Marianne Paul
falling in love at eighty
she loses herself to the sky a silver foil balloon
ribbon dangling like string from the bird’s beak in spring love crazily in the air so that even the crow acts like a bluebird and the crone the schoolgirl and not even the birds can explain this frenzy the mad sweet obsession in their flight urge filling the hollow at the core of winged bones jumpiness felt in the feathers and held in the dark of perfectly rounded eyes Watching HerAnother day, another world, another time, she is dark-skinned and olive, Mediterranean.
Now, she is bland, a yellow-paste, like the back side of wallpaper. She blends into her landscape, the topography of the bed sheets, part of a different terrain now. I feel far off, as if the span between where I am and where she is, between life and this other region, grows larger. She is becoming a distant horizon, and I am afraid she will disappear. ∞ She pulls away from the present, moves into the future, picks up speed exponentially. Nears the event horizon of the black hole, the point where there is no return, no turning back. One of us is a stranger in a strange land. At first I think it is she, but now I’m not so sure. I am the foreigner here, the displaced, the rootless. pericardium
the heart is a muscle nestled between the lungs
slightly to the left of the chest centre keeps us off- balance protected by the sternum at the front spinal column at the back physically, that is for how do you protect the heart? build your walls of breastbone i suppose a cage of calcium, then a membrane shell the heart’s outer layer thick-skinned and tough to pierce, the pericardium four chambers of the heart four, the number of perfection four cardinal directions four directions of the cross the balance is deceptive, there is always a weaker always a stronger the septum separates the left side from the right as if the heart cannot bear itself its own cross to bear the thickest walls, the left ventricle pumps blood to poetic places arterioles and arteries veins and venules and capillaries the thinnest walls, the right atrium is the place of vulnerability; a gladdened heart makes this sound: lub-a-dup lub-a-dup the saddened heart clicks, snaps, whooshes murmurs sighs Even the Warrior Whimpers in his Sleep
Comatose gods inhale exhale universes
breathe in breathe out nightmares and sweet dreams white lilies open like the lotus kayak slips through silent water sun darts in silver minnows sleeping Vishnu back-floats calm and eternal amongst the blossoms it is not what it seems images can be deceiving and there is motion in the motionless even the warrior whimpers in his sleep bird on wire dangles live mouse crocuses push through mats of slick rotting leaves spider in camouflage skitters down beige wall old woman with straw broom sweeps sidewalk clean young girls stir up the dirt turn rope double-dutch all things come apart the button loses its sweater principle of entropy this losing of oneself the artist records the falling away paints self-portraits of senility until her face is empty Grizzly Maze
(This poem is inspired by the documentary, Grizzly Man, about videographer and animal activist Timothy Treadwell, killed by a bear after living a decade in the Alaskan wilderness in the area known as the Grizzly Maze)
Berate the gods to end the drought so the salmon can run and the bear can eat but don’t think the rain is a response to your prayers and you have moved mountains, let alone heaven or the grizzly thanks you bears and gods are dispassionate, ask Job solitude is seductive and so is the edge of life no one to talk to but the bear lumbering large and slow behind you like backdrop amongst the arctic grasses but you are the backdrop so tread well be content with the company of foxes that romp at your feet and tame you for the stroke of your hand steal your cap and scent for their den the bear will leave the cap and take your scent think nothing more of it (the former you) although time still ticks on the arm discarded along the grizzly maze a grisly find we each have a bear we stalk through the Alaska of ourselves our grizzly maze we think the bear stalks us, such ego to suppose the grizzly cares remember this as the bear swims the Alaskan waters its massive head like the iceberg and you stand in the frigid water up to your thighs bent over skin exposed reach fingers for the bear whisper sweet nonsense words to appease the grizzly as it slides past you for shore now close enough to touch its back and you can’t resist ♢ |
River Haunting
Two blue herons atop deadwood
grave markers in a flooded cemetery an apparition sails across the sky a great white heron off-course and far from home above and below the waterline ghosts in a mirror trees and the phantom of trees tinted sepia like an old photo a carp appears by my paddle blade then vanishes never was Bedridden
Flat on her back
she looks up at me moves in a manner that defies aging defies the gravity of her situation too bedridden as she is feet thick and bent awkwardly at the ankle unable to support her body brittle and already broken mended in ways that jut through the skin a bruise yellowing on her forehead like ripening fruit she grins and flicks her hips with a lightness of another time the years slide into each other defying linear progression and the old lady is a young woman who doesn’t for a second doubt her feet dances in variety shows entertaining the troops her sister twirling the baton tossing it into the air always catching it never faltering leading the parade when the war is finally over They can’t take that away from me she croons on the stage of her own bed reminisces of the trip to Spain she took with my father when he was alive and she was young grins and dances under the bed sheets with that easy grace of Gene Kelly Ginger Rogers Fred Astaire Buddy Ebsen of her own father too a vaudeville man tap tap tapping across the stage What are you thinking, i ask later having lifted her into the car buckled her into the seat beside me we drive along the St. Lawrence River where she grew up where she swam all the way across to the USA a favourite story when i was little and dreamed of such feats myself and the States was a distant shore i marvelled that she could swim there hero-worshipped her in that way of young daughters she stares off and i wonder if she has slipped into the places of senility so i ask her the question to gauge where she is not really expecting an answer I was thinking, she says slowly measured words - measured thought, how the river never changes although everything around it does i was thinking about the shoreline how it bends how it curves The Melt
The grackles
with their spotted star clusters across the night sky of feather running and bobbing and pecking at whatever the sun has unveiled under the hot gaze of snow melt -- the chickadee sidling up to the sparrow and a pair of cardinals dipping tree to tree and joined wing to wing by an invisible string bird quantum physics the whole bird world connected the squirrels, too plumping up on maple keys fattening in plain sight giddy with the sudden sun and rising temperature This Day on the Water
i.
A stem grows out of a gnarled trunk at the river’s edge an island onto itself the trunk encircled by water but it is the flower atop the stem that catches my attention brightest object in the sky of bulrushes a brilliant yellow ball must be an orchid petals so exotic and bright i set course for the flower set my bow towards the sun paddle closer the flower is a dandelion nothing more nothing less and there is beauty in the ordinary ii. Red-wing blackbirds rise as a single sky settle into the bulrushes further down the river the wind is a baby’s cry thin and lonely i wonder if a baby Moses drifts through the maze of reeds in a basket think of the women who set the baby afloat think of the women who found the baby afloat two equal acts of love i stroke my way along the shoreline feel the presence of history’s women crouching among the reeds slipping silently through the waters with me Obsession
My connection to you is like imprinting
at birth the first thing a bird sees is its mother and there is nothing to be done the neural net is knit whether the mother is even the mother does not matter reason cannot reason away the connection you are pressed into me like a hand pressed into wet mud fingers spread wide palm flat |