Finding Our Light Choka

 radio static    dead air

waiting    to hear you

finish each sentence

faithful  constant   patient you

say "Over" then I flash

shining brightly   steady   true

From Light Years: Memoir of a Modern Lighthouse Keeper (Harbour Publishing: 2015)

The Cautious Mussel-Pickers Kouta

This month has an "r" in it

so we venture forth;

rockbound quarry clings, silent.

We clutch plastic bags. 

 

From Light Years: Memoir of a Modern Lighthouse Keeper (Harbour Publishing: 2015)

A kouta is a Japanese form which was once a song form consisting of four lines with beats per line of either 7 5 7 5 syllables OR 7 7 7 5. I have used the former structure to write this poem commemorating our attempts to pick some of the thousands of mussels clinging to the black volcanic rocks surrounding Lennard Island Lightstation. Truth is, we are not big fans of mussels but hey, it was free protein. In the cold months (with an 'r' in them like January or April) when there is traditionally less risk of red tide, a paralytic toxin which shellfish injest and eventually eject. But in the meantime it can cause death and suffering beforehand to people. So after checking marine sites online for warnings of red tide in our area, we'd try to pick two dozen or so to have a big pot of them immersed in tasty sauces.

 

 

To De-Clutter is Divine

to de-clutter is divine
(like this stark clean Geneva font
size14, easy on the eyes, especially both of mine
in recovery from two different operations)

the ironing board is up
my steam iron ejects the last of its calcium deposits
thanks to cups of distilled water I pour
into the wee dragon’s throat all afternoon

stacks of clothing surround me
good clothes and ‘work’ clothes stained with paint
from boxes labelled his & hers winter & summer
then another stack, clothes to give away at long last

1990’s pants worn once to a funeral or a wedding
red T-shirts which never did suit us
nearly-new garments too tight or too bright
even for Sally Ann & Value Village connoisseurs like us

I stand and iron cotton and linen and mystery fabrics for hours
our village Donation Store deserves clean ironed clothes on hangers
for someone younger, taller, more willowy, let’s just say
but we’ve laughed a lot, modelling our old selves for each other

Finding More Light Choka

 Sorrow Bay Grief Point

Sad Rocks Desolation Sound

Old Fears Blind Alley

Morbid Channel Grim Look-Out

Good Hearts Cove Safe Harbour 

from Light Years: Memoir of a Modern Lighthouse Keeper (Harbour Publishing: 2015)

The Choka form alternates five and seven syllable lines and ends with the second seven syllable line. Chokas can be any length and do not demand rhyming endings or even metre although the ear will always look for rhythm in any line or sentence. Or at least mine does. I always read my work out loud, prose or poetry, fiction or non-fiction and even then, my idiosyncratic take on some words may not please another reader's ears. I am often guilty of wanting to make people laugh by juxtaposing images as in this choka poem where I wrote down names from two wall-mounted maps in the Egg Island radio room, delighting in the nuances for some long-ago sailors who were obviously having a terrible, no-good, very bad day to call a stretch of water 'morbid channel' or a point of land 'grim look-out'!

Angels in our Hour of Need

A beautiful nurse called Emmanuel
wheeled my love away
“God is With Us”
so declared his mother or
perhaps the father
of Emmanuel-whoever named him
this cheerful young man
God in green scrubs and nitrile gloves

And with a surgeon named Magdalena
meaning great and strong
I know we are in not just good- but great- hands
and we are seen with such kind eyes

As for myself, I try to be a stalwart care-giver
to keep track of meds, glasses of water, juice, broth
I scold, cajole, and cheer the burps which emerge 

from his cracked and opened body

But yesterday in the waiting room
before Emmanuel flew in
& Saint Magdalena wielded her scalpel
for hours on end
I say, ‘remember to breathe like a sniper settling shaky hands’
‘In for five, hold for five, out for five’
 

And there we sat side by side
at some ungodly hour before the dawn
practicing our box breathing
like a pair of Navy Seals

Sweet Peas at Visiting Hour

now here comes a wizened old man
pressed blue jeans clean cotton shirt
dusted-off cowboy boots (no hat)
silver hair damped down slicked back

he hurries for the new-fangled swirling doors
holding a shiny tin can low
below his leather belt
where you’d expect pliers reins tin snips

the can stripped of its wrapper
pork & beans chili con carne peaches perhaps
a humble tin can filled with sweet peas
I will add thee sweet peas in a tin can 

to the very short list
of things in this world
that money can’t buy

PS: thank you Guy Clark for the first two things
true love & home-grown tomatoes

A Poem in Response to the Federal Budget of 2024

The highlights are not entirely unexpected
    housing  health  defence
A well-chosen trio of new parks
  which I want to explore and soon
Some smart strategic nuances make me cheer
  here early this morning alone at my desk
(Amateur policy wonk
Sociology nerd
Subscriber to the weekly Angus Reid polls
Part-time poet always and forever)
Like faster approval of medical professionals from far beyond
   these fortunate borders and pharmacare at last
Long overdue disability pension supplements and more for mental health
Which makes me remember certain faces, voices, cups of tea
Some highlights make me despair
   school lunches for another 400,000 kids
   confronting hate with money for training to educate and protect us
   from Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and all the other-isms which divide us
   turning some of us into simple-minded braying bigots, fearful, blaming, abusive
Oh let me not go down that path
Let me remember two hungry children, one five year old hiding under a bed
His eight year old brother on a tall cupboard in a dingy one room hotel suite
Hiding so a drunken father would not beat them
Let me remember their rescue instead, the breakfast I bought them first
 

PS: Life is not Fair, granted. I must resort to prose because I am angry despite my best efforts to be pure and distilled and even-tempered. Phooey to that well-mannered avoidance tactic! Paying our fair share of windfall income sets off a lot of squealing and squawking. So be it. Go hungry for two days and sleep under a bed or on top of a cupboard. Imagine choosing between rent, food, heating or asthma inhaler ($100 without a plan). Think hard before voting for a wee neo-fascist nitwit with limited life experience beyond his safe and privileged seat in a wealthy riding.