Category: Poems and Prose Poems

Gathered by avid thermals,

the downy nipple rises from nested bed,

sails the length of groves,

and embroiders the soil in gossamer

when she lands.

Fresh gliders follow their sister in flight,

freighted with seeds that trust the wind

to lift and spill them free.

Ghost stars that surrender

to be flung into the future,

they drift in currents that flow beyond lifetimes,

feathered travellers who ignite wishes

hushed from candles to palms of gods.

Fluffy as eiderdown, these tufted legacies

weight their fall with massive purpose,

Zen pilots seeding blossoms for the pollination corps.

In the same way, when compassion

flies the nest of our minds

to meet the world’s loom,

connecting threads weave furrows

for kinship and love to sow their crops.

Just like the time a grieving daughter

received solace from a stranger,

a wedding guest who said,

“My older brother was your dad’s friend forty years ago,

and I used to tag along with their crowd of high school buddies.

They all mostly ignored me,

but your dad showed me how to dribble and shoot a basketball,

taking time to coach me. I never forgot that.”

No matter how fragile,

filaments spun from empathy

go home smiling to the unknown,

shimmering pilgrims with the power

to comfort a yet unborn daughter

whose father lives again in the story

of kindness that defies death

and returns to bless the living.

The daughter at the wedding

can no longer conceive a child,

but she has faith that gentle generations to come

will cultivate expansive families,

communities both chosen and given,

whose deep bonds testify,

“We are all of love-bearing age.“

The slick gray humps —

shadows of glorious glacial whales of old —

have ebbed from cycles of freeze and thaw and rain

to create islands of receding winter.

From January to March,

these masses have shrunk,

slunk much lower to the edges

of the sidewalk by the cinema.

Saturated with soot and exhaust,

the sullen ice-beasts resist the warmer air

and clutch at soggy remnants of broken

plastic spoons, cigarettes, and coffee cup lids.

The time to release caution

and rejoice in change

has not yet arrived,

for the evidence of a harsh season

still lies in gritty drifts on the ground.

Spring is not to be fully trusted

because she has not unlocked herself from this long winter.

Nevertheless, let us witness

how this reticent mistress has lifted

the curled edges of sidewalk ice

so that currents of rippling melt-water lift the floes,

stirring hopes we guard like hungry seeds.

What’s left of me is ragged lace,

more absence than presence,

gnawed upon but not consumed.

I forbid you to pity me.

If you impose sympathy

with those I’m sorry for you eyes,

tart disdain will salt your gaze.

Instead, reach below O poor leaf!

to ask yourself ‘Where am I torn?’

‘Who would recognize me if they knew

how fragile the web is that holds my flesh together?’

Once you have opened the gate

that isolates my suffering from yours,

I will accept empathy from you.

But only then, mind.

I might even tell you about the time

I believed romance meant total surrender.

And you can describe the trusted beloved

who professed support but undermined from within.

As we share stories side by side on the forest floor,

let’s strengthen our arteries together,

arching them upward without apology,

neither holding the heartstrings hostage

nor concealing our corporate wounds.

Meet me at Farlinger Ravine,

Ravine west of Kennedy Road by the Dollarama,

Dollarama that conceals the lost banks of Taylor Massey Creek,

Creek I witness from this rusty bridge.

This bridge where I loll at the rail and examine,

examine the sticky burrs on my mittens,

mittens that spell “Lover” on my knuckles,

knuckles that soften with warmth as the sun rises,

rises to lavish its image on the stream.

Stream of Farlinger where youths from the shelter,

they shelter under maples, entwine limbs on fallen logs,

logs that block the narrow path to the culvert.

This culvert that thunders in storms, eases the stink of sewage,

sewage that swirls over submerged shopping carts,

carts from Giant Tiger, condoms, and Tim Hortons cups,

cups whose rims did not win.

Win next spring, maybe, but today ice curls at the edges of flow,

flow of water that plays with the sun’s colours,

colours of frozen glass in red, purple, and silver,

silver that polishes the depths of Farlinger Ravine.

A screen of ice has pinned my body to a puddle.

Caught between the surface and the depths,

my fluted edges have been numbed and blurred,

robbing me of external definition.

The blessed sun has melted my face to visibility,

fooling viewers with its tawny cheer.

In fact, the roots of my smile do not reach the deepest veins,

which await the body’s liberation

from the clutches of cold fear.

Testifying to repressed power,

iced etchings trace the shapes of submerged wings,

wavy carvings that design their whims

as they skate on the very surface they groove.

The stem lives in contradiction;

part of it captured in ice

but the tail released from confinement.

Not gripped by the dark blue crystals,

nor defined by white scratches,

this licensed grace heartens,

strengthens desire for freedom

to be lifted whole from this chill bed.

Hopeful of return to movement,

the blood irrigates polar and temperate veins alike

whether I believe in restoration or not.

If I desire to be more fully alive,

I must warm and be warmed —

fueling faith in winter’s end.

Tree branches, blue sky

reflected in melting ice —  

winter hieroglyphics.

Fractal patterns,

webs of connection,

forest’s neurons awake.

Branches stretching out

over cold morning waves

sunlight glints on stones.

Bluebells in spring,

spring into life,

forest wakes in mute beauty.

Reeds stand sentinel,

green and straight against a wavy background —

one moment in a changing world.

Cormorant on a stump,

its shadowy image

echoed in still water —

listening, watching, waiting for a sign.

Wildflowers nestling

by a fallen fence — sweet colour

on this spring morning.

Tilting its delicate head

the morning glory listens

to the world’s song . . . and silence.

Tree-shapes sheltering

this quiet forest clearing —

a splash of sunlight.

Sparkling light in the darkness

shower of stars

fallen

down to earth.

Dewdrops on a leaf,

red, yellow, dark purple

expanded moments, radiant.

Profusion of golden leaves

reflections in the stream —

The world is a narrow bridge

we need to cross.

(Note: italicized words from Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav)

The saint of the lake sits high in a sequoia

that grows from an ait kissed by mild waves.

Alone yet expansive, the art of silence

presses the holy woman’s heart between two ferns,

releasing notes of dried clover, cornflower, and marigold.

Rain begins and the saint stirs, prays and praises

the blessèd cover of a thick branch overhead,

its tough bark more waterproof than a nimbus.

Though distance obscures the hermit’s face,

one brown palm is visible against the green.

Cupping the rainfall has awakened her birthing sense,

and she is listening to the tadpoles’ legs emerging,

the fox lining her den with leaves for the coming kits,

and the egg-teeth of baby finches tapping their shells into openness,

their long embryonic wait almost at an end.

When the creased cup of the saint’s hand overflows,

she empties its reservoir with a dancing turn of the wrist.

Backing closer to the tree’s broad column,

she gathers heels into the thighs’ shelter

and circles warm knees with her arms.

Breathing into the curled nest of a compassionate self,

she sleeps in Love, heartbeats lapping in sync

with the lake’s gentle rhymes deep below.

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.

Caution requested

at sober pavement’s edge.

Wind resists, dances.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Optimism works

best with green expectations

that kiss the sweet dirt.

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.

Old bubble-wrap squid
exhausted on icy reef
spring wishes on hold