Clouds, Sun, Clouds, Slocanada, 7 July 2018

We may try to begin at the beginning, we
May try to narrate the end, but it’s pretend.
We’re always in the middle so long as we are
Anything at all. One man sits at a picnic table
In front of the village laundromat, waiting
On a friend who wants to talk to him, but
She’s currently sidetracked across the street
In an impromptu chat with another friend
She happened to meet. Further down,
Other men are preparing the old hardware
Building, a ramshackle centenarian,
For tomorrow’s demolition. Word is, a rescue
Dog in training will be brought in and tested
In the ruins before they start to clean it up.
A breeze ruffles the thinning hair of the man
At the table, still waiting for the friend. Sun
Comes out and goes back in. A young girl
Runs up to him. “I’m starving!” She says.
“How long now?” The sun comes out again.
A white-haired, rugged man with a milk pail
Ambles by and, a propos of nothing, begins
A jeremiad about the absurdity and pollution
Of long-distance shipping. The sun goes in.
The girl runs off to the sandwich shop.
The friend arrives and talks to the man
Who is upset about shipping. They consider
The parlous state of the planet while the first
Man goes inside to check on his clothes.
One machine has unbalanced. The girl
Returns with a pineapple sandwich. The sun
Finds another cloud. That mobile rascal.
What we experience is not what happens,
Although it’s sufficiently similar to have
Allowed our ancestors to propagate, so
Here we are, as we are, infinitely far from all-
Knowing, but not entirely in the dark.

Becker’s Beach, 6 July 2018

Ulli Becker was worried. She came down for a dip,
Hair up in a quick bun, wearing the familiar
Black shades and bikini she always wore to swim.
She scanned the windy whitecaps, the slate
Clouds hinting thunder over Valhalla on the far side
Of the lake. “Jörg is on the other side
With our guests. I’m waiting for them
To kayak back,” she said. We said we’d seen
No kayaks in an hour. She thanked us, swam
Briefly, and went back in to her house.
We packed up when the thunder rumbled,
But still no sign of returning kayaks. How
Was it we ever evolved to handle these odds
In our heads? So many unfortunate events
Are both extremely unlikely in the event
And frequent enough in sum that any
Bayesian would sermonize on updating priors.
Jörg and the kayaks would almost certainly
Return, as Jörg had always returned, adventure
Leader that he was, from every country,
Every tour, and every blessed, risky thing.
It was another lottery, one one didn't want to win.
But Ulli was worried, a little, nonetheless,
And the whitecaps nodded assent from duress.

Under the Apple Tree, Slocanada, 5 July 2018

We have memories of past futures, when
We or others talked often about some future
Date or looming event, possibly for years
In advance, and we have memories, years
And years old themselves now, of those
Dates and events as they eventually passed,
And the two sets of memories about them,
As future, as past, sit together in the head.
There’s a bit of vertigo comes from pulling
Both sets out together, because a part
Of the memories of past events as future
Remains the feeling we had about the future,
Which sits strangely with the memory
Of that future as long past. Today, some men
In the village were discussing the World Cup
In progress in Russia, one of the men being
A disappointed German fan, his team having
Crashed out stunningly early in group play
For a favorite and defending champion. Ah,
How differently he had felt back in Brazil
When they had won! And with that, I recalled
An old acquaintance who had talked for years,
Back in the aughts, about how one day
She would make the most fun of turning forty
By going to Brazil for the 2014 World Cup,
How she would samba and party and be wild
And free. I could feel, thanks to memory,
That sense of Brazil 2014 as an enchanted,
Distant, and unlikely future, even as other memories
Of my own 2014 of four years ago, practically
A lost world to me now, swept in alongside
That old futurity with unsettling simultaneity.
And the men discussing the fates of their teams
Laughed and sighed in the little cafe
By the vast, quiet lake of today.

Fairytale Cafe, British Columbia, 4 July 2018

The improbably tall and willowy daughter
Of the owner, who has always been kind
And generous to body’s own daughter,
Comes through again with a chocolate
Discreetly placed alongside the cup
Of cauliflower soup. Grace notes, grace
Notes are the most eloquent spandrels
Of human collaborativity. We have a way
Of knowing how to say what we alone can
Say: hello, I take kindly to you, I’m open
To being and/or accepting you as a member
Of the same team. I like you. Like me.
Body is bemused by this, as always, noting
On a napkin to be pocketed and hoarded
For later compositions that, “despite how oft
I have thought of, but never well expressed,
The beauty in the cruelty that emerges
From forming fictive kinships, figurative
Blood loyalties, even simple friendships,
The bonding necessarily derived
From exclusion of those beyond the bond,
It remains a kind of merciful dream to see
The sly hand of fellowship extended under
The cover of simple kindnesses to someone
I already consider a kind of kindred of mine.”
Daughters wave to each other and smile.

Raised Beds, Slocanada, 3 July 2018

All novelists incline toward autobiography,
Even the outright fantasists hiding behind
Their wizardry. They want to tell the truth,
A truth, a story containing great truths. Whether
A clever, layered, polyvocal bit of autofiction,
A ripping good yarn meant to sell well, a horror
Story curdling with the author’s terrors, all
Hold old temptations to attempt some truth,
Themselves a truth they feel a need to tell.
To do so, to get close, novelists must steal
From the best remnants of evolving memory,
Even as they’re buried to their bloodshot eyes
In research about other times and lives, even
As they’re dreaming of breaking nature’s laws.
(Anyway, nature doesn’t have laws, except
Insofar as we are natural, novelists included,
Making laws from forests of facts and spittle,
Natural as paper nests spit by paper wasps.)
Differing only in the degree of decomposition
From which memories are drawn, and also
In the daring with which they bury revenants
Of personal anecdotes whole in the loam
Of their fiction, novelists garden corpse selves.
A compositor, incompetent at coring stories,
At cooking, composting, or gardening, literally,
Pondered this beside another’s summer garden.

Recurring Laundromat, Slocanada, 2 July 2018

A year before yesterday, a poem forecast
The need for the future to reach back
And orchestrate the past of a holiday
Just passed. Just passed again, that holiday
Showed up in another text, and the text
And the holiday alike echoed, closely, their pasts.
The future had done its job again, and another
Future would now be calling all on. Lined up,
The past events tugged into cycles, orbits,
Periods, and sequences by the future’s pull
Looked powerfully like repetition, like beads
On a string, all the countable things. But no,
Not really. The future may be a potent ghost,
And we may be haunted enough to converse
With it continuously, chattering and planning
In our classrooms, town halls, heads, and beds.
But it can only conduct a kind of tidal orchestra.
Each individual wave is strange in its own way.
The day after the holiday, clothes were churning
In the sturdy, circular machinery of washers
And dryers down at the laundromat. Campers
Soaked and muddy after the long weekend
And mindful of their future plans descended
To get their clothes clean by dividing the past
From its waste, renewing the sense that transformation
Was neither linear nor constant but could
Be trained, again and again, to begin again.

Slocanada, 1 July 2018

Scheduled events absorbed the morning
And the early afternoon: pancake breakfast
At long tables decorated with small flags,
Parade with fire trucks, vintage cars,
And bagpipers, more red-and-white flags,
Children’s game booth, face-painting booth,
Bocce tournament, beer tent for grown-ups,
The singing of “Oh Canada,” the ceremonial
Cutting and distribution of the giant cake
With red-and-white frosting under the pines,
The Great Canadian Dog Show consisting
Entirely of local pets known to everyone, all
Competing in half a dozen categories
And drawing cheers and laughter as often
For misbehaving as for completing a trick.
Then a gap in the late afternoon. Nothing
Slated until the fireworks scheduled for ten
At night, just dark enough, over the lake,
If we’re lucky and there’s no more rain.