Time's Smoky Trail

The wiff of a bold smell

Whirls me back to younger days

filled with 

crisis, torment and homesickness

where smoke burned

more valiant and bold,

unapologetic to

a nation’s survivalist nature

that singes toxins in the air

Instead of hiding them

in landfill dumpsters

This part of my brain

opens up gateways 

of a soothing knowing,

telling me

I’ve been carried

along this trajectory of time,

relatively unscathed,

among dialogues and circumstances
with people

I no longer know,

remember or

prefer not to have known.

I can’t escape

Time’s eternal reminders 

when they show up

uninvited

on a late summer’s day walk.

The Perfect Hike

Tiny-flowered green moss

soften the faces of cold stones

from a short but fierce winter.

the pathetically rare brilliance of a forest floor

weave mini-streams of microscopial civilizations—

these worlds we’re momentarily yet monstrously invading

there you are

in an orange cotton shirt

popping through the dullness of other people’s shadows.

A perfectly-designed outfit with a matching hat,

covering your delicate, green eyes.

Your water bottle--a new kind of unleaching plastic,

in fashion for avid hikers.

Your distant stare reaches through the fingertips of the trees

Reminding me of when we were younger

(but my footsteps were smaller than yours then)

and you’d look out over the sea with a yearning concern.

Pondering the fears of eternity,

in between wafts of sand and coconut oil suntan lotion,

you’d tell tales of magical lands

stretching as far as the eye could see.

Here in this forest

where humans have not been invited

we walk orderly on the path of hiking trails,

I cringe that we stomp on ferns whose heads have not yet awakened
just to keep up with the pace of the crowd.

Arriving at the end of the lot,
social niceties are shared,

we return to the car where you seem to celebrate the fact

that the world is properly designed

by straight roads with property divisions.

and I wonder

when did you lose your free spirit?

Elephant Wishes

“Hey, Annie, listen to this,” Louisa said quietly from the bottom bunk, her flashlight hanging over her shoulder, shining on the book titled Animal Totems of Native North Americans.

The elephant is considered to be one of the most loyal animals, grieving the loss of loved ones in a more honouring way than even humans. Anyone who has this as a totem is known to be strong, wise, compassionate but is only as loyal as the level of integrity of the person they are walking beside. They can tell when there is someone who is harmful or dangerous and will seek out revenge should there be far too many transgressions.

“Aren’t elephants cool, Annie?”

Annie could feel Louisa’s mind drift out through the walls.  She’d say that this was her real family, this family of elephants, who would come and visit her at night.  Annie heard Louisa muffle her sobs into the pillow, consoling herself because nobody else would, asking for the elephants to take the pain away. She said that the elephants told her that she just had to go to the right place at the right time in the forest and they would come to get her and make everything all better.   This was Louisa’s mission most of the time when they went outside to play.  And she would get lost every time.

Louisa made Annie swear to secrecy that she wouldn’t tell their parents, or else the elephants would never come and get her, leaving her behind in this horrible, horrible place with this family that didn’t love her.  

One day in summer, Louisa went to play in the stream across the road from the trailer park where they were staying.  Louisa tiptoed on the stone rocks freckled with a pinky rose jaggedy design, gently imprinting her footprint on each step like a little girl is told she’s supposed to do. 

Her sister, Annie, fumbled along behind her, almost falling in yet-to-be discovered new worlds of moss and pointy-shelled creatures. Every step she took, she’d say sorry to the stones thinking that she was hurting them, picking up the ones that would roll over out of the cradle of the mud bed they were sleeping in and soothing them with a stroke of “there there”s.

“Look, Louisa!” Annie pointed up to the sky. “It’s an effelant, your favourite aminal.”

“El-eeee-fffffant, Annie,” Louisa said, frustrated by her younger sister’s constant interference while she counted her delicate steps to the other side of the creek, smiling up at the clouds.

“9, 10, 11…”

Annie dipped her toes into the ice cold water, the stream flowing gently over her powder-white toes,  her flip flop nearly slipping out from under her foot, twisting around her toes.   

“Louisa?...where are you?”

Louisa was no longer counting. She wasn’t even in the water.

“Louisa?...” Annie quivered.  “Where are you?  This isn’t funny, Louisa…don’t do this to me, again…”

The wind swooshed through the trees calmly.  The river gurgled and murmured behind her with a soothing dependability.   The stones lay embedded in the earth as they’ve done for centuries.  Everything was the same, yet everything screamed…”Louisa’s gone”.

Annie’s shoulders tensed up with the mix of panic and anger.  She felt colder, more fragile, wispy and utterly alone amongst pine trees that didn’t seem to care about whether Annie had lost her sister for good this time.   

“Louisa, get out here. I’m gonna tell mom on you if you don’t come out here right now! I mean it this time!”

Still no Louisa.

Annie hopped onto every other stone and went back to get her mom, just like her mom said to do if anything bad happened.

“Lord, why did you have to give me such a sick and crazy child?” their mother would repeat over and over again, then blaming it on a curse that someone put on the family line by a distant aunt 4 generations ago.

Today felt different. Annie’s knees shook and her upper chest was cold with grief.  There’s a vacancy. A hopelessness. A sense in her little belly that there is no chance of ever seeing Louisa again.

“Mom. I think Louisa weelly is gone dis time,” Annie whimpered, her lips folding inward, trying not to cry. Mom didn’t like it when Annie cried and would always tell her to stop it before she embarrassed herself.   

Annie never felt embarrassed when she cried. She just felt afraid that mom would smack her across the head. Or tell her she couldn’t eat dinner.

“By now, Annie, I’ve really stopped caring. That child’s got what’s coming to her.”

Annie looked down to the ground, her eyes welling and puffing up in pockets the size of fairies’ purses.  

“How dare she leave me behind,” she thought, the sadness turning to angry knots twisting over her brow.

Mom took the frying pan from the stove that was caked in leftover egg from yesterday and took the metal scratchy thing and scrubbed and scrubbed. 

“That little bitch is gonna make me look bad,” mom cursed into the greasy water.

Annie sat out on the front step looking up at the clouds, hoping to see Louisa up there, waving at her with the elephants. But the sky was clear blue, just as empty as it felt over by the forest and stream.

“I hate elephants,” Annie fermented into her heart.

A Lost Argument

The house was in a void of unusual silence. Is this what peace was supposed to be like? A funeral parlour of lost arguments? The clock on the kitchen stove flashes 12:00 in lime green. The power must have gone out last night after I left – when I told him that this would be the last time I'd ever see him.

The living room smells of fresh faux leather from the newly bought couch that was to be a celebration piece of the life we were building on hard-earned money. All for what now?

Perhaps he’ll come back again this time.  He never recedes so easily on an argument like this. Oh, yes, he’ll be back.

  

The laundry basket filled with clean clothes rests by the T.V.  His white and blue jockey underwear lay casually on top, waiting to be folded and put away. The dark blue woolen work socks are strewn amongst the white undershirts, lost by themselves, their mates floating on the other side of the hamper tangled in some other mess of linens. Someone has to intervene for them to find each other again. 

It all seemed so sudden. This absence. This final decision. Even though threats of leaving were made time and again. There were far too many reasons we had to stay, including bills with co-signed names and neighbourly expectations for perceptions of manufactured happiness.  

The sun washes the wood panel floors of the dining room, wiping away passionate tensions into a sea of nothingness – as if it all didn’t matter. None of it. The fighting, the kissing, the making up then back to the fighting. It all floated up with the dust particles of another day where the sun rises and sets, where people are born and then die, where life just simply goes on regardless of who you are or what you have and haven’t done.

My hand presses onto the floor, tears floating down my cheeks, reminding me I’m real. Or at least something is real.

The ice cube machine in the freezer clunks out chunks into the metal tray, breaking open the panic of superficial meaninglessness in the house.   

The whirring sound of the garage door reverberates through the drywall. Perhaps he’s home; perhaps he really has returned.  But it’s too muffled  – it’s the neighbours taking the kids to school. 

Life has faltered.  Dreams built randomly from reactionary desires are falling away with nothing there to catch them. 

The empty bottle of white wine sits  upright boldly on the counter. He rarely drinks wine. He must have finished it off before he left, the tragedy of wasted time and energy swirling in his mind.  Just like how his mother left in a state of ruin when he was 4, leaving him sitting there, stunned of how we was to become someone from that point on.   

Birds chip in the feeder outside, celebrating a new day of safety and nourishment for them. Everyone said we should just break up for the greater good.  Even the birds seem happier without us being together.  

But no note. Not even a goodbye. Not even a thank you or a retaliatory statement. Just the looming silence of indifference that death’s presence lingers between two people who are still breathing the madness of a final and lost argument.  

The Buddha is a snail

A slow soul earth traveler

who carries divine beauty’s swirl

on his back. his only defense.

no matter how hard our hearts may have become

we can’t help but squirm when we hear

that crunch on a rainy evening.

this is how he opens us up to the preciousness

of all the silent creatures.

A New Drum

My hands rub the sinew, pulling it, twisting it straight, sewing it through the holes. The horsehide wet but still tough like beef jerky. I weave it in and out, through eleven parts of the drum, diving into the middle every time I’m crossing over to the other side.

I decided to make this drum on my own because it was calling. I have one already – one that was given to me and one that I’ve been trying to release somewhere, surrendering that relationship we were in that went sour and dissolved the heart of any goodness. Every time I would beat that drum I felt I called back his Spirit, getting rewoven in that tale of two anguished hearts.

This drum would be different, the one I made with my own two hands. I sanded down the hoop, smoothing out the rough edges of my past and the routes I took before standing in this spot here. Those tales of dating a Native man when I was 18 years old, his blood and his struggle still echoing in my heart. And the other Native man who showed airs of whiteness, the insensitivity of humiliating jokes and strokes became dominatingly sickening.  And the other Native man, homeless from his tribe yet persisting in standing for just causes – his persistence to right the wrongs of human injustice stood nobly on the forefront of his mind, not able to make room for healthy romances. Always wandering out of collective duty to do what he’s supposed to, drowning in an experience of the traveling life of hotel rooms and red wine, lingering alone at the bar on Friday evenings.   And the other Native man, Potawatomi. The man who didn’t know where he fit and so would go into inner fits of his own makings, claiming they were demons tormenting him and this was the way of shamans. When in truth, he couldn’t see the light of his own being, a lifetime of feeling unloved, bruised and beaten will do that to anyone who wasn’t looking.  His hat was his distinctive feature and the one last thing he had to hold onto.  Then the other man, faraway from home and his grandmother, who did well for feeding him seal before he was sent away to join the Army. He lost his son at too young of an age and was looking for comfort of any passing lady.   He held strong to the sensual order, Great Spirit he felt in the simple textures of wood, cedar smoke and humming respectful noddings. It was easy to feel the comfort of Spirit in his presence, even if only for a night.

This dance into the realm of Native spiritual journeys. Dreamcatchers, bad spirits, people who have been torn apart by life’s remorseful oppressions that send horror stories as shivers in the breasts of mothers who’ve only recently just started menstruating. People recovering from addictions and lost dreams, griefs of loved ones who’ve been torn apart by killing, rape or suicidal misgivings. Where has the Great Spirit gone in these parts? It seems, most times, She’s been missing from the protection of blessings.  Why so much pain in a group of people who have been trained to see Wisdom in every tree, leaf and rock?

This drum is my own making. It sings a new song. A fresh song. A woman’s song. My own song. Not a song of tragedy, fear, loss of power or hopelessness. It is a song of love, self-esteem, tenderness and endless creativity.  My drum shows me that I have a soft heart and one that has let go of the heartache of the past. This drum is fresh, new, willing to bring joy, awareness, a space of loving to be alive, instead of shriveled up and believing it is all pointless.  This drum will beat her own voice, one I’ve yet to acquaint with, a relationship we’re both entrusting with the other to bring sounds of crickets, grass swaying and deer hooves pattering. This drum will speak and heal all that needs uplifting, bellowing out to the world of Spirits to bring us back home to our callings. She does not know of anything called desperation and lostness. She is hope in its whole and simple form, fullness in her deep voice, gentleness in her deer skin.

My Orange Snowsuit

In the photo I’m wearing an orange snowsuit with a fur-lined hood. I’m standing in the middle of the snow, with my nose bright red from the nip of the cold. Smiling.

In the next picture my dad, sister and I are tobaggoning down the hill, on one of those wooden sleds like you see in old movies.  He’s happy. I’m happy. My sister’s happy. Mom must be the person who is taking the picture. This was her way, I can only imagine, of making everything feel good for the family. A chance to have dad at home with us kids instead of “working late” or going out for days saying he was at some mysterious coffee shop. On this day though, it all seemed so much fun. A normal family. One where we had a Dad who stayed home because he loved being with us. Because he had nowhere else he’d rather be. Because we all looked so good together.

This is the photo that I think of whenever I see you, Dad.  That part that holds you up as someone who knows how to play, laugh, make everything feel good for mom. She really wanted you at home, Dad. We all did.  I remember this image whenever we meet or speak on the phone. It’s there whenever I look at your eyes that have been vacant or driven by your other choices. Choices to stay at a distance. Choices to enjoy a different kind of happiness. A choice to gamble the money away. A choice to forget the tobaggon rides when you decided to be with other women. 

I look at this photo in my mind and see a man who could have had so much more. But perhaps this is the vacancy in my own heart. Not yours. For you probably haven’t noticed that there’s something missing. You.

You will never know the longing that the three of us have had for you. Hoping you would change. Hoping you would realize we are valuable. Hoping you would understand that our Love is important. You were wanted in our arms. We needed you, not just to make a house, but we needed you to be with us. We needed to get to know each other. Because we actually did have fun with you. We saw how much you loved being with kids. We saw how you actually cared to make us laugh and to make a world that was filled with dreams and fantasies, lifting us up to a different plane of seeing it all so very lightly.

We’ve held a space for you all these years – even though we’ve come to an exasperated resolve that there is no use but some memory of your heartbeat that made us whole.  Which peeks out every so often when we meet for a meal. This man, my father, sits across from me with stories of his many forays of the seedy-side of humanity. A man who seems to have been searching for freedom by playing games all of his life. A man who continues to leave us through his many ideas of the next get-rich-quick scheme in his mind.  

This man who will still say “I love you, kid”, and make my heart melt away all the hurt and pain, even if only for a moment.