The High and the Low

I went for a winter hike with some friends in an area known as the Niagara Glen. It’s a broad but rugged place in the Niagara gorge, a place of tumbled rocks strewn from an ancient tributary. Like so many others, I’d traveled along the edge of the gorge and never imagined that a completely other world existed there. Not that it’s unknown; people explore there, fish there, play there. It’s just that looking down from the top you focus on the river below and forget the space between. So often someone in our party would exclaim, “I never knew this was here!”

The terrain is rugged but not inhospitable. Its great attraction is in its difference: it is neither the roar and swirl of the powerful river nor the civilized parks and roads above the rim. In its way, it reminded me of poetry and what poetry should be.

I will grant that sometimes poetry will look down from the refined rim of the abyss and try to explain what lies below. Or again, poetry may be part of the raging variability of the river where it grabs the banks. But who but a poet can show and explain the one to the other, can explore the complexity that lies between and still joins them.

In the human condition it is the artist, the poet who must clamber between the highs and the lows, to seek the realities that are ecstasy and profundity. To that end nothing can be more symbolic, more metaphoric than a winter hike in the gorge of the Niagara River on a clear winter afternoon.

The Beginnings of Poetry

Some time ago an older lady approached me. She explained that she had recently taken up the habit of writing down her thoughts and ideas, her observations and memories, all the little things that were important to her. These writings didn't seem to be stories or anything she could explain as such. Since I was a "well-known poet" could I look at her work and tell her if this was poetry? By then I was already holding the papers she had pushed toward me.

While I looked through her offering, the silence was interrupted only by my wordless mutterings. I knew she was looking for more than a simple yes or no; I had to find some kind explanation of the worth of her writings.

This, I told her, reminds me of the pile of stuff at the end of my garden after winter is over.Here you have a mass of stuff in no recognizable shape. There are stems and branches, some hard, some soft, some brittle. There are clumps of dry grass and old leaves in different states of decomposition. If someone only glanced at it they might consider it dead, worthless. You might get the same reaction to your writing, I warned her.

But among all that dry and brittle and worthless material, I went on, there are probably a few seeds ready to germinate in the coming warmer weather. What a gardener will do is find those seeds that are precious and will become the beautiful flowers she wants. She will carefully nurture them, probably use a compost of previously worthless stems and grasses, and give them every opportunity to become the best they can. And so it should be with your words and thoughts, your feelings and observations. It may seem like a formidable task. If you are not a gardener, you might not want to grow flowers from seed. If you are not a poet, you may not want to grub around in words until they are beautiful to many people. Just remember, there are tools available. The gardener has her seed catalogue, her different soils, her implements. The poet has books with examples and explanations, writers groups, and the traditions of those who have written poetry before. Use all the tools available and be the best gardener, be the best poet you can be.

On a Cold Winter's Night

Last night was bitterly cold. While on my way to my car I overheard a snippet of conversation between two young ladies at the bus stop. "Whatcha doing later?" "I'm gonna curl up with So-and So's latest, a blanket, hot chocolate ..." "Oh, yeah! She is hot!!" I didn't recognize the author's name, probably a best selling romance novelist, but I certainly could agree with the sentiment.

When I arrived home I said to myself, Since you are a poet, what poet would you curl up with on a cold winter's night? and spent some time reflecting on it. Not one who was fiery, intense and emotional. Not someone who would demand all your attention. Not someone who makes you work to follow his mental gymnastics. Someone with a slow hand and a soothing voice.

The first name that came up was Robert Frost, because of the simlicity and gentility of his poetry, not because of his name. I approved of my choice but then told myself, As a Canadian, with what Canadian poet would you share a winter evening in front of the fire?

After a lengthy pause the names came like the first slow drips of a morning icicle: Glen Sorestad; Ralph Gustafson; Emile Nelligan for a dash of French; Margaret Avison for a feminine perspective. Several more, including good friends of mine.


I have warmth, good food and drink, poetry galore.
I need only some body to cuddle.

Winter Haiku

old wooden fence

three inches higher
after the snowfall

*

in my crimson winter coat

I whistle replies
to a cardinal

*

under the weight of snow

the old spruce

a weeping willow

*

first frost

the grass covered

with shattered stars

*

On the Eramosa Karst

The previous post about the voice of the land mentioned my hike in the new conservation area here in Hamilton, the Eramosa Karst. It is an escarpment or stone ridge on top of the massive Niagara Escarpment; because the rock is softer, it has some different qualities. There are sinkholes where running water has found a way into the rock and between layers; there are springs where it bubbles up to the surface again; and underneath that surface are miles of caves, many small and narrow but some substantial. The original settlers would curse the holes and try to fill them, but welcome the springs and brooks. Trouble is, you can't have the latter without the former.

I wrote a poem about the experience. Now I don't intend to use this space as a private publication house, but since it was sent out to several friends and posted on another site, I will share it here.

Cold Sunday on the Eramosa Karst

We have come to feel its small wonders,
to dance our minds to the land’s old hums.
Uninvited, that bitter winter sun came by,
partnered with a steel wind stone-honed
to scythe the stately dance or slap the steppers.

The undesired intrude into introductions,
make demands that should remain unasked.
Chill light and thin air battle our breaths,
chip at our fingertips.

But the music we hear will not be silenced.
Land and brush crunch whispered greetings
to the feet on the path, encourage our every
slow movement from here to there.

Movement from here to there.

Here the water slips sinking into disappearance,
in a hole blacker than space, and there
reappears in several spots bubbling
to gather together and sing a new way
through crumbling stone.

Like old fiddle tunes familiar ways reach
through the cold to the knowing heart,
the remembering feet, the undefiled faces.

At the end the comfort inside of cider heat
and our hearts’ hot desires hold close
songs of knowledge to the tunes of wisdom.



Jefferson

Haiku

I woke up this morning 'under the weather' as they say: stuffed sinuses, runny nose, a bit of a dry cough. The thing is, my cough reminded me of a strange sound I had heard early one summer morning when the smog turned the sky a gray-tan colour and the sun a bloody red. I had to dig up the haiku I wrote then and put aside.

a new smog alert
..........the rising sun is greeted
................................by a coughing crow

Somehow this one fell into an automatic 5-7-5 form. I don't usually write that way; Japanese ideograms are not equal to English syllables. The art in English language haiku is to convey all that needs to be conveyed in as few words as possible, to keep to the spirit of haiku rather than labour under the restrictions of form.