Monthly Archives: March 2019

Disobedience

My body doesn’t understand my brain,
or do I have this backward?

Calcified circuits, perhaps.

Worn out paths.
Easy to go off the rails.

When eating, I bite the inside of my lower lip,
at least once a day.
The cut can’t heal, and it swells a bit,
offering a better target for next time.
Is this a consequence of something,
or a symptom of closet masochism?

Don’t “inhale” your food.
This is good advice which I do not follow.
Surely a symptom.
Storing nuts for the final winter.

I used to keep a long handled brush in the shower.
(For back scrubbing, and the relief of pesky itches.)
It was lost when we moved.
Now, I shower in an alcove of stone.
Hard, undrillable, impenetrable.
But advantageous to one with the itch.
I push up against it, and rub back and forth.
Ah, but what endorphins!
Each day, I stay a little longer.
This very morning, after the steamy session,
my wife said to me
“Why is there blood on your shirt?”

There is an expression, sometimes used to make one shut up.
“I’m going to duct tape your lips.”
For the darker side, you can see it on crime shows.
But I do it for real, every night,
so I won’t get leaks from the air mask.
Doc says “that’s just plain wrong”.
Also, I turn up the pressure.
Cardinal sin, because the sleep doc is supposed to do it
when needed.
But I found out how, and it helps to a degree.

I have never grown up, I think.
They are all ready to give up on me.
Disobedient.

Sweeping changes

at fifteen, I think,
friend said “I hear you got a job”
“whaddya do?”
“I sweep”, I said,
and Buddy laughed his donkey laugh.
I felt a little small.
“You’ll be climbin’ the ladder real quick, har har!”
But, self taught I was,
minimal supervision. Wounded pride and all.

At thirty,
sweeping changes came to my life.
I now wore ten hats,
took home a briefcase full of work some nights.
Guess I had climbed the ladder a bit.
Still I swept.
When deadlines hung over us,
we worked until the bell, and after.
I sent the guys home,
and I swept.

I had a boss
who had big responsibilities,
for our plant and for others.
He came out back once,
saw some of our guys sweeping,
grabbed one of their brooms,
showed them the correct way,
embarrassed everyone, including himself.
Yelling, waving his arms.
As fate would have it,
our company president witnessed the show,
made as if he didn’t see it.
After that, Captain Queeg was sacked.

The worst thing I ever swept up
was a cocoon of dead kittens,
all stiff,
born in a pile of skids.
Thrown onto the floor.

And now, today, I sweep the back hallway,
where my own kittens do their business.
Finally I have learned to use the knees,
not the back.
Trouble is, the knees are going.
Soon now, soon, I will have to hand over the broom to another.
Maybe sweeping will change them, too.

There was once

Old Maggie.
You lived here, and to this day it stands, guarded by posterity. A testament, at least, to the spring steel backbones of your times. Not a curve to its roof, or a lean to its timbers. As upright as you always were, I reckon.

I’ll be seventy next year. When I was one tenth of that, my mother took me to see you for the first time. There were no smiles or caresses, only a stern sizing-up with your raven-like gaze. At mother’s instructions, I was not to call you Granny or Grandma or names of such ilk. And certainly not Maggie. It was to be Grand Mother, and that was the end of it.
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While Mum and Grand Mother spoke in quiet tones, or went out to the garden, I was left to play with the ancient piano, and was told not to touch anything else in the house. Grand Mother had one of those little yappy dogs, and when it wasn’t vocalizing, it was doing circuits of the house, seemingly trying to get me to follow. I did take a curious look around the place, avoiding the touching of anything but the floor. Lots of small dark tables with doilies on them. Pictures on the walls (all straight), of Sons in the Army and Air Force. All of perfect posture and grim aspect. Curiously, an old rag doll sat on the kitchen counter. And, in the back mudroom, some animal skins tacked to the walls, next to a rack of rifles and shotguns. Grand Mother was a widow by that time, but Grand Dad’s effects were never disturbed.

[Why was Mum afraid of you? My little boy’s instinct told me that, right away. In our short time there, she seemed to always be wanting your approval, and your stern expression never changed.]

We stayed long enough for a silent dinner, and then Grand Mother went to her bedroom and brought out an old leather change purse. I remember it being heavily bound with elastic bands. She took from it a rolled wad of paper (more elastics) and gave it to Mum. And then, it was time to go home.

When we got to Toronto, Mum solemnly gave me the first paper money I had ever had of my own. It was five dollars, on the instruction of Grand Mother. A fortune to me. The last time I saw her was three years later, at her funeral.

Upon Mum’s death, some forty years later, we had to clean out her apartment. In her old trunk, wrapped in tissue, was Raggedy Ann.

 

The gathering

In the late fall morning of frost and fog, they came. Many without even their coats. Little ones in borrowed rubber boots. Women still in nightclothes. None could put to words the why of it. Each were surprised by chance meetings with fellow walkers, as their ranks grew. All had a sense of quickening excitement.

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They knew to gather at the tumble-down wall of stone, built by men in ages beyond their memory.  At seven of the clock, with the warming sun beginning its climb, they heard one who spoke to all.  In his words, they were called good.  The ones who had kept faith.  Now, they were to prepare, for they were to be saved.  Five days after the first snow, they must send a messenger to the Wide Wood, to speak of their readiness and hear what they must do.

There were three sisters who lived apart in the land.  They were known for their mercy to the poor, and for their tending to the sick.  In a meeting of the townsfolk, they were chosen to be the messengers.  The first snow came and stayed, and, in the time left, they went about to the houses of home, helping with what was needed, and blessing the people.

On the day appointed, Ilona travelled long by bicycle.

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Irina and Ingrid walked apace, for they were close to the wood.  They had never strayed long into the forest, and were in fear of being lost in the gloaming, when they heard Ilona’s voice calling along the cool evening air.

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By a standing stone, evening-lit in a mushroomy glow, the sisters were well met at last.  At seven of the clock this November night, they held each other’s hand, and put their faces to the stars.  They sang a song of readiness, their steamy breath rising in the lime light.  Their angel was revealed, and sung to them of surety, of the sadness of the world, and the madness.  On the morrow, they would receive a sign.

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paintings by Aron Wiesenfeld