 

 

 

AN OBSERVATORY REVIEWS PIER PILINGS IN CASCO BAY

The Portland Observatory was built in 1807 to ‘view the bay's horizon to hearken the arrival of ships in order to call workers to the docks to unload supplies and operate fish processing plants’.

Pilings:

Present ARMS.

Oh: I see you have no arms

military or muscular -

excuse my mordant humour: limbs

lost in the tempest of ‘12

or ‘28 or the fire

of ’40?  Perhaps

I overestimate your age.

At EASE:

We’ve both known decay:

I may outlast you

but eventually my feet of stone

will survive no better than

yours of Appalachian lumber.

Mark me: we will all fall

impotent in the final storm.

ENOUGH:

We do not talk much, you and I.

I suppose it’s our preoccupation

with our survival as we age.

But we belong together

in common time and place.

Yes. That we converse

at all is a satisfactory miracle.

BLESSING

After a scene in Gilead, a novel by Marilynne Robinson

                                       

I was walking from my neighbour's farm

one early autumn afternoon – 

practising mindfulness –  

and I turned in hope

that a retrospective glance

might show me a detail,

a fresh fragment 

of meaning for my journey.

The road was cool and clean:

behind me in the distance

were two young lovers.

The man turned, smiled

and pulled a branch

that overhung the road

and as his partner walked beneath

he let it go and so it sprang,

chilling her with remnant droplets

of the morning rain. 

Her shower was a baptismal blessing.

I had set out searching

for a renewed appointment

for my soul and found

in their liveliness,

in the happiness of her face,

refreshment, grace.