Category: A New Poem Every Morning

It’s All Your Fault

lindastudley4 Comments

It’s all your fault you know.
The way you packed us up in the car
and dragged us across Canada and back.
If it’s Tuesday this must be Swift Current.
First the tent, then the tent trailer
then the bumper dragger.
I slept in the top bunk and hit my head on the ceiling
every morning.

It’s all your fault.
Those summers on the east coast,
lobster dinner in a Nova Scotia church basement,
Green Gables, Cavendish Beach,
the Reversing Falls, the Magnetic Hill.
The dip into the US; Maine, New Hampshire.
Stacks of snapshots and a few jerky regular 8 movies,
mostly of me and Mum standing beside
landmarks and signs to prove we were there.

It’s all your fault that my feet itch.
That I get that late night, headlight,
count the tar strip by the bumps longing
for the open road.
Your fault that when I’m on the coast I yearn for the mountains
and when I’m in the mountains I yearn t’ward the plains.
It’s all your fault, Dad.
Thank you.

 

#297

An Interstitial Life

lindastudley2 Comments

There are events that consume us,
that we point to as if they were big black dots on our
lifeline, and we say “after this or after
that, I will have time.” So we defer,
delay, detour around the stuff in between
the big black dots but as soon
as one dot recedes another appears and we
race towards it, blinders on, somehow knowing
that this event will be a turning point, a
special place where the light bulb turns on and
all the silly little pieces fall into place.

I am tired of big black dots.
I want to live between.
I want an interstitial life, sweetly rocked in the
swaying hammock formed by the lines
between the dots.

 

#296

Future Past

lindastudley2 Comments

I wrote down the year today
as nineteen instead of twenty.
as though some errant, swirling time warp
tapped me on the shoulder.
New memories came like visions
from temporal cognoscenti,
and transcended the divisions
between now and then and older.

Which made me wonder what would happen
if one day the time warp hit
straight on, full force, and pulled me
deep into the eerie vortex.
Would it be a hurricane’s eye
where once and future engrams flit
like flying cows and spinning barns
whizzing past my quaking cortex?

Would patterns form and fray and fade,
emerge, then merge again to form
the multiverse of maybes
that spawned my personal, perfect storm?
The brainstorm of the century.
The wormhole to what’s never been.
The one way ticket, first class seat,
to the nearest loony bin. 

“Two thousand twelve, two thousand twelve,
not nineteen anything” I say.
I grip the pen as if an anchor
to my actuality.
“I have too much to do to ride
time’s crazy centrifuge today.
the future past is soon enough
to face my own reality.”

#295

Old Brooms

lindastudleyLeave a comment

New brooms are awkward and stiff.
They haven’t had time to learn about corners
and where the cracks in the linoleum are.
They are still too vain, with their shiny red handle
and their tidy straw, all the same length, that
doesn’t like dust bunnies to cling.

Give me an old broom with split ends,
its handle scarred from one too many foray
under the bed. An old broom that doesn’t mind
having a bunny or two between its straw teeth.
One that knows its place and leans against the wall
on slightly curving bristles, only sliding down across
the path to trip unwanted visitors or bill collectors.

Old brooms sweep clean and so much more.
They thump the ceiling when the upstairs
neighbour gets too loud. They fish things out
from under sofas and off high shelves.
Old brooms are the stars of every limbo contest ever held.
Give me an old broom any day.

 

#294

Looking Over My Shoulder at Winter

lindastudleyLeave a comment

The wet stuff.
Lumpy rain.
The ‘S’ word.
Or, as I like to call it,
‘that white shit’
litters the parking lot.
The first warning shot of winter has been fired.

We pick our way
through slush.
Bow our heads
before sleet.
Refuse to wear
our winter boots.
‘This will be gone by the weekend’ we declare.

And it will be.
The sun will shine
and the snow will melt.
But the wooly gauntlet
has been thrown down
making it hard to enjoy
what is left of a Peace Country Autumn.

#292

Me vs Things I Can’t Change

lindastudleyLeave a comment

The things I can’t change
fly to greet me from the screen;
daring me to care.

And so we wrestle.
Me versus things I can’t change,
in futile deadlock.

The difference is,
although I can’t change the things,
the things can change me.

#291

Answers and Chocolate Easter Eggs

lindastudleyLeave a comment

Why Answers Are Like Chocolate Easter Eggs
There’s always more than one.
They hide in plain sight.
Someone else usually sees them first.
The ones you buy are never as satisfying as the ones you find.
The more you collect, the more you want.
The joy is often in the finding.

Why Answers Are Not Like Chocolate Easter Eggs
They won’t make you gain weight
They won’t rot your teeth.
You can share them with others and still have them.
You can find them all year round.

 

#290

Thank You

lindastudley2 Comments

Thank you
For never giving up on me.
You give a fool hope that a way will come.

Thank you
For the words you said that set me free
And the ones you didn’t when you bit your tongue.

Thank you
For always being there by my side
except when you turned to protect my back.

Thank you
For slowing down when I was tired
As we move on down life’s rutted track

Thank you

 

#289