TIME IN TEXAS
You race it in Dallas
drown it in Houston
and dance with it in Austin
Any farther South
and you have to wrap
it around a siesta
a burrito with salsa at both ends
Monthly Archives: October 2011
STEPS IN TIME
STEPS IN TIME
Just outside of Zurich I walk
through the childhood home
of my father’s father
Look out across
the still green valley
visit the mountain fresh
swimming hole where
his teeth once chattered
A hundred years seems
as nothing here
as rain runs down the stones
carved with the family name
The church and yard
where they are buried
nears five hundred
and it itself was built
on the ruins of a castle
An hour and a half west of London
we visit the farm where my
mother’s mother played as a child
look out across unchanged fields
to a chalk horse cut into the cliffs
who has not taken a single step
since she left
Sunsets
Sunsets are long in these latitudes
and filled with color
The color of sunlight refracting
through soil and seed and dreams
picked up by west winds
and held in suspension
along with prayers
for a good harvest
What it might pay off
and what it might pay
a little something
down on
A little rain brings them
back to earth again
JAP ORANGES
JAP ORANGES
Nothing racist in that term
for my sisters or me
Nothing but affection
gratitude and endearment
as we picture in our minds
little Geisha girls
at a giant Bonsai tree
picking and packing
The only vitamin C we’d see
Wooden boxes always
handy for something
and each orange wrapper
was luxury in the outdoor loo
The Charmin of farmin’
after spending most of our years
tearing pages out of Sears
CHINESE RESTAURANT
CHINESE RESTAURANT
Sorry John Donne
but some men may be islands
or castaways
in small prairie towns
fifty miles by bad road
from any other of their race
Tall walled booths along one side
twisted-wire chairs and tables too
my father and his friends had coffee
I think mine was cream soda
We may have eaten there
but I don’t remember
certainly at five or six
I would not have imagined
that we were as strange to him
as he was to us
All I ever knew
of the inner man
was the pungent foreignness
of the old two-holer out back
Fast forward six years or so
to small town of Mossbank
on the South side of the lake
A chubby twelve year old
sits in a low walled booth
with his best buddies
and another Chinese man
in another Chinese café
serves up vanilla cokes
(when vanilla still had alcohol)
and marks our tabs with Chinese signs
I asked him what my three mean
Big – Small – Happy
BEER PARLOR 2 THE DARK SIDE
BEER PARLOR 2 THE DARK SIDE
Inside all is sound and fury
old friends catching up
a tough week sliding away
drop by drop
Outside, son or daughter
watches the door
every time it opens it’s him
but it isn’t
With every neighbor going in
sending a mounting plea
“What about me”
THE BEER PARLOR
THE BEER PARLOR
Politics and weather
Little round seated chairs
no-one could have sat on
ten minutes completely sober
Little round tables
completely covered at last call
fluted glasses perfectly filled
to the well marked tide line
(no charging for foam here)
Smell of well aged
beer, barf and barn boots
but no matter, it was men only
and they didn’t seem to care
In the service of progress I guess
it was decided by the province
that each town could vote
on women being allowed
to enter these sacred halls
George, the owner,
a man of steady habits
and unshakable prejudices
thinly disguised as principles
said “If you vote for this I close the place”
They did, and he did
HOW I LOST MY FAITH – In Preachers
It was a cold and muddy Sunday
Our little caravan of Christians
children, parents and student minister
stuck in the spring mud a mile from church
Me and city cousin Wayne
the chosen ones at age seven
chosen to walk
to the nearest neighbour
while the others wait in the cars
The neighbor’s not home
but his Cockshutt 40 tractor is
Some combination of farm boy bravado
and reluctance to slog
back to the cars in defeat
comes out as “I can drive a tractor!”
One foot each on the clutch
and a good deal of grinding
gets us into low gear
and off at about two miles per
The student minister meets us
two thirds of the way back
As our leader
in all things spiritual
and practical
he decrees that we are going
far too slow
and selects another gear
(probably at random, he’s from the city too)
The one he picks is the fastest
known in these parts as “Road Gear”
and we quickly accelerate to thirty
which causes the preacher to panic
(or remember that he forgot his bible)
and leap off
leaving us to wrestle the big red monster
now wildly careening from rut to rut
and rocketing toward the mired cars
and fearful families
Wrenching the wheel to the right
at the last possible moment
we narrowly avoid death and destruction
and stall to a stop in the water-filled ditch
amidst the prayers of the congregation
FIVE MILES WEST OF HERE
FIVE MILES WEST OF HERE
or
Survival 101 – the pioneer years
Five miles west of here
everything is weather
And the measure of worth
not seldom a man
Women are also – mostly
and sometimes a good horse
Dawn tastes like sunset today
why did you so hurry away
SHYLOCK’S SHADOW
SHYLOCK’S SHADOW
If you are cut, do I not bleed