On the Evil of Death-bed Conversion: A tribute to my Grandfather George

He was a well read, and self-educated man.
His grasp of basic quantum mechanics,
and cosmology, was phenomenal.
An advocate of progress and scientific development,
he abhorred retrogression in a society.

As an intelligent man he understood
that our highest accolade was to learn,
and to teach.
Alone, in a religious society,
he came to understand, and embrace,
the concept of atheism, and humanism.
His life reflected these concepts.
He did not reject religious superstition willy-nilly,
but only after careful thought, study,
and multitudinous discussions,
some heated, some calm and reasoned.
He was content with his decisions,
and his life reflected that contentment.

Diminished by his insidious disease
with the pain roaring through mind and body,
he had no strength to reflect, to contemplate,
to regret.
His family stayed near, but ultimately
he was alone with his anguish.
The whispered prayers, and quiet sadness
of religious kin, dripped into his failing consciousness
as, with a final act of love,
he accepted the exhortations,
and let their Jesus offer them,
not him, a final comfort.

Somewhere in the multiverse,
he hunts duck, moose, deer, 
and converses with Bertrand Russell,
and Robert Service and Jack London
are pleased to receive his critique
of their work.
There is no sign, in this iteration,
of manna,
of harps,
of milk and honey.

Elsewhere, through time and
Mandelbrot spirals,
a grandson recognises and 
accepts the greatness,
the strength, the determination,
the intelligence
of this good man,
and continues to think,
and to question.
Always.

The Shades of Autumns Past

Down where Wilfred’s store stood
you can almost hear political arguments
in voices, distinct and beloved,
while pipe and tobacco smoke swirled
above a wood stove surrounded by nail kegs,
and a few sparse chairs.
Further down the lane,
where Gammon’s once stood,
the sharp smell of handline,
and essence of John Leckie boots
hangs in the salty air.

The dim shadows of fishermen’s stores
populate a cove, where even the stones
that supported their handmade wharves 
have disappeared into the relentless, 
and unforgiving, maw of time.
The memory of the lobster plant,
and the bustling fish plant,
offer olfactory hallucinations,
with the sharp smell of hot creosote
steeping nets, enhancing spectral vision.
You can almost see a cove full of small boats,
a palette of bright colour, with swaying spars,
and names like “Miss Glace Bay”, “Valma C”,
and “On Time 3".

Out between the islands, the Groaner calls,
and the shimmer of returning sails
causes a flurry of activity in kitchens
ruled by strong women, to whom hardship
was simply a way of life.
Remembered clotheslines flutter with colour,
each matron having her own distinct hanging pattern.
A small boy rows across a cove that has hosted
his past kindred for almost two hundred years.
A little girl in a cotton dress talks to the postmistress,
then runs with her granny’s mail
to receive her promised molasses cookie.

The man doesn’t see the ruins of old houses,
nor the place where the schoolhouse stood,
he is remembering Roll’s Garage, and Warnie’s,
the What-Not Shop, and Beulah’s Ice Cream shed.
He recalls distinct intonations of voices:
Wal, John Angus, Morris, Jim, Victor,
grandfathers George and Winfield,
grandmothers Lottie and Lily,
Marion and Lilian, Nora, and Aunt Maude,
and so many others fill his head with a cacophony
of love, and of kinship, and of hard times shared.
He smiles a bit, remembering the calloused hand
of his father, as it enveloped his smaller boy-hand,
as together they walked homeward past the Hall,
towards a very different future.

Hillside

The scrub spruce have grown tall
around the small country cemetery:
the sight of Schoolhouse Cove and Harbour Island
now obscured by persistent growth,
and time.

Lichens encroach upon marble and granite
histories that, although brief of detail,
encapsulate lives that were full
of tragedy, of love, of experience,
of life.

Part of my history is buried here,
brushed by salt sea air,
with the scent of spruce, and alders,
offering impartial benediction to both hero
and rogue.

The dates on the markers are brief spans
that fail to capture the intensity, the joy, 
the personalities of those they describe;
the persistent arrow of time offers
final punctuation.

Although the sense of loss is strong,
the feeling of love, of belonging is greater.
I walk slowly away, into a freshening autumn breeze,
proud of the genetic gifts I carry, that remind me
who I am.