Tutors

Once was a time, not so long ago,
We knew that the future was ours.
We knew who we were, and where we would go:
Our minds were aflame with our powers.

We set off proud and tall:
destination was all.
The world was ours for the taking;
But so soon, on our way,
We got trapped in life’s fray:
A nightmare from which there’s no waking.

Regrouping, we thought
That, though dreams came to nought,
We could still succeed in our mission:
To our children we’d teach
All we could not reach,
And imprint their young minds with our vision.
***
Just yesterday (now so long ago),
We passed on our wisdom and sorrow.
Now our children, as they grow,
Must carry our hopes to tomorrow.

Several Times Have We Been in Love

Several times
have we been in love
before, you and I.

Once, long ago,
on the eve of a
diminishing
boyhood, I caught a glimpse
of you,
and what love could be:
should be.

And then, in the rush
of teen hormones
I imagined the passion,
and almost saw you
there
behind a facade
of lust.

Ideals flying,
I set forth on a voyage
of romanticism,
soon wrecked
on the rocks
of Reality.
But you were there
with your siren song
of truth,
of change,
of love,
of us.

Several times
have we been in love
before, you and I:
but this time
is for us.

Teaching

He had often found that, 

in seeking results, 

he had forgotten the lesson.

Marking the papers, he had thought 

that the truth was dependent 

upon the master copy.

In finding the answers 

did not match, 

again he read the subject.

Humbled, he returned to the papers, 

and found in each one 

a version of truth more relevant than his own. 

Erosion

Grey wrinkles on a pallid face,
eroded by the wearing pace
of life,
and the arrow of time.

Deep pathways carved by tears
for loved ones gone for years:
in memory
living proud and strong.

Captured on our aging skin,
echoes of love that dwell within
carve deep
our sense of loss.

Ancient canyons wrought by grief,
as time rushed by us like a thief:
a monument
to loss, and love.

From the Nor’east, Forty

The sirocco blows soft out of Algiers:
it tells a mystic tale, of the streets of the Casbah, pale;
of Arab women, veiled; of the call to prayers, wailed;
of the hand of Allah, the sword; of the life of Mohammed, the Word.

An Arctic gale sweeps from Greenland:
it whispers frigid tales, of glaciers and white whales;
of seas that have no chart, in the places where icebergs start;
of expeditions lost; of snow-plains that n’er have been crossed.

A mountain breeze sighs from Haiti:
it speaks of a green-clad  isle; of dark-skinned girls that smile,
while held high on their heads are baskets of mangoes or breads;
of dark and moonless nights, and secret voodoo rites.

But the winds that lash the Banks:
they keen heroic stories, of schooners, codfish and dories;
of small boats that sailed with the tide, and how men who sailed them have died;
and yet through the whitecaps and foam, they carry warm memories of home.

Early Spring

Silver thaw is glistening,
and we are happy listening
for the passage of the geese.
Outside storm clouds are blowing,
and its just started snowing,
while we lie here knowing
the crocuses are growing,
and we have love,
and peace.

Cloudburst

Watching
a relationship e
                         r 
                           o 
                             d 
                               e
is like drowning:
flashes of the past
flow before your eyes.

With the knowledge
of hindsight,
you watch
and recognise
the failures,
the weaknesses;
the massing of the clouds
that will (in a moment: in an eternity)
obscure the sun.

As a Sail on the Horizon

The boy looked out to sea: 
past scrub spruce on rocky tors, 
his gaze skipped over gravel shingle 
whispering an ageless sough to the sea. 
There! Across the reach, beyond the island! 
The tiny sail touching the horizon 
would stay with the boy for hours,
traversing his lilliputian world.


Later, an economic refugee 
"going down the road," 
the boy was reminded of the sail 
as he watched through the night 
on the "Maritime Express." 
Small pools of light would appear 
in the Stygian darkness of a New Brunswick night: 
reminders of comfort and home.


On the horizon of my life I have seen many sails. 
Some have docked, sojourned, 
to become part of my life for a while. 
Others passed, unknown, into the vortex of Time. 
I only wish, at this late date, 
that I had tried harder, made more effort, 
to make the journeys of others 
as joyous as my own.

Across the Meadow

Across the meadow, the grass was green,
the clover sweet, and the air was clean:
the rivers fresh, and the ocean blue,
and in April forests, violets grew.

We could smell the dust on a country road,
and were not afraid to touch a toad.
We could walk a fence ‘cross the top of the world,
and lived for the winter when snowflakes swirled.

We loved grasshoppers, and were shy with girls,
and examined shells in search of pearls.
We built flimsy rafts for profound explorations,
and awaited summer with wild expectations.

Now no one cares that the birds have flown,
and who is to notice that the leaves are brown?
For now we are old, and have lived long in pain:
     I wish the grass was green again.

Epitaph to a Wave

The moon is forlorn.
From the midst of the sea, a wave is born.

Basically meek, it does not know
Why it is, or where it will go.
In silent decision, it gathers in force,
And, like a ripple, speeds away from its source.
It has no purpose: (like the rest of its kind)
It rolls on without destination in mind.
It grows in stature, in power and might,
Still devoid of ambition, with no goal in sight.
It gathers momentum, not knowing what for,
And, with one final fling, it dies on the shore.

He dashes through life with a rush and a rave:
He dies without question.  Man must be a wave!