The Interlude

Part 1
The fall winds call me from wilder places
With the strength of glacial slopes descending
And the honey'd warmth of meadow breezes
Come wondrous stranger and tell me the news!
Thirsty for word of cool mossy hollows
I ache for a glimpse of an endless sky
The scent of snow on the air summons me
Free to dance under rain and rain shadows
Free to dream of the thrush and the stellars jay
Off pavement, I move through spirit-thick woods
Guided by sunbeams and whip-poor-will calls
My mind explodes into a thousand thoughts
Then stills itself only to burst again
A flash of ephemeral star shower
A clearing of mind to cleanse the heart's compass
Now, unbound, I let direction seize me
Toss me freely in your waves unfettered
In my heart the adventure takes over
But what of those memories that claim me?
That promise to return with all their charms?
The picket fence, the laughter of a child
But these bittersweet manipulations
Disguise the day's soft potential for light
Such distractions take me away from her
They build me into walls without windows
And deafen me to my heart's own beating
Creator of wind and wave and wonder
Planter of seeds of all great ideas
Who tilted my childhood chin to the sun
Kicked away my prison tower of books
Felt I emotions that would last a lifetime
Saw I visions that would never leave me
My child eyes kissed all these things with a wink
Am I now just nostalgic for the past?
Does fear of a sadder future hold sway?
No! This is the truth recreated for all time
I offer these thoughts to thee wise companion

Part 2
So, from long past youth, I have come to be
And even still my young heart finds the light
Creative yearnings from my old young self
And I beside her, old and new, one of two
Yet more ancient still, the me of the womb
Keeping time in my mother’s heart-rock band
Mum herself internal of nature’s shroud
Nudged me on, my heartbeat steps to guide me
And there found myself at times so fearful
Of birds and bees and giant’s knees, I balked
Til Terrified, I forced myself to stand
To look and wait and watch the bees dancing
These tiny things born large by my wonder
Spoke to each other through shifts and jiggles
At eventide I watched the bats swoop low
After pebbles that father and I tossed
Sensing without seeing – beautiful bat



Part 3
Summers would then pour into Septembers
Cold mornings and colder classroom glances
Even still my college days were haunted
By a boredom that slept in the corner
Never too soon could I make my escape
Leaving my classmates to rebuild the past
I’d make my way down to the canyon floor
Climbing up the woody cedar bed trails
My excess thoughts falling off me like dust
Exposing a purer mind, a calm mind
As if my head could open up I felt
The whole universe could fit inside it
Oh Reader! To be free in mind and soul
The wisdom of trees surpassing all books
To lay with the air than with any man
The gifts of Heaven cannot be contained

Part 4
I follow deer paths from day into night
As a boy moves into his own manhood
And the infant girl becomes a woman
Though all this time our eyes never alter
Nor do the starlit heavens dull or fade
Never fixed yet pure of essence they seem
To harbour all my childhood attention
That became teenage guile then mid-life muse
The same power emitted by the stars
Caught in a lullaby, a bedtime tale
Bright spark of imagination returns
When cherished books from our past are opened

Part 5
Thirty-three years have I as I write this
And wonder, what of the books I read now?
The ones I take into the high country
Or the quiet corners of the city
So that looking up from the page I see
I am reader writer and character
I am the artist’s universe and they
Gods of creation who conceive the world
Shades of poetry and colours intoned
Upon where e’re my eye does skip across
Come such transformations triggered by thought
The distance between mind and word reduced
But books read at gunpoint of a deadline
Amid ring chasers and dry scholarship
Damages and deadens the generous work
That suits lush wilderness not ivy’d walls

Part 6
If I shift my gaze from the lone tree hill
To the great mind behind the podium
I find as I watch and listen and learn
That it is not the style nor cut of clothes
Nor the many letters before his name
But that strange quality of humanness
That escapes on the wings of his ideas
Oh, to walk in his shoes, see with his eyes
Familiar stranger, friend I’ve never met
We move through nature’s blue air and cool light
With the pearl of our innocence within
The emerald that the leather pouch protects
Sensitive hearts we guard in our cages
But ribs alone cannot protect from
The kind of harm one does to another
We create as if only to destroy

Part 7
Man’s downfall lives within his constructions
The descriptions of how things ought to be
These words then soon become a religion
Wife Mother Daughter Marriage Family
A word encompasses reality
No more than a tide pool contains the sea
And so we reason like post-modernists
A domestic revolution builds steam
We must rise above the pyre of dead tropes
Free the lovers and the poets of the world
Destroy the modern prison of union
Hearts free as they were when we were so young
Set fire to the props and crutches we thought
Were the bounty of life’s passions fulfilled
Sever all links to the unkept promise
And charge ahead into independence

Part 8
I stormed ahead and later came to rest
In a quiet corner of the city
Where I could hear the ruined lives settle
Where I found myself very much alone
How is this what is expected of us?
Lost without another soul’s hand to hold?
In our childhood, that hand was everything
We all need a hand we can depend on
So now, with baby steps, heartbeat movement
I creep around my corner, edging out
I see old women and men strolling past
Their contented smiles glow in the low light
Birds singing their final refrains alight
Stretching out in each direction I see
People needing people needing freedom
Just as all aspects of nature have need
Dependance interwoven through all things
I cannot forget the shady cool stream
That ran near the house of my undoing
Salmonberry summers and rainy springs
The ebb and flow of humans and nature
Progression into fantastic places
Where futures are full of old beginnings
And our innocence of youth is preserved
Like an oak tree’s memory of the acorn
Like a salmon’s sense of direction home
We have within us our youth and wisdom
When tragedy leads to need of comfort
Always the door is open to nature