There Comes a February Day

The cloud cover of our valley
Gray and low in
Dark winter months
Suddenly is invaded
Bright sun sky with blue
Everywhere above
And the sad winter remnants
Illuminated
The earth looking forlorn
In brown dirt garbage
Frozen in night time chill
Ice on the mud puddles
Cracked by children now old
The delight still young
The satisfying sound rippling.

There is a happiness in the air
Creatures all emerging into sunlight
Blinking in unaccustomed brightness
Chatting with old friends
Even unknown strangers
Greeted with friendly nods
Then
In the quiet of the shore
Comes a tinkling sound
The waves hitting thin ice
Against the shore rockiness
Ethereal in sound
Bewitching to the ears
The ice breaking in shards
Glass like into silence
Breaking like sometimes
My heart is wont to do.

Reversals

When I was young
My life was filled with play
A body flexible and strong
Bending to the shape
Imagination found in far off lands
But inside this youthful casing
An inflexible rod-like view of life
Expectation with how things should be
Peopled with the simple
Solutions only inexperience
Insists reality must comprise.

Now that many years
Have passed through my time
I cannot bend so easily without
Stiffness taking liberty with joints
Inside my mind
The stern rod of expectations
Has given way to softer thoughts
Formed by the drying winds
Remorse and failure
Trampled by the endless foibles
Inhabiting these common shores
People met along this way
Force me to hidden truths that
Make me see beyond these
Constraints of time
Love has softened my hard edges
Made my critical eye less sharp.

Irene once said
No one believes in Jesus anymore,
I am forced to think
Do they know He believes in them?

The Exile of Beauty

I am so grateful for Nature
How faithful
She is to herself
Her beauty may be marred
By toll of excess
But never of exile.
As the wind blows free
Its tune remains true
Not deviating from its melody
In personal ilk or egoistic chord
Telling God how to run the world
As our church musicians do.

On high tree the raven speaks
There is time for him to be heard
With voice thoughtful
And compelling
How pleasant to be his audience
What he tells I do not know
But he speaks with a voice
I would thrill to hear.

The little bird's endless chirping
From the safety of branch and bush
With circling hawks above
Predators that always hover
Dangerous to their small self
That finds the time to sing.

For these sweet sounds cool
My unhappy discontent
Beaten and bleeding from
All my senses
I can be made to endure cheerfully
This human exile of beauty 
I can be made content
Within Nature's sweetening hand.

A Franciscan Fable

   The cat had a poor opinion of men. Her attitude of alarm and flight was a puzzle to her people who attributed it to her first six months before they knew her. Her life began as an orphan kitten in a city pound, a very pretty little tabby with a fine white bib and four white feet. She had caught the eye of a lady tree planter who took her to live in the country. The tree planter had intended the kitten to be with her while she worked in the woods. When it was time to leave for work, the kitten was nowhere to be found. Left behind, the little feline had to fend for herself. She ate by stealing dog food from the neighbours and hunting.
     Now a tough little country cat, her life took another turn. A young couple, who had taken note of her plight, adopted her. She became the companion for their young black lab who loved her. Soon afterward they all moved to town. The cat was not pleased. She ran away at every opportunity. Each time she left the property the dog picked her up by the scruff of the neck and brought her back.
   The man next door watched this with amusement. He loved animals and as a writer appreciated that Tolkien's Gandalf had said that Saruman never paid enough attention to the animals. He and the young man had many good chats about writing  One day the young man, with the cat in his arms, asked if the cat could have a home with him as their rental house had been sold and their new rental would not welcome cats.
   The man said yes, as he knew his wife missed their old black cat, who had adopted them when all their children were still at home. This black cat had been very affectionate and with his white collar had been called their faithful priest. It was now been seven years since the cat had died and the couple and their cook had been reluctant to adopt a new pet.
   The cook had already met this young cat in her garden a few times. The cat was sporting a punk hair cut, her neck shaved to remove the tangles left from the dog's mouth carrying her home. The cat regarded the cook's garden as her own, the cook the intruder. Being bossed about made the cook a little annoyed. One day the cat accepted some catnip the cook tempted her with and a tentative bond was formed.
   When the cat first came to live at their house she was very unhappy. The lady of the house held her close for a long time and said soothing words. She was rewarded by complete loyalty from the cat who slowly settled into her new home. She didn't try to run away. The dog had done her job well.
   The man was kept at a distance and the cat acted fearful at any gestures of friendship. As for the cook, well, it was her job to handle the important work of her food. The health problems that their dear black feline had suffered from commercial food made the cook determined to make the cat's food.  Many times in that first year the cat left the room with her nose in the air and her food untouched. The cook tried to remain calm and in the end they agreed on a recipe the cat liked.
   The cat's life was busy. She spent dawn to dust in the garden. Many a songbird perished beneath her hunter's claws and  a few cats wore the scars of them too. As the years passed it was the man who let her out early and fed her, long before the cook was even stirring. The cat allowed such service but gave no compliments. Any gesture was rebuffed, which surprised the man, who had always been friends with cats, and had never known one to be so frightened of him.
   The new neighbour in the cat's old house spent years trying to befriend her, but to no avail. She would always take fright and run.
   "You would think I beat her" he had said.
   Any visitors to the house would cause her to growl like a dog, and then flee in alarm to the basement. Over the years she occasionally warmed to the children and grandchildren, but this was a slow process. One visitor, a man from the American Deep South, did make instant friends with her. He had worked with mules when he was young.
   One day after nine years of ignoring the man, despite his long and patient service, she noticed him. Up into his lap she climbed, and purred contentedly. The man was mystified but pleased. This happy arrangement continued. Later that year, a son of St. Francis of Assisi came to the diocese to be the new bishop. Aha, thought the man, the mystery is solved. St. Francis had told the cat long before we heard the news.
   In the first year, the bishop in his long brown robe and white cord belt visited the house. The cat was nowhere to be seen.
   The second year the bishop visited, he and the cat's people had sat in the warm sunshine in the garden. Entering by the back door the bishop came up beside the big chair where the cat was sleeping and standing over her said hello. She leaped from the chair, with feet loudly scrambling on the bare floor, and disappeared into the basement.
   In the third year there came a young Capuchin friar who visited every week for three months. The cat's people would chat and visit with him over a meal and the cat took to lurking in the doorways and sneaking into the room. She was thinking things over.
   That Christmas the bishop came three times to the house. The first time the cat beat a hasty retreat out of the living room in response to his greeting. The bishop laughed and sat in his chair, and like the young Capuchin friar, enjoyed the homemade ale that the man made from Belgium malted barley. Under cover of conversation the cat inched her way back into the room and managed to sniff the hem of his robe when he was pretending not to notice. Then he playfully dangled his white Franciscan cord for her to see. She kept her distance but she looked very, very interested.
   When he returned three days later, the solemnity of Christmas lay upon the world. The cat had been busy elsewhere and was not in the room. The bishop had many things on his mind. His purpose was to bring the greetings of this feast day in person. It was also to let the man tell him some of the many things he had never yet told the bishop or any of his predecessors. Within this atmosphere of grace the hour unfolded.
   The cook, listening quietly, noticed the cat carefully entering the room to where the bishop sat in his chair, his arm resting, with his hand hanging down close to her height. Carefully she approached him and sniffing the tips of his fingers she gently raised her nose, put it against his ring and paused.
   "Oh, my" thought the cook in amazement. The cat has just kissed the bishop's ring."
   The third visit was the day of Epiphany, the great feast of three. The bishop came to wish the man many happy returns on this, the day of the man's birthday, which marked three quarters of a century. In the quiet conversation and good will, the cat stealthily approached the bishop as he sat in his chair with his feet on the footstool, and like a little Magdalene, she quietly kissed his feet. Thus satisfied, she retreated to a chair to sit content.
   This made the cook think of St. Francis, who, when he preached of peace, always included the animals.

The Cousins

   My father, Arsene, was descended from French Canadians who had crossed the United States border several times, heading south or north in search of land and work. Thus it was on the American side that he was born. Not long after this event, my grandfather heard the call of the Canadian west. He was a machinist on the railway who one day bought a book on farming, an ironic purchase, as he had never learned to read. He hated school within a few days and ran away to hang around the shipyards. He never went back even though his mother was a teacher.
    My grandmother probably read the book for him and he decided he wanted his growing family of one girl and five boys, Arsene being the youngest, to be raised away from the industrial smoke of the city. Arsene was just five years old when they boarded the train that took them through the mountains and far away to northern Alberta.
   My grandmother was the eldest of her family and her widowed mother went north with them. They left behind her other children and grandchildren, including Arsene's cousin Gregory, who was ten years his senior.
   Gregory was the only son in his family. I heard tales of an unhappy childhood with a strange and aloof father. There would come the usual shaking of the head and shrugging of shoulders, as if to explain Gregory. He had the ability to spin entertaining yarn and delighted in being an eccentric.
   Arsene grew up a farm boy with cows to milk and horses to ride. He endured the tumbling that he got from his older brothers when his father was away on the railroad working to pay for the homestead, became an expert rider and joined the Canadian cavalry just before it was disbanded.
   Gregory showed up when Arsene was about thirteen; he came north to visit his grandmother. He took the only picture in our photograph album that showed all of Arsene's family together. They all looked at the camera from in front of the little lake by their home. Within six years both the grandmother and Arsene's mother had died and the siblings scattered.
   Gregory traveled many places with the railroad and settled in Washington state in a little town. It was the era of the automobile and my family had a little trailer that Arsene built to spend their holidays camping. One of those trips was down to Gregory's place. There was a picture of the cousins standing together. Arsene did not look very athletic next to Gregory who had gym sculptured muscles, Hemingway style, in a white muscle shirt, leaning against his motor cycle.
   By the time I was born a small farm tied my parents to the land and it was Gregory and his wife Kate that came north with a little trailer to camp in the summertime. There are pictures of the small me with Kate but I don't remember her, as she died soon after.
   Gregory continued to visit. It was at this time that Gregory's restless energy set Arsene to work to build me a small swimming pool. Gregory, the muscular Christian, thought I should have a place to safely swim away from the deep waters of the lake.
   I  have no idea why it was thought I should swim. I vividly remember the panic the gripped me as I floundered in deep water trying to negotiate around a boathouse. My mother had rescued me. I might have refused to go near the lake again. Perhaps Gregory had heard the story of my near drowning.
   So the little square pool was built. There was a lot of dirt to remove and cement to pour. Arsene did a lot of muttering when the "idea" man had departed. The water intake was from the nearby creek that flowed cold and clear from a spring high up the mountain. My chattering teeth and shivering frame found ways to avoid its chill. It sat empty until my older sister designed a fountain in the middle- a beautiful copper butterfly gracefully sprouting delicate plumes of water from its wings as it sat on a rock pillar above the offending temperature. Whatever Gregory thought of the result never reached my ears.
    I always loved to listen to Gregory's stories at bed-time. They were filled with Indians and railway adventures. The natives were revered for their forest skills and Gregory swore we had a Native ancestor of our own but no-one else had ever heard of him. The most dramatic story that haunted my imagination told of a man being caught on a railway trestle. He lay down on the track as the on coming train passed over head leaving him unharmed.  I pondered its imagery many times in my mind. It haunted me in a quiet way.
   Gregory drove a big Cadillac with huge tail fins, left over from the big statements of the fifties. Our old Dodge didn't flash in the same way. One year, Arsene got caught in a snowstorm, went over a steep bank and walked away unhurt leaving his footprints on the ceiling of the car for me to ponder. He later rebuilt the car out of two old ones and the paint job never betrayed its mixed origins.
   Gregory used to speculate that  he could have been a priest. He was devout in his reading and delved into some of the classics popular at that time. Arsene wouldn't say much when he heard all this. He was extremely suspicious of anything out of the ordinary. Gregory used to tell me we were related to the Little Flower as she and our great grandmother had the same last name. It impressed me no end that we might have a canonized saint in the family.
   When I myself later entered into the difficult paths of the spiritual life I soon grew to love her as a role model. This was fortunate as the story was a fragment from Gregory's imagination.
   The happiest times with Gregory would be on summer afternoons when he would retreat up the hill to a hammock he had strung between two small trees, next to a little meandering brook where the wild spearmint and pale blue forget-me-not grew profusely. At a suitable time I could join him, his nap over, and I would climb up into the hammock and we would sing together. He knew lots of old songs, the Mitch Miller type, filled with folksy images of American life. He brought me a Melodica, a funny little keyboard instrument I could blow into and I began to pick out tunes from memory. It sounded a bit like a duck, but its simplicity made it easy to learn.
   Arsene never ventured to sing or play an instrument but he loved music and was always humming. When he listened to his few classical records he would be the conductor for the invisible orchestra. It would always make me smile to see this side of him.
   Then one year Gregory arrived with a new wife. A soft spoken Irish New Yorker who had been a single working girl all her life, with a warm heart that won us all instantly as friends.
   We visited them in their little house across the border surrounded by fields and a quiet rambling creek called the Icicle, well named for those who tried to swim in it. I still wasn't endeared to ice water. When I was eleven I went to stay there for a month. Mostly to get out of my mother's hair as she was busy moving from our house up on the hill to a trailer next to the service station that Arsene had built next to the highway.
   The visit south was fun at first. An adventure. We had bicycles to explore the gentle countryside. Gregory had lots of interesting things left over from raising his family and lots of games to play. One day the games got personal. Suddenly I was trapped with an adult who had become a predator.  I recoiled from his obscene advances and would no longer spend time with him. I sat in the kitchen with his wife and ate my way through the remaining time before I could return home. His wife always said I kissed the ground when we crossed into Canada. Home was so badly missed. She mentioned to  my mother that something had happened, but I was never asked.
   A couple of years later Gregory came to visit with his grand daughter a little younger than me. He lavished attention and money on her and it felt like he was punishing me for my refusal to cooperate with his filthy games.  For the first time in my life I hated an adult. It was a sickening feeling and I couldn't find words to tell my parents or my spiritual director. It was one of those events that live beneath articulation. I was happy to see him leave. He never returned to visit.
   Briefly, years later, I traveled with my parents to visit Gregory and his wife. He was almost blind and smelled old. He was surprised at my lack of so-called worldly airs. No thanks to you I thought. He told me to look through his books and take what I wanted. I found some spiritual classics, but as I was gathering the books I was not happy to have him enter the room. The look on my face as I prepared to bolt must have told him of our lost friendship. No words were exchanged as he handed me a hundred dollar bill. I said thank-you and left.  I suppose it was a token of atonement and regret which I could not dwell on. That would belong to a higher power.
   My own life entered upon a spiritual journey that brought me into conflict with Arsene. When I turned nineteen we shook hands like those who have fought a bitter battle, and then agreed to a truce.  I was now an adult and would have to answer for my own choices.
   Over the years we exercised an uneasy peace.When he was old Arsene became a widower and for the next nine years, no longer shielded by my mother, we were face to face with each other.
   Before he died we learned to speak the same language. At times he, too, would become a story teller with tales of growing up on the farm and his boyish giggle endeared him to me. As he neared death his parents became visible to him. He told me that he could see them, but I couldn't. I was happy for him in his waiting. One day when I draw near to the leaving, I hope he will be waiting for me.

Winter Grace

The turn of the seasons
Unpredictable at best,
This cold winter wind
With snow in its arms
Descends upon the mountain valley
Bitter, cold, dry snow
Caught in whirlwinds
Circling the evergreens,
Swooping along rocky cliffs,
Picking us up like a mother cat her kittens
Moving us quickly against onslaught,
Reminding our small creature selves
Might is not ours,
In case we hadn't noticed.

Thus winds of grace
Flow floods through our lives,
Leaving us turned upside down
Overwhelmed, often helpless,
The gusts of this Divine author
Leaving all asunder.

Or perhaps in other moods
This same Artist lets the early snow
Settle around the landscape,
To show off this time of brown
All shades and shapes,
Against the dark blue green waters,
With the occasional red bark or
Brilliant yellow,
The lingering sandy grass
Grey green tufts accenting
The last few golden leaves clinging to
The top outlines of bushes and trees,
The Artist's brush must dapple it seems
In many colored strokes.

And then the white snow
Dominates all forms
Clings to the exposed tree's bark,
Decorates delicate branches
Tiny red berries glow beneath,
Thus heaven makes all white,
Shining clean and wholesome
Nature enveloped in whiteness of light
In the working of Divine graces.

The Dead

The day of the dead
Dawned brilliant sunshine
The blue sky set free
Above the autumnal hues
The drenched earth downpour
Lying now in puddles
As we walk the lake shore
Inhaling the crisp November air.

Out of the corner of my eye
I catch the glimpse of a tree
It stopped suddenly it seems
Like a dancer with curved arms
Lean and graceful
The dawn had caught it in mid-flight
And it froze in haste to await the nightfall
For it's next move.

It is the leaves fallen
Exposing branches as we
Will one day be stripped
All pretenses gone
In the blink of an eye or
A half turned glance
We catch a glimpse
To the world beyond.

In solemn silence we tread
The leaves festival track
Surrounded by green forest bending
Humble unto the season
Brown bracken the dying time.

I am a part of the world
I was born into and yet
I often wonder if in the future
My real work begins like
Those in the past that sowed
Often with tears
Never opening their eyes upon
Completion of their task
Believing their contribution
A thread bound tightly in
This frail fabric of existence.

The wind comes rushing now
Through our little yard
The yellow maple leaves
Caught up with haste
Tossed in circular motions
Higher into the open sky
Their movement a melody
Sung by the boisterous wind
How cheerful they seem
Set free to roll around the hills
Like children let out to play
On this the month of the dead.