<\/p>\n
Those two men with leaf blowers,
\nthe harness straps over their shoulders and around their waists,
\nprotective ear muffs on, off in their world,
\nthey are professionals, they work in tandem,
\nand perform a glad dance across the courtyard of the city hall
\namong the dead orange and brown leaves.<\/p>\n
And they make efficient work of it,
\nthe clearing away of the leaves,
\nand the courtyard space begins to open,
\nand then it is a morning of the sudden shining of a late fall sun
\nand light gathering in the chrome yellow
\nof leaves that still throng one adjacent tree.<\/p>\n
With every touch of the air rushing out of the blowers,
\nleaves swirl up as if recalling waving together in place in the wind.
\nEven the leaves slicked flat to the concrete
\nlift up and join the wild parade,
\nlike people pitched into a carnival.
\nThen the leaves lie in their bright brass assemblages —
\nand the men collect them up in great bags,
\nthrow the bags into the back of their truck,
\nand drive off as if taking home a winning prize.
\nWhatever we have watched wither in us
\nand whatever the painful awe before the cause,
\nthere is nothing to do now except clear it away. Be quick, effective,
\ngoing right to it knowing it has to be done
\nin the courtyard of love and hate.<\/p>\n
And stay — and sit in simple chairs at a metal table,
\nthe rain stopped and the sun in our eyes,
\nour coats on and done up, a fresh comfort taking hold of us,
\nno one else out here in the clean-edged air,
\nthe two of us professionals in our way, professionals.<\/p>\n
Leaves, from eternity, are simple things
\n— John Clare, \u201cThe Eternity of Nature\u201d<\/p>\n
Leaves, from eternity, are simple things,
\nas are raindrops and snowflakes,
\nall falling through the air.<\/p>\n
Once, a middle-aged man
\nstopped in front of me
\nas we passed on the street
\nand asked me angrily,
\nWhere are you going? You don\u2019t know, do you?<\/p>\n
I wore a backpack.
\nI was sleeping where I could —
\nmostly in parks.<\/p>\n
He was right, of course. I know now.
\nAt the time, I thought
\nhe was just a stupid old man
\nwho hated long hair.
\nHe didn\u2019t understand
\nthat I was on a mission.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t know what the mission was,
\nbut I was on it and it was serious.
\nMaybe I\u2019m that man now — or not far off.
\nMaybe I\u2019m also still that young man.
\nMaybe I\u2019m neither.
\nI know and don\u2019t know
\nwhere I\u2019m going.
\nMy life is my life.
\nIt\u2019s simple.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m falling.
\nNo, I\u2019m standing here.
\nNo, I\u2019m falling.<\/p>\n
A leaf, a raindrop, a snowflake.
\nA leaf, a raindrop, a snowflake.<\/p>\n
Among the rows of labels
\nat the wine store I happen upon Highway 97
\nand see that they make a wine
\nnamed for the provinical highway
\nthat runs from Osoyoos
\nall the way to the Yukon border.<\/p>\n
Driving from Vancouver to Kelowna
\nwe took the Coquihalla —
\nit was a small trip to do with my job;
\nit worked as a getaway.<\/p>\n
And in Kelowna we found a store
\nwhere we bought baby clothing,
\nand after I finished with meetings
\nwe took the long way home.<\/p>\n
That slow, winding route —
\nI followed it with my hand
\nbarely resting on the wheel
\nas the road curved and swept south
\nthrough the Okanagan Valley.<\/p>\n
And it wasn’t really me driving,
\nit was the old highway doing the steering
\nand carrying us and making us glide,
\nour unborn daughter, whose hair
\nwould be golden like white wine,
\nturning and dancing within her mother
\nin the passenger seat —
\nit was the Highway 97 wine.<\/p>\n
The hands of each of them on the other
\nare the blade surfaces of the paddles<\/p>\n
that they turn and pull through inlet water
\nwith strokes for forward, reverse, sweep and spin.<\/p>\n
The tide rolls in arriving at the full
\nand clasps the sand to the pull of the moon.<\/p>\n
There is always the water lying down
\nremembering the way to the fusion<\/p>\n
that occurs and is the sun. Rouse the child
\nwaiting to open its eyes on the shore<\/p>\n
of morning. The day will sleep. The water
\nis asking the paddles to propel the kayak.<\/p>\n
There is nothing visible that is not
\nthe invisible asking to be touched.<\/p>\n
My mother\u2019s mother worked her entire adult life
\nas a secretary for a large glass-manufacturing company.
\nIn her adolescence, her teachers had told her
\nthat she should continue her education, become a teacher —
\nthe advice of the era for a girl two grades ahead in school.
\nBut she chose instead to graduate and go straight into a job
\nand marry a man with a thicket of red hair and sparkling blue eyes.
\nAnd whenever a family member or friend needed glass —
\na new panel for a door, a new pane for a picture window —
\nshe would perform her magic at work and get that person a deal.<\/p>\n
And late at night, with pen and paper, with typewriter,
\nsometimes right through to morning, she would write out
\nnot product orders or price lists, but plots and images of love
\nin story after story, in poem after poem;
\nshe would type out not invoices or bosses’ letters,
\nbut the syllables for the music she heard in her head;
\nand copy down not minutes of meetings, but movements
\nof lit sea waves that lifted, arced and broke through her —
\nemblems all around her of the red-haired man and herself
\non a shore of wild driftwood and many-faceted sand grains.
\nNights now at my computer, where I am the secretary
\non the job of my life, when I need the right word
\nI consult a dictionary she bought me for my school supplies;
\nwhen I see assemblages of words and they are subtle signs
\nand are rays issuing out of the common dark,
\nI feel she is there, I believe she is advising me
\nto see past my eyes\u2019 instructions to the beginnings of all eyes —
\nand then I address the sacred air and I address her;
\nshe makes her way to me bringing me the things of the world
\nto look through, and it is as if I look through glass.<\/p>\n
Surprise cold. Great plummeting snowfall.
\nThank God my kids have snow boots, proper coats.
\nThe year my mother
\nsweet talked a salesman
\ninto giving her a department store charge card
\n(Eatons? Sears?),
\nsuddenly we all had winter clothing.<\/p>\n
A month or so later, the twice-a-day
\nphone calls and daily raps on the door
\n(my mother hid; I answered,
\nstood there scared, ashamed,
\nand made up endless stories to keep fates at bay).
\nShe had no intention
\nof trying to make the payments.<\/p>\n
Never warmer outside
\nin any winter ever again, my younger brothers and I —
\nexcept one of us
\nwho could never get warm.
\nFlapping-soled runners and socks on the hands,
\nor boots and actual mitts,
\nit didn’t matter, he was always freezing.<\/p>\n
Forty years later, he finds out
\nhe has a medical condition
\nthat makes him feel the cold more than other people.
\nAnd me, I’m building snow forts
\nfor my two small kids
\nto crawl into and sit as in a cozy home
\nin their expensive snowsuits.<\/p>\n
The sun that arrives
\nto sit low in the sky wrapped in a white cowl
\nrises through my boy and girl
\nrising where it begins
\nand makes the snow world bright.
\nI tell myself I’ll never have to borrow
\nto keep my kids protected from anything including cold.<\/p>\n
But the cold that my brother
\ncould never escape, his body making him pay
\nas the temperature went down,
\nwas him always knowing better,
\nand every degree below zero that we are warm now
\nis a creditor I must face at the door of the present
\nand lie to regarding my whereabouts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Professionals Those two men with leaf blowers, the harness straps over their shoulders and around their waists, protective ear muffs on, off in their world, they are professionals, they work in tandem, and perform a glad dance across the courtyard of the city hall among the dead orange and brown leaves. And they make efficient work of it, the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3692,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3681"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3885,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3681\/revisions\/3885"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}