Just behind Cedar Ridge Creative Centre, a steep switchback trail leads me to the west bank of Highland Creek, where tall grasses sway beside a sandy bank with cheerful stones below. As I continue along the narrow path beside the bank, I stop to photograph an elegant monarch butterfly before moving into deeper tree cover beyond.
I soon come to a tributary of the stream that is flowing much more slowly. Thanks to its shallowness, I can cross by hopping on the most stable stones. As I pause on the series of stepping-stones to survey the next viable perch, I experience moments of flowing water, such as a chartreuse leaf bathing in the stillness.
Although sunlight struggles to filter through the thick canopy, the steep bank offers a vision of hopefulness in grasses that are beginning their rooted stance, a scrap of sky above, and more tree leaves arching over the negative space. I have the sense of inhabiting a furrow or deep groove in an earthy canyon, transforming me into a creature with the option of crawling up and out from a den.
And I do just that, scrambling up the bank with the steadying aid of roots and branches for balance. I emerge onto the manicured openness of Scarborough Golf Club, owner of the footbridge I had glimpsed in a clearing on a previous walk. After I observe a few treasures of the golf course, including a short boardwalk in a marshy area, four irises, and an apiary, I return to the creek’s edge and forest path, the afternoon bathing in light.
I want to heal from the damage caused by two nails that have pierced me. Over the years, they have twisted themselves into cracked pockets of bark, digging in, holding fast to their reluctant host.
“Brace yourself,” well-wishers advise. “Just grab those rusty bastards by the bent heads and rip them out. Then you’ll be free!” It is easy for others to say this, for they perceive the nails as separate and distinct from my flesh. They judge me for cleaving to familiar cruelties, the very devices that undermine my stability. However, these well-meaning friends haven’t experienced the worst legacy of violence, how it seeps into the body, infiltrating its cells and poisoning trust.
I miss the clarity of rage that met the shock of the first hammer blow and the next and the next. As each nail bit closer to the core in widening rings of pain, the idea that I had “asked for it” never crossed my mind. But I was young and did not anticipate how quickly righteous anger cools to self-doubt. Matching pain to resigned silence is a mistake that re-makes itself.
The man who held the hammer is long dead, but the nails he selected still insinuate, still ache. The memories sink more and more severely into my limbs each season, and their sharp points have come to seem as normal as shame. Although he never explained why he chose me to be punished, he was careful to convince me I deserved it. That way, I continue to self-crucify as he intended, a sadistic immortality.
The two nails drive his name deeper with every splash of rain on metal, every ice-storm that conducts cold into my veins. Yet without this Frankenstein map of ancient injuries, who am I? If I deny the splinters that have shaped me, how can I muster the audacity to be whole?
When soldiers returned to father the Boomers,
this house had a miniature door
for bottles to enter full and leave empty,
waiting to turn opaque with cream again.
After the rise of supermarkets, the portal changed to a window,
six milky panes slap-spackled in the brick,
intimate economies traded
for plastic jugs, sloshing bags, and Snippits.
Today, morning rays tremble where hinges once swung,
and light is the currency of nourishment.
Absence has punched through the wall,
dispensing with chiseled finesse.
But thanks to the glass, tactless bricks
do not efface the door’s memory.
Instead, as stained-glass surrenders to water,
transparency releases pools of color,
visual sighs for the lost,
and prayers for anguished strength
to carry memories of the dead.
Six thick panes for discarded cradles,
rusty skate keys, and faded bowling prizes.
One shelf for the clink of empties, echoes of booming demands to grow up strong.
Milk door to window,
necessary to obsolete.
What shines can seed the deepest soil.
And what empties to nothing
holds rivers of radiant ghosts
that shimmer, swirl, and eddy in aching gold.
When I descended the steps at the beginning of a three-hour trek from Taylor Massey Park to the Don River Valley, a multitude of surprises awaited me.
Victoria Park Avenue entrance to the park
Along the trail, I discovered green palaces reflected in the creek, a memorial bench wreathed in wildflowers, animal sculptures carved from a fallen tree, and the sight of a chipmunk speeding to its burrow.
“In memory of Joseph Crawford (1956-1995). Never forgotten. Always in our hearts.”
Flowers and chains framed the beauty of the stream, and wavy reflections of tree trunks served as pillars for a temple of nature.
The first trail marker for the Lower Don appeared after an hour and fifteen minutes of walking. This was exciting because I had never witnessed the transition from Taylor Massey Creek to the Don River before.
The Don River and Canoe Conversation Piece
Much as I love the sheltered flow of a woodland creek, the impact of seeing the waterway widen and deepen in capacity astonished me. My chest expanded, my breath deepened, and I felt freer, bigger, and more open.
Ten minutes into the Lower Don section of the walk, I noticed a short dirt trail leading to a lookout on an elevated bank. With the camera looped around my wrist, I fell into a reverie while looking at the opaque water and began to daydream about the Missouri River (my home river). Suddenly, a very large pink and white fish jumped high above the surface and splashed with panache back into the river.
I was so startled that I almost dropped my camera. However, I was not upset in the least, for it was a privilege to have been shaken up by that feisty fish. Its breathtaking leap made me feel alive and gave me hope for the health of the river.
Tired but refreshed by so much beauty, I continued the journey, noticing a family of geese, graffiti murals at the base of a soaring bridge, and an artist painting a shimmering river portrait in olive green, brown, and ocher.
Near the end of the hike, I encountered historic Todmorden Mills at the foot of a steep incline up Pottery Road. I had almost reached the top of the hill, panting from exertion and the extreme heat, when the final surprise of the day greeted me: a Dairy Queen right at the summit!
In my personal history of ice-cream consumption, never has a plain vanilla cone tasted as good as the magical one purchased on Pottery Road that afternoon. It was the perfect ending to an adventure made possible by Toronto’s generous creeks, powerful rivers, and unpredictable wildlife.
Niagara Falls, you deliver glory and awe this winter! Heaped with snow, giant cracks sever the river-ice below you, a survivor of mythic battles: water versus freezing air, movement versus paralysis, and the struggle to break free, break through, break open.
I love the edges of your ice banks, the borders of upheaval against which green swirling cauldrons steam, pool, and hiss. I love the seams of blue ice and the irregular holes in the ice-lid, especially the one beside the north bank and the other in the center of the river.
Niagara Falls, I love your giant ice sculptures, their humps, swoops and Matisse shapes. These small glaciers settle me into the soul of winter, birth echoes of the Great Lakes, great pools of ancient melted ice cupped by basins. This water, this ice so old and yet so fresh, sluices clean through me and gives me peace, ice peace.
I am a ruined barn, empty but smelling of ancient hay. I sit in a lost valley, no longer a shelter nor part of a living farm. I used to be warmer, to glow orange from lanterns on February mornings, to retain animal heat. Now my shadows fill in their outlines, brief flashes from the highway my only relief.
I am tired of being a relic, a rural ghost that attracts photographers from the city. Their insulting attention reminds me that I am just a skeleton of economies past, a symbol of romantic decay.
All my sounds are whispers and echoes now, where once I heard grunts, shouts, whinnies, cries of pain and hunger. It’s so quiet now. Ruin is quiet. My unsteady walls feel dry, brittle, so straw-like that one warm hand on my door would set me ablaze. I welcome this fire, this sweet extinction into ashes.
When it rains, I feel the blessed water soaking my beams, splashing through broken panes, swelling the hayloft floor so that I forget my ladder is broken and my stalls now shells that once held a family’s wealth and sustenance. I miss being whole. I miss being real. I miss the animals I used to protect.
(The audio recording below is from my reading of the poem at The Urban Gallery on Saturday October 25th, 2014)
On a washing day, I place the white basket on the patio table, move the line into position, and grab some single socks. As I administer the stability of clothespins, I relish the sun on my face and the breeze that moves the tall thistles and Queen Anne’s lace.
My hands attach the socks, shirts, towels, and pajama bottoms to the line, connecting me to a pre-electric time when the sun’s rays were not considered eccentric alternatives to the dryer.
Full of solar gratitude, the pulley and I send the clothing further down the line, deeper into the garden, unfurling my sails for the wind to catch them. I scootch the entire set of washing as far as I can, until the first sock is almost touching the top of the plants. Each time a new garment is pinned, it makes a great launch into the unknown, pennants of the sky meeting green messengers of the earth.
Task finished, I stand on the deck to admire the animated line, smiling at the dance of billowing cloth that the wind creates as it plays with pant legs and flowing hems. As I observe the moving shadows cast on the grass below, I breathe the scent of summer warmth that the laundry will later hold in memory, releasing sunshine on thankful skin.
A pink sink appeared on a neighbour’s lawn, and I took a picture of it.
Two weeks later, I noticed some changes in the rejected sink’s appearance, and its new look inspired a short reflection.
Pink Sink Reflection
The weight of the pink basin is no match for the power of grass. It only takes two weeks for hundreds of green blades to hoist their pastel burden high and tilt it to one side. In a similar show of strength, dandelions find outlets through the three holes, pushing aside ghosts of faucets past.
Where hot and cold water once rushed through pipes, new stems flourish wild, breathing spring into the openings that people once controlled. As fluffy seeds unfurl with defiance, they celebrate the natural disobedience of plant life.With insouciant flair, these so-called weeds seize every opportunity to grow, and they do not apologize for it.
Dandelions, thank you for challenging human assumptions. By threading yourselves through a discarded basin, you teach us what matters: surviving, finding a purchase, and overcoming obstacles that seem crushing at first. Your genius and grit create beauty in unexpected places, inciting resistance to perfect lawns policed by frowns.
This poem enjoyed an open mic outing (my first) yesterday afternoon at the Urban Gallery. I am grateful to Brenda Clews for organizing the event and to Stewart Russell for making the recording!
Life at the Roots
By Catherine Raine (2013)
One fall day,
I walk the ribbed bedrock of a dry creek.
Between old dreaming stream and Flack Lake,
a carpet of fresh moss and brown duff.
My steps disturb a creature
who runs away under the cover of leaves,
pushing up against its shelter as it flees.
The unknown animal
creates a living ribbon of movement,
drawing a flight path with its body.
The tree litter shifts and rustles in its fast wake,
evidence of life unseen but more real than this poem,
fusing threads of instinct without pause.
One summer day,
I bike home from work,
thoughts distracted from the simple path
that curves by the banks of Taylor Massey Creek.
I pass a tall gathering of yellow grasses
that erupts with startled birds.
They fly straight up from the reeds,
rising all at once in a mass of flapping.
Birds of hidden presence,
you are birds of poetry and vision.
All the beauty that lies unknown within us,
waiting for a sudden movement,
a whoosh of wheels and wings
to reveal life at the roots,
a wild frightening freshness that we cage with lies.
One spring morning,
Dark green shoots
grow from my breasts, pushing up, pushing out.
I tug a shoot from my left aureole
and a large curly leaf comes out.
I tug more shoots and yet more shoots,
shocked by the secret depth of my roots.
My right breast overspills with greenery, too.
Dirt mixes with the leaves,
and one last tug
makes an onion pop out and roll on the grass.
Onion, I know you.
You promise food, the push of streams,
breath of reeds, and the soft spring of moss.
I believe in your hidden roots.
Underground, you listen to famished souls
who trace desire lines on the waiting earth.
Several years later, I entered the poem in a contest and it was selected as one of four winners:
