Festivals

Sunday, September 29th, 2013

At festivals, after midday,
though bagpipes and fiddles
spin a dervish through the air,
and though there is much clapping
and singing, the drug of sun
has made some drunk and drowsy.
I look at the sweet faces
of the surprisingly asleep,
and though there is much clapping
and singing, and dancing,
the sleepers hear only the soundtrack
of their dreams.

This one woman, no longer a girl,
one hand thrown above her head,
flowered dress slightly turned
brown hair falling up off her forehead,
her face as calm as clover.
As though no harm has ever come,
nor ever will, nor was ever
thought of,
and I think the hardest criminal
must look like this asleep –
all wrongs transposed to innocence
by the inner notes of mercy.

Vancouver Folk Festival 14 July 2001

Back to store

Posted in poetry | No Comments »

A Manifesto On Beautiful

Sunday, September 29th, 2013

It occurs to me that everyone is beautiful,
these weight lifters
with their oversized arms,
these dancers with their self conscious legs,
the big woman at the treadmill, who is afraid she is not beautiful,
as afraid as the dancers that they are not beautiful,
as afraid as the weight lifters
that they are not beautiful. I see them
in the mirrors, passing by,
holding their thighs in, holding
their chests out,
holding magazines that say Elle and Him
and Fit and Self and Gaitor Aid.

But in the nodding mornings, when their lovers toss
the smooth covers away, they each in their disarray
shine like perfect gems.
And their lovers- soft, modest,
old, young, fit, fat, gregarious, bony,
sensual, slovenly, neat, their lovers
can only think of how exactly right
each line, each curve, each arc of bone or muscle,
each pulse swimming in each vein,
each sigh, each mumbled dream, how it is all
exactly what they wanted. Each lover
turns toward the workday so full of longing,
so drawn back the tousled bed where they can still reach
to the epicenter of the beautiful, of what they love,
the imperfect holy, of all of us.

Back to store

Posted in poetry | No Comments »