The Reinvention

“It’s time to reinvent.”

“Okay, so what first?”

“The inventory, what do we have to work with? What does our source material look like?”

“Well, some decent skills and experience here, some talents but they’re pretty well buried under paperwork and redtape.”

“Here, you grab that end of the paperwork and I’ll get this end, now, shift.”

“Hmm… they’re a little flattened but I think they’ll bounce back.”

“They’ll have to do, they’re all we’ve got.”

“What about this over here?”

“Well I’ll be! A soul! I never noticed it was missing.”

“Could be why the crushing was so extensive, the soul wasn’t in it, couldn’t mitigate the damage.”

“Look, it’s in really good shape. Yeah, we can do something with this. And look what it’s sitting on top of, a heart.”

“Maybe it was shielding the heart.”

”Could be. The heart is still quite strong for a model this old.”

“Okay, we’ve got skills, talent, experience, one soul, and one heart. Anything else we need to do this reinvention.”

“Yep, and it’s all around you.”

“What, this gooey stuff?”

“Yep. That, my friend, is the the glue that hold it all together, the creative spirit. Get the wet vac, this is going to take a while.”

 

#41

Willie, Phil, and Me

It’s Groundhog Day in Canada and in the U.S. too
A time to watch the rodent to see what it will do.
 
Did it see its shadow or did the sun shine bright?
Will it stay and play a while or yawn and say ‘goodnight’?
 
It is an odd tradition, ground hog prognostications,
So fixed within the hearts and minds of our respective nations.
 
But up here in the northland we don’t have ground hogs
And if we did, right now they’d all be sleeping just like logs.
 
They wouldn’t even try to wake and look outside the den
Cause first they’d have to shovel off the snow and ice and then
 
The sun might still be shining while it’s twenty five below
Perhaps that’s why we have no hogs, perhaps they all got froze.
 
I’ll tell you this, no matter what prediction your hog brings
Even six more weeks of winter here means a fairly early spring.

#40

Epistles from a Northern Shut In

Dearest Whom It May Concern,
My bucket list just scraped the bottom of my creative well.
I laboured to pull up handsful of silt and arrange it attractively on the page, a
hummock here, a swirl there, but along with the silt came the shards of sleep denied, slivers of guilt, and caltrops of anxious predictions of the worst yet to come (I’m saving these to strew in my path if I ever get on to one).
It’s a dangerous little ditty, my dearest Whom.
I can call you ‘Whom’, can’t I?

Ingenuously Yours

The Author at the Bottom of the Well.

 

#39

Message from the Mountain

We spend more time going up the mountain
and coming down the mountain
than we spend at the top of the mountain.
Yet all our attention is drawn
to the top of the mountain,
all our dreams
are of panoramic vistas,
all our thoughts
are of how to get there sooner,
stay there longer,
go back again.
Perhaps we are only allowed one mountain top
per lifetime and how we savour it
is left to us to decide.

 

#37

Dropped Tissues

Right, so, every now and then I get a glimpse
just a chance glance at the past and it looks
like a trail a snail might leave,
sorta slimy, you know, but really it’s just
a trail of used tissues. The ones you blow
your nose on but then there’s nowhere to put them
so you tuck them into the wristband of your
sweater and forget ‘em and eventually let ‘em drop behind
till you find them like an unappetising line of
bread crumbs to the past.
 
Then I look back and down and all around
at the fingers tugging my sleeve and bugging me to
leave the past and do the present ‘cause it’s now and
how can we move ahead, get fed, if I don’t focus on the
folks that need me now and here and here and now
and now the day is over and they’re all just more
dropped tissues.
 
The future is beckoning and I’m out of my reckoning because
it keeps on shifting and drifting and staying just out of reach
as I trip over tissues and issues and self inflicted misuse of
God given talents and I balance my weight on the edge
of this day and say it doesn’t matter if it’s
past, present, or future,
it all makes me tense.

 

#36

Left from Right

Is there anywhere left in the world
Where every sight is beauty?
Where every sound is music?
Where souls bathe in serenity
And the air is so clean it sings in the lungs?
 
Is there anywhere left in the world
Where time is gone and forgotten?
Where then and when is now?
Where progress is to breathe
And words are carried off on the wind?

Is there anywhere left in the world?
Is there anywhere right in the world?

 

#35

Falling Awake

Last night I dreamed I was wandering in the forest
Looking for a path home
I lit a fire
But it flew away in sparks
Left me in the dark again.

Last night I dreamed I was wandering by the river
Looking for a path home
I climbed the bank
But the roots would not hold me
The river sure is cold this time of year.
 
Last night I dreamed I was wandering in a city
Looking for a path home
I looked in a window
But a stranger lived there
Standing where I used to stand.
 
Last night I dreamed I wandered the world
Looking for a path home
I opened our door
And saw you sleeping peacefully
I lay down beside you, shut my eyes, and fell awake.

 

#34

The Bad Bug Blues

I got a mile of sandpaper
Where my throat oughta to be.
Got a mile of sandpaper
Where my throat oughta be
And if you get any closer, baby
You’ll prob’ly catch it off of me.
 
My skin is crawlin’
Crawlin’ with worms of pain
My skin is crawlin’
Yeah, crawlin’ with worms of pain
And if I ever shake this bug baby
Hope I never get it back again
 
Haven’t slept since Tuesday
Prob’ly won’t sleep tonight
Well I haven’t slept since Tuesday
Prob’ly won’t sleep tonight.
Everyday it gets a little harder
Harder to put up a fight.
 
Don’t worry ‘bout me baby
In a week or so I’ll be fine.
No, don’t worry ‘bout me baby
In a week or so I’ll be fine.
And we’ll toast the bad bug blues
With a bottle of your finest wine.

 

#32

“As is probably evident in this poem/blues lyric, I have a very nasty cold!”