Güd wrtr

(In memory of Emily Carr of Victoria, BC,
and Emily Dickinson of Amherst, Mass.)

Emily’s Elephant does not seem big enough
to resemble an actual elephant,
but that’s what Miss Carr called
the small rectangular wooden structure
that the artist used as a traveling studio.

How on earth did she fit her ample self
through its narrow door? Where did she
put canvases and brushes as she trundled
her Elephant to paint on location
in her caravan, often with a dog or two
and a monkey in tow?

“Her square ugliness bathed in
the summer sunshine,” she wrote of
the Elephant, which sits outside her
childhood home, “and I sang in my heart. “

How struck I am by this smaller yellow
Victorian reminiscent of larger yellow
Victorian occupied by a different Emily
a continent away in the country
I call home.

I climb the stairs to veer into the north
bedroom and peer out the window,
thinking about the Emily born in Victoria,
much as I did in Dickinson’s Amherst
bedroom, located in the same corner
in her house.

The two Emilys did not know
each other—the poet of Amherst
born 41 years before the Canadian writer
also regarded as one of her country’s
great painters.

But I find myself looking west into
this Victorian afternoon, thinking
about them both, having stood in each
of the home spaces that nurtured
the gifts of these two creative souls
who linger long, as does their light,
shining clear into the now.

(for Dickie)

Though I have cut your hair
for decades, now, when we
vacation in Victoria, you head

to Sean, the James Bay barber,
for a proper cut—not just of
hair but for a good trim

of the caterpillars over your
eyes, as Sean calls them.
Five years into barbering,

he fell into the gig as his
longtime predecessor looked
toward retirement. Sean now

dons the white barber’s coat
and sits you in one of two
classic chairs in the shop

with 1970s Mad magazines
to leaf through, and historic
photos on the walls.

And when he’s done,
pulling the drape off you
with a flourish, Sean

grins as we all admire
his handiwork—not only
lowering your ears

but shaving off a good
decade or more, you
sharp looking fella, you.

•••

With thanks to Sean Guinane, the fine barber of James Bay, Victoria, BC.

(at The Butchart Gardens, Vancouver Island, BC)

It’s not to be,
Hamlet,
it’s two bee!

2Bs bee-ing,
buzzing from blossom
to blossom,

picking up and
depositing floral
rewards along

the way. 2Bs
are a blossom’s
bonus,

don’cha know,
as the flowers
must, their

intimate parts
bee-ing tickled
by bumbles

dislodging pollen
from male parts
and transferring

it to a flower’s
female parts,
crucial to all

growing things,
fascinating to watch
such industrious

creatures at work,
busy as, well,
2Bs can bee.

Fishin’, my father believed,
did not necessarily mean catchin’,
though catchin’ was nice, too,
especially the tender little trout
he and my mother occasionally
snagged from the West Walker River
high in the Sierra Nevada.

Fishin’ rarely meant catchin’
to my fly fishing husband,
who’d grown up bait fishing
for the family larder on lakes
and ocean. Tempting a hungry
fish with a delicate fly was
more challenging than with
lures or bait,

and he was happiest up to
his wader’d thighs in a stream
casting his line, watching it float
gracefully to the surface
and waiting.

Should there be a catch, he’d
admire the protesting fish,
careful to release it as gently
as possible—not unlike
the way he released me.

Years after his departure,
on the Campbell River outside
the town of the same name
on an island called Vancouver,
I watched two boys each land
a sizeable salmon, all by
themselves, then hold them up
to gawkers and shorewatchers
like me.

The boys turned back to rebait
their hooks and cast into
the summer-swift river,
then wait, as the sport demands,
wearing matching grins,
hoping for another lucky
catch—

their happy definition
of fishin’.

where, 64 years ago, you
just-minted high school graduate,
decided to brave the waters

of the Strait of Georgia, on
the coastal middle an island
called Vancouver,

at a seaside resort called
the Sea-esta, showing off,
perhaps, just a little, for

the teenaged daughter
of the friends of your parents
you were visiting.

Nearly four decades later,
we drove up that long island
to see the girl who, it developed,

kept your graduation photo
that you signed to her
so long ago, you, the California

boy who discovered in 1960
that not all ocean was, as
the girl imagined, warm enough

for surfing. And now, some
two decades after that,
we scuff through the fine-

sanded beach to admire
that cold surf, then turn
to look at the resort that

still exists, grateful that you,
California boy, and that
island girl still do, too.

•••

(for Dick and Louise)

(for Louise and Bill Johnson, our friends
on the 50th parallel in Campbell River, BC)

•••

If we ever doubted that we are one world,
that we share so much, come stand

at, say, the 50th parallel, the circle
of latitude that sits 50 degrees north

of the Earth’s equatorial plane. Here,
on an island in western Canada,

in a town touted as the salmon capital
of the world—where the sun is visible

for 16 hours and 22 minutes on the
summer solstice, and for eight hours,

four minutes on the winter solstice—
we reach across the planet to hold

hands with those in Mainz, Germany,
in Wallonia, Belgium, in Upper

Normandy, France, in parts of Prague
in the Czech Republic. We extend

our hearts to those in places of
deep conflict: in Kharkiv, Ukraine,

and so many parts of Russia.
In Mongolia and Khazakhstan,

circumnavigating the globe and
oceans both Pacific and Atlantic

to this place—Campbell River,
British Columbia, on the strait of

Georgia, where salmon far
outnumber people. We stand,

arms outstretched across Canada
to places with the most lyrical

names: Medicine Hat, Alberta,
Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan,

to regions with canine names:
Newfoundland, Labrador,

even to the Lizard Peninsula
in Cornwall, England.

These bright places hold so much sun
that boldly outshines the dark times,

reminds us that we reflect the light
of the world, us reaching for you

across this imaginary line circling
the globe, your hands extended to us,

even when we can’t see each other.

The pianist, live and in fine form,
does not play “Tea for Two,”
though we are two for tea

this Sunday at the Empress,
the queen of high tea in Victoria.
Instead, he’s declaring,

with rippling flourishes,
what the world needs now
is love, which is precisely

what the sweet-smiling server
delivers as he offers us a hinged
wooden book bearing tea

descriptions as well as little
windows of loose tea we can see.
We choose, and shortly a pot

arrives for each of us—
Orange Vanilla Grove for you,
Rose Congou Emperor for me—

set atop a ceramic warmer with,
appropriately, a tealight candle
inside. And this, of course,

is just the warmup act for the
pièce de resistance that arrives,
a three-tiered assembly

of both savouries and sweets
as the pianist swings into Gershwin—
yes, our love is here to stay—

in an easy, jazzy 4/4, then as we
bite into scones topped with
clotted cream and excellent jam,

we are grateful for
and tempted to sing along to
someone to watch over me.

Except for the very casually
dressed young men in collared
shirts and shorts, and the young

woman who sat down near us
in perfectly white denim jeans,
we could have walked into

the 1930s, the pianist
seamlessly morphing from
“Embraceable You” into

The way you wear your hat
The way you sip your tea
The memory of all that

no, no, they can’t take that
away from me. And they can’t,
they certainly can’t, as you

return from a quick photo turn
around the room, settle again
into the lovely wingback chair

that is yours for this foray into
tea heaven, pick up your cup
to sip as if we do this every day,

here in this city we love where,
yes, it is summertime, and
the livin’—oh, lucky us—

is easy.

(Victoria, British Columbia)

Painted on the bricks
of Bastion Square
the simple request—

MORE JUSTICE—

each emphatic letter
rendered, perhaps,
by a unique hand,

showing what’s
possible when a
variety of humans

comes together
kindly, cooperatively,
for a common goal.

Turn it into a prayer—

MORE PEACE—

this tender process
made of breath,
of opening our

hearts to others.
Let us each pick up
a brush, dab a

droplet of paint
onto a porous surface,
watch it spread

awareness, extend
acceptance, cultivate
tenderness—

more,
yes, please,
more.

(for our Canadian friends)

•••

As the kids say,
it’s been a minute—

like two years
of minutes—

since we’ve found
ourselves in Victoria,

but we’ve once again left
behind the selves we know

to be wreathed in
Canadian kindness,

trading our dollars
for loonies,

our brownies
for Nanaimo bars,

and cheering on
Canadian athletes as

we watch the Olympics.
We are humbled by our

similarities with those
who, from a distance,

we might imagine as
different, but here,

surrounded by so much
that is greater than us,

reshaping us a tiny bit,
sanding us down with

the fine grit of joy—
this sweet city on this

long island extends
its arms, makes us feel

as if we’re coming home
again, which we have.

He stands
on an oyster shell-encrusted rock
at low tide in this protected bay,
barely a breath of wind,
safely surrounded by a shallow moat,

while I, a respectful distance away,
perch on my own rock and watch him
dig that long, sharp bill under a wing,
tending what needs tending.

A sizable flock of Canada geese
on their home turf slowly paddles by
the heron’s perch, a respectful, silent
audience pausing momentarily,
uninterested in me.

I sit here at midday, close enough
to see the blue patch on the master’s wings,
the dark horizontal mask running from his eye
to the back of his head, as his chest feathers
splay like a flapper’s fringe.

Last evening two dear ones and I
stood on a walkway for humans above
the high waterline, my present perch
invisible then, deep underwater.

Now, except for shallow pools between
the barnacled rocks, you’d never suspect
this area was inundated 15 hours ago.

Nearly everything has dried out,
including the heron, standing on one
foot, the other foot working over his
beak like a chef sharpening a knife,
a masterful bit of balance few humans
could manage.

Such grace in the ordinariness of self-care,
in the everydayness of twice-a-day tides,
as the heron, safe and dry,
elongates his neck full periscope,
swiveling his head to survey
his kingdom, as his acolytes
surround him.

Then, as this white-cloaked priest
bows his head,
I do, too.

•••

(Click on photo to enlarge it!)