First Light, Last Light by Glen Sorestad

 

First Light, Last Light by Glen Sorestad

by Stephen Morrissey

 

First Light, Last Light

Glen Sorestad, 2025

Shadowpaw Press

Regina, Saskatchewan,

ISBN 978-1-998273-46-1

 

            In his eighty-eighth year Glen Sorestad continues to write new poems and has just published a new book of poetry, First Light, Last Light. The first section of the book, "The Human Touch", is comprised of poems in which Sorestad remembers people who were important to him; the second section, "Sunbeams and Shadows", is less defined by the past, it has an awareness of the natural world, mostly referring to birds. The whole book emphasizes the importance of the past as well as the importance of the natural world. It is a book of endings, fall to winter, day to night, and the people we've known and loved and who are now deceased; it is a book of the transience of life.

 

The first section of First Light, Last Light has many references to Sorestad's father, someone Sorestad often remembers; Sorestad recalls that his father drove a "1935 Ford", and that his father had a beautiful singing voice, a talent that Sorestad also shares; "My father had a great singing voice./ I have no memories of this of my own" but an elderly aunt has "conveyed/ this genealogical tidbit to me", and this reminds Sorestad that his memories of his father are of an older man, one "who grew/ increasingly taciturn and introspective/ as he neared the end of a life cut short...".

 

It is in the details that the past comes to life; in "The Whistler", Sorestad remembers that his father "loved to whistle." In "Honouring Our Fathers", Sorestad writes that he and his wife, Sonia, compared "notes about/ our long-departed fathers" and reflect on the similarities between the two men. Both of these fathers are remembered as men who valued their families, they were hard workers, they were good men. In another poem Sorestad writes, "I have always been aware of this:/ the missing are always missed." As time passes we may not miss these people as often as we once did, but missing someone, or feeling grief at losing them, does not end, it stays with us as long as we live. The word "missing" is poignant; "missing" suggests the hopeful possibility they might one day be found; of course, where they truly are is in our hearts. Sorestad writes,

 

                        Why do I keep writing these memories,

                        real or imagined, of my father, now gone

                        over six decades from my life?

                        .  .  .  .  . 

                        Is there anyone left alive with reason

                        to doubt whether my own recollections

                        bear even slight resemblance to the man?

                                                            "Gene Gifts", p. 27

 

In "Bulldozers" Sorestad reflects on the illusion of progress, "We inter our own history/ under the sham mound of progress". What is left of the past is ploughed under—"Every fallen log, every hillock—/ abandoned beaver dam,/ or forgotten Indigenous grave—/ levelled". Sorestad's feelings about the bulldozing of old homes, fields, nature despoiled, is also the destruction of our collective and individual memories, and poets are memory carriers, they remember the past and they keep the past alive in the stories, anecdotes, and details of what the past was like.

 

It is the second section of First Light, Last Light that really surprised me; these poems have a different quality to them than in the previous section; it is now the natural world that impresses itself on the poet. This section is mostly comprised of poems that refer to birds and there are also a few foxes that have been seen in the part of Saskatoon where Sorestad lives. There is a transformation manifested in nature; this is expressed in the emphasis on birds and the symbolism of birds. In Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant's A Dictionary of Symbols (1969) we read that birds are "symbols of the links between Heaven and Earth . . . Birds, symbols of the soul, play the role of Intermediaries between Heaven and Earth."

 

As symbols birds are messengers of the divine; birds are symbolic of freedom, spirituality, and a connection between the earth and the heavens. Sorestad's poem, "Red winged Blackbirds" stood out for me (and not only because it mentions my birthday in the first line—"the twenty-seventh of April") and describes walking in nature and seeing a red-winged blackbird, a bird I no longer see here in the east; Sorestad writes,

 

                        There is no avoiding the brazen birds,

 

                        should you be so inclined. They are political

                        poets of the bird world and like Milton Acorn

 

                        they shout love, whether you understand,

                        or appreciate, or agree with it or not.

 

Here are some of the birds referred to by Sorestad in this book:

 

                        Snowy owls

                        Crows

                        Waxwings

                        Blackbirds

                        Cooper's Hawks

                        Canada Geese

                        Catbirds

                        Robins

                        Chickadees

                        Swans

                        Juncos

                        Snow geese

                        Turkey vultures

                        Magpies

                        Catbirds

                        Bohemian Waxwing

                        Blue Jay

 

We are visited daily by these messengers of the divine. Take, for instance, "Crow Meditation"; upon seeing the first crow of the year Sorestad writes,

 

                        Is it confirmation of an expectation?

                        Or the assurance, here and now. Nature

                        has proclaimed again that all is well?

 

The crow is a bird that has a long memory, be careful not to offend a crow or the consequences will be long lasting, you might be subject to the crow aggressively flying at you, not for days or weeks, but for years to come; and they will recognize your face and distinguish between you and other people. Crows have the intelligence of a seven year old child and can be a delight to watch. One's relationship with crows is one in which we can learn something about ourselves; they can be predatory (I have watched a crow land in a neighbour's tree with a small dead squirrel in its claws), but there is much more to crows than this.

 

Sorestad writes that it is "Hard to Love a Crow", especially when the crow hunts younger birds; looking out at their new bird bath he writes, "I expect we both shared the same vision:// robins and sparrows, warbler and finches,/ chickadees and other songsters would arrive/ at our burbling flow to drink and to splash." But crows are clever and intelligent animals, crows are carnivores and cagey in their approach to finding the next meal. In "Corvid Hygiene" he writes,

 

                        Crow turns to the window,

                                    cocks its head at me

                                    and those dark eyes

                        seize mine for a moment.

                                    I'm positive Crow

                                    would like to say

                        something to me, something

                                    I'm not at all sure

                                    I want to hear.

 

Personally, I have observed crows and other birds for years and I always enjoy seeing crows soak food found at a nearby Chinese restaurant in our backyard bird bath. Crows are also known for leaving presents after their visits. One day, after visits by crows, I was pouring fresh water into the bird bath when I found an old Canadian penny beside the bird bath; I thought that was nice and then I looked at the penny more closely, it was almost completely rubbed smooth and the date on it was 1957, the year after my father died. It is probably of no great significance, but personally, I like to think that it is a meaningful coincidence—a synchronistic experience—and that it tells me we live in a meaningful universe. I feel that the crows had delivered to me a special gift—a personal gift from them—and it is a penny that I still possess.

 

There is also Sorestad's "Nordic spirit" present in his poems; by this I refer to ancestral qualities of self-reliance, an adherence to truth, love for the natural world, the importance of inner strength, and an unstated assumption of accepting things as they are. Glen Sorestad's heritage is Norwegian and he reminds me of the late Canadian poet George Johnston whose own poetry, including his translations of the Icelandic Sagas and poetry from the Faroe Islands, also had these Nordic qualities. Both poets discover in the everyday, the quotidian, a way to express what is important in life. Glen Sorestad's poems also remind me of the poems of the American poet William Stafford; Sorestad and Stafford have a similar sensibility; they are western poets and, one feels, they are closer to the essentials of poetry than is found in some poets of the big eastern cities.

 

For Glen Sorestad the first light is diminishing and the last light is on the horizon, but it is not a time of sadness; it is a time of love. This is not a sad or unhappy book, every poem affirms life and being alive; the past lives in our hearts but it also lives in memory. This is a book of memories and reflections on the past, they weave in and out of consciousness; it is also a book of the natural world, of a connection with nature. These are fall and winter poems, a time of reflection, a time of solitude. Do we agree with Beowulf, that "grief follows joy", or is it Chaucer that we resonate to when he writes in The Canterbury Tales, "But after wo I rede us to be merye"? I think Sorestad would choose the latter; however, a paradox of life is that you can be on both sides of an issue at the same time; but, overall, Glen Sorestad is on the side of life and creativity and continuing on life's journey no matter if it is the first light or the last light of day.

                                                                                      Stephen Morrissey

                                                                                       25 November 2025

Finding one’s voice in poetry

4 October 2024

All poets need to find their voice, this requires talent, perseverance, and commitment to writing. From when I began writing poetry, in 1965, I knew I had to find my voice, I knew I had to write poems that I could stand behind --poems that were true to my inner self-- and those poems would accurately express the experiences that had formed or created my life. For me, the discovery of my voice in poetry was an important development in my work as a poet; I knew this instinctively, and I spent years writing every night until I finally wrote a "real" poem. 

 _______

The journey to being a poet includes writing, study, reading, and having a few poet friends; it's a journey in that you don't know where you are going until you get there, and you never know if you will write a genuine poem until you write one. Discovering my voice in poetry was a breakthrough in my writing. In my early twenties I had written poems, for instance “there are seashells and cats”, and this was my true voice. This discovery of my true voice is shown in the poems in my first book, The Trees of Unknowing (Vehicule Press,1978); these were my first poems that I felt were genuine poems, poems that I could stand behind. Finding one's voice in poetry doesn't mean that you will stay writing the same way, what you say changes and how you say it changes, but that is only after you find your voice; another important poem, in my body of work, is “Divisions”, it was written over three days in April 1977.

_________

 

Writing Divisions (Coach House Press, 1983) happened during a period of emotional conflict, of unhappiness, of catharsis. Did Matthew Arnold say that poetry is our religion? This is a shared experience between poet and reader because the poet gives expression to spirit, soul, and psyche and the reader recognizes these important qualities in themselves. What one says in poetry changes as one gets older; nothing is permanent and content is also subject to change, but there is an ineffable quality to voice that doesn’t change; voice is the vehicle for the human soul and what it is experiencing, observing, and moved by, this becomes content, and it needs to be true to one’s inner being.

__________________________          

November 2012 – June 2013

Revised October 2024

Montreal

"Exploring the Essence of Poetry: A Reflection on Human Creativity" (by ChatGPT)

 

2012

Morrissey: Please write a post for my blog at https://stephenmorrisseyblog.blogspot.com/

ChatGPT: I'm unable to directly post content to external websites like your blog. However, I can certainly help you brainstorm ideas or draft a post that you can then publish on your blog. What specific topic or theme would you like the blog post to be about? Let me know, and I'll be happy to assist you further!

Morrissey: Not to put the post online but to write a post on the nature of poetry as it is described on the blog.


ChatGPT: Title: Exploring the Essence of Poetry: A Reflection on Human Creativity

Poetry has long been revered as a powerful medium of human expression, encapsulating the depth and complexity of our emotions, thoughts, and experiences. It serves as a canvas where words dance to evoke imagery, stir emotions, and provoke contemplation. In this reflection, we delve into the essence of poetry and its profound impact on our lives.

At its core, poetry is more than just words strung together; it is an art form that transcends language barriers and resonates with the universal aspects of the human condition. Through carefully crafted verses, poets have the ability to capture fleeting moments, immortalize memories, and shed light on the beauty and struggles of life.

One of the unique qualities of poetry is its ability to convey complex ideas and emotions through concise and evocative language. Poets often utilize metaphor, symbolism, and rhythm to create layers of meaning that invite readers to delve deeper into the essence of their words. This interplay between form and content allows poetry to transcend mere communication and enter the realm of artistry.

Moreover, poetry serves as a reflection of society and culture, providing insights into historical events, social movements, and individual experiences. Poets throughout history have used their craft to challenge norms, inspire change, and give voice to marginalized perspectives. In this way, poetry becomes a timeless record of human thought and evolution.

Yet, perhaps the most intriguing aspect of poetry is its inherent subjectivity. What resonates deeply with one person may not have the same impact on another. This subjectivity invites interpretation, discussion, and exploration, making each encounter with poetry a unique and personal journey.

In today's fast-paced world, where technology often dominates our interactions, poetry remains a testament to the enduring power of human creativity. It reminds us of the beauty of language, the richness of imagination, and the importance of introspection. As we continue to navigate the complexities of modern life, let us not forget to pause, reflect, and appreciate the timeless artistry of poetry.

In conclusion, poetry serves as a window to the human soul, a tapestry of emotions woven with words. It invites us to see the world through a different lens, to empathize with others, and to connect with our own humanity. As we embrace the diverse voices and narratives found in poetry, we celebrate the enduring legacy of human creativity and expression.

Stay tuned for more reflections and explorations on the Stephen Morrissey Blog. Poetry, like life, is a journey of discovery and revelation.



Morrissey: Excellent!


ChatGPT: I'm glad you liked it! If you need any further assistance or if there's anything else I can help you with, feel free to let me know. Happy writing!

Artificial Intelligence and Poetry

 

2012

            

It is through human expression that we can defeat the over arching digital tyranny; through joy and poetry we can assert our humanity.

--Richard Olafson, Shifting Towards Vitalism (2023)

In the old days, when home computers were just beginning to be available to the public, some poets made poems using computer technology and their own original programmes; some of these poems were permutations of phrases, some resulted in Surrealistic visual images, and while a few of these poems were interesting they were basically meaningless as poetry and never real poems. Now we’ve moved on to Artificial Intelligence writing, well, anything you want it to write including poetry. 

There is a short video on YouTube of Joe Rogan telling us that blood, discovered at the bottom of the Ark of the Covenant, had been analysed and was the blood of Jesus Christ, proving both His divinity and His existence. This video was, of course, a creation of Artificial Intelligence, it was a hoax, an attempt to fool or deceive people. This, and other videos created by Artificial Intelligence, gives one pause, what if this video was of someone in authority making some statement that people believed but it was all lies or propaganda? We are concerned with AI because it is one of the recent technologies that could be disastrous for humanity, and excluding some positive uses the existence of AI, for most people, is frightening, it is to deceive the viewer. What do we believe, and who do we believe, if technology can now perfectly duplicate the voice and facial characteristics of people in authority? Or if AI can write fake texts? There have always been false or fake texts and there will be more in the future generated by AI technology. 

Why anyone would want to write AI poems is beyond me, there is no money in poetry, there is no fame, there is nothing to gain except possibly some amusement or novelty. AI can write screen plays, articles for Sports Illustrate magazine and newspapers, content for websites, PhD dissertations, term papers, or whatever someone wants and it is inexpensive, fast, possibly accurate, and he/she doesn't have to do the writing or pay an actual human writer. But poetry? Perhaps because poetry is of increasingly less value to society it is doubtful that anyone will write poems using AI except as a prank, a joke, or out of curiosity. But there is something important to learn from this possible use of Artificial Intelligence and poetry: it is to remember what it means to be human.

Can AI ever write poetry? It is not possible for one reason: poetry is the voice of the human soul and computers don't have souls. Even if computer technology becomes so sophisticated that a computer thinks it is an autonomous human being, that it attains "personhood", it will still not be poetry. Poetry requires a human being writing poems and this requires living in the physical world with real life relationships with other human beings. Even if an intelligent human-looking robot could be created, with built-in AI, it is still a computer and it has no soul. Even if you could programme in the functions of a soul--for instance, compassion, understanding, empathy, emotions, spirituality, awe, a family history, and reflection on the past--and this computer writes "poetry", it is still not poetry, it still can't express what the human soul can express. A human has a biological level of existence and a computer is man-made, it is a machine even if it is the most sophisticated machine made by man. And a computer can never have a style of writing that is honed by experience and a multiplicity of events that organize themselves randomly and are the result of events far too complicated to ever be duplicated or created in themselves. AI and its progression, a humanoid robot, is always manufactured by people, or descended from a generation of computers invented and manufactured by people; it is not created by sexual intercourse, there is no hormonal basis to AI, it has no belief in spirituality (or anything else), it has no traditions whether religious, ancestral, cultural, historical, or genetic that human beings have, and if sometime in the future it has some of these qualities, they will always be artificially created and not the result of human interaction; AI will never have genuine human qualities. Even if  one day AI can identify as "human" it is still not the real thing. If we come to a time when computers think they are human beings, or the equivalent of human beings, with free will and emotions and mobility, it is possible that robots will take over from human beings, but even then whatever a robot with AI can express will never be real poetry. AI can write a facsimile poem but never a real poem. By definition only a human being can write a real poem just as only a human being can react to that poem with emotions and human reflection. AI and the human soul are mutually exclusive. 

Deletions from an Introduction for a Selected Poems (3)

 

Deleted:

Creativity has the capacity to heal; some have fallen into the darkness of existence, and writing poetry or making art is one way to find light in the darkness; what is the light? It is the discovery of love in one's life. It is greater than any darkness.

Deletions from an Introduction for a Selected Poems

 

Deletions:

3.  You don’t become a poet expecting to be liked for everything you write, or even for some of what you write. Why do people become poets? It is simple: people become poets because they are called to this work; writing poetry is an act of transcription, writing down what is given to you and, most importantly, writing poetry is to feel that truth is so important that it must be adhered to. This is why freedom of speech is so important; it is essential if literature is to have any meaning or relevance for either the poet or the reader.

4. Poetry isn't antiseptic, it's passion for life. Poetry is love and death and tears of joy and tears of sorrow. It's messy, it's stuff we don't want to talk about, it's betrayal and jealousy, it's love and sex and tenderness and grief and regret and awe and divine inspiration; it's the shadow falling across one's life. Poetry is nothing if not passionate; passion, not the intellect, not fashion, not popularity, not what other people are doing, defines poetry.

5.  In The Green Archetypal Field of Poetry (2022), I described how one's life can be reconfigured to something totally different from what one expected in life; I described this as the Great Reconfiguration. When I was six years old and my father died my old life became redundant, everything changed; I was one person and then I became someone else. His death has preoccupied much of my life, his passing reconfigured my life; this began the relentless journey of grief and understanding, love and loss, that I've been on, and trying to understand this existence and expressing it in poems.

6. To write not parts of a life but a whole life, that is what I have tried to do; it is an impossible task and can be attempted only if one refers to archetypes and a mythological approach to experience as a way to communicate this information. The poet's body of work is all of a piece, a single entity; it's a life that is transformed by poetry, it's the soul speaking through the poet. For John Keats life was a vale of soul-making, not a vale of tears; this was always the direction of my writing, my concern has always been with soul-making and I expressed this in my poems.

 

I'll be glad when I've written my last poem and I can put this behind me

I've been writing poems since I was fifteen years old, over a half century of writing. Writing poems was never a choice or a decision, it was a calling. Where does the "call" come from? It comes from the soul.

-o-

The "call" to poetry came to me in a dream that told me to write down what had happened in my life or my life would be forgotten; waking after the dream I knew that to forget meant to lose my inner being. It is not just writing poetry that was a part of the call, it was also writing a journal and I began page one of my journal on January 14th, 1965; a few months later I began writing poems. Writing my journal and writing poems was a gift to me from the unconscious mind, it began with the dream.

-o-

First you write the single poem and then a lot of poems, and then you gather these poems into a book, and then you have several books and that is one's body of work. If this is your calling then what you are doing is fulfilling your destiny.

-o-

My poetry is concerned with soul making and it is also soul making itself; soul making is concerned with realizing one's potential as a person, with expressing the deeper meaning of one's life.

-o-

The unconscious mind has a proclivity to wholeness. Whether in dreams or day dreams or writing poems or other forms of artistic creativity, we are driven to wholeness. That is the basis of my writing, when I speak of soul making I am also referring to wholeness, life affirmation, and healthy-mindedness.

-o-

I write poems because writing has been a calling for me and one ignores a calling at risk to one's integrity as a human being. You can ignore many things and not damage your inner being but you can't ignore a calling; ignoring a calling is like having a limb amputated; no, it's worse than that, it's like amputating one of one's own limbs.

-o-

I've been fairly passive in life but that may be because I am also introverted. It may also be because I knew all along what I wanted to do in life, and that was to write poems. Whatever poems I've written have been the result of having to write them; indeed, I had no choice but to write. I have been driven to write, but what drove me? What drove me was the urgency of finding meaning and wholeness in my life, of affirming life.

-o-

Writing poems is what I've done with my life. It wasn't my choice since writing poems was a calling. It came to me, not me to it, and if the writing ended this afternoon I wouldn't care. Now I welcome my final years. I've been along for the journey, not in the driver's seat. I've been an observer and not much of an organizer or initiator of events. But I'm getting old and need a rest. In truth, I'll be glad when I've written my last poem and I can put this behind me.

Poems are reports from inner space

Squirrels screwing

I will have to copy the essay here. Meanwhile, 

Thank you to Mark McCawley for publishing this minimalist essay, "Poems are reports from inner space."

http://urbgraffiti.com/writing/poems-are-reports-from-inner-space-by-stephen-morrissey/#more-6185

This is what is seriously wrong with online publishing.  There is no permanence online and what was originally published can be changed, deleted, altered, rewritten, gone. I will repost this essay.

Online publishing is worth about 10% of hard copy publishing. 

SM

11/05/2018

Dream Journeys: Greenpoint

Dr. William P. Morrissey, Greenpoint, Brooklyn, NYC

Greenpoint

“Are we in Greenpoint?” I asked, looking
at maps of Brooklyn.
Once I looked at old photographs of Greenpoint,
it was prosperous then, and now I leave
the room I am renting for a tour of the area
on my bike. I recognize the buildings
and monuments but they are all larger
than expected. There is city hall,
dirty from years of car and truck exhaust,
then an empty lot where grass seed was being watered.
I enter a tunnel leading to where my relatives
lived in Greenpoint; there is a large church
at the end of their street, the church roof
has collapsed. Two men
stand on a crowded street corner,
“The air here is bad,” I say to them,
“as soon as you leave the tunnel
it is smokey, polluted, everything here
is run-down, poor.” One man says
he’s moving a few blocks
to get out of the area.
I think of visiting the church,
what is left behind.

Dream Journeys: The Journey Home

4) Bleak House

This will always be Bleak House to me,
Dickensian in its silence and shame.
A place where
I retreated
to a second floor room
and lay low,
as animals do when
they are being stalked.

What binds us to
our silent jailors?
They are shadows or a mirror
cracked diagonally, held
in its wooden frame by dust
and the weight of glass shards
wedged together. A single breath
or movement would disturb
this broken mirror,
send it crashing to the floor.

But these relationships survive;
none of us want to end the complex
arrangement of shards of mirror
resting on broken mirror;
we are dependent
on each other
to maintain the hope
that one day
we might find love.
We stay afraid and alone,
become liars, dissemblers;
even if we escape Bleak House
we still have our secret name,
written in invisible ink,
in a passport: Castrato,
Benedict Arnold, Fools’ Pope.

Dream Journeys: "The Journey Home"

4614 Oxford Avenue

3) Oxford Avenue

I arrive at Oxford Avenue
where I grew up;
at the front door
a man’s corpse
sits in an upright position,
as though he had died
in the midst of pausing
to think or remember something.

We come and go all day
and I worry about a neighbour
discovering the corpse,
there are already flies
circling around his head
and I need to do other things
than worry about his being discovered.

Later, a sheet is placed
over the corpse, as one would cover a sofa
or armchair for the summer months
when away in the country,
or how I remember
the furniture in Grandmother’s
living room, a white sheet
on the maroon couch.

We come and go all day
but he remains at the door,
a sentinel or sleeping guard
to remind me of something I’ve forgotten.
I worry about the smell,
the flies, the signs of decomposition,
and the police arriving.

When I return that evening
he is gone and I am relieved:
but who was this corpse?
Could he have been Father,
or someone I have forgotten
or never knew, the white sheet
a shroud, like a body
found in the frozen north,
preserved by the cold,
lips pulled back, grinning
yellow wolf’s teeth.

Dream Journeys: The Journey Home

2) Visiting Great Aunt Edna

I return to Girouard Avenue
to visit Great Aunt Edna,
the only one of three elderly sisters
still alive and residing
at Grandmother’s flat.
She was Grandmother’s
youngest sister, a Sweeney
who married a Taylor
and lived only blocks
from where I now live,
with her husband Bert,
and Howard, their son,
who had some grievance
against his parents
and moved far away
from Montreal because of it.

But first the car’s gear shift
comes off in my hand
and trying to repair it,
I crawl into the car’s body
to screw the gear shift
back in place,
and discover the car
is a wooden vessel,
a web of slats
covered with plywood,
almost paper thin
for lightness.

We arrive at the Girouard Avenue 

flat to find garbage cans
by the curb. Aunt Edna
is not home. Inside there is
a third story staircase
I didn’t know existed;
it has windows facing the street.
The rooms off the stairs
are bright with natural light.
I wonder if they are heated
in winter or if sunlight
is enough to heat these rooms.
There is no sign of anyone here,
how quiet and serene
to walk through these empty rooms,
where three old ladies lived
and now only one remains.

Dream Journeys: "Psyche's Night Journey"

17.

I am in a flat with an old friend,
who looks the same as she did years ago.
There is a young man with long hair,
his name is “Morrissey,”
shorter than me, with some
dental problem in the front teeth.
I think he may read the news on TV.
We talk and when we separate,
I give him my business card.
He is wearing blue jeans
with a dress jacket and white shirt.

Dream Journeys: "Psyche's Night Journey"

15.

Returning home, the car’s gear shift
comes off in my hand and trying to repair it,
I crawl into the car’s body and discover the car is a wooden vessel,
a web of slats covered with plywood, almost paper thin
for lightness. I arrive at Oxford Avenue where I grew up;
at the front door a man’s corpse sits in an upright position,
as though he had died in the midst of pausing
to think or remember something. When I return that evening
he is gone and I am relieved: But who was this corpse?
Could he have been Father, or someone I have forgotten
or never knew, the white sheet a shroud, like a body
found in the frozen north, preserved by the cold,
lips pulled back in the permanent grin of the dead,
like a wolf’s grinning yellow teeth.


16. Five Black Horses

It was a demonstration of something, the severed
horse’s head on a chair and the four black horses
standing facing the audience. Behind the middle horse
a man took a hammer and drove a bolt
into the horse’s neck; at first, the horse stood as before,
we were all calm, including the horses,
and then the animal fell to the floor.
The other horses were to follow.

Dream Journeys: "Psyche's Night Journey"

Miami, Florida, 1930s

13.

I am told my father has just died.
He was alive all the years
I thought he was dead.
For fifty years I grieved
and regretted his death.
Now, again, I have missed him.


14.

A cat has been a nuisance,
pissing on  the walls, shitting where the children play,
noise all night; the Italian landlord next door is dealing with it.
He has a big knife and has cut off the cat’s paws,
and then cut further up the leg. 
Someone holds the cat for him.
He may even have skinned the cat,
and planned to leave it alive to suffer.
We are in his car and I am pleading with him
to kill the cat, pleading kill the cat, end his suffering.
His daughter is also pleading with him to kill the cat,
“Daddy, please kill the cat. Please, please kill the cat.”

Dream Journeys: "Psyche's Night Journey"

Church in Ste. Anne de Bellevue, QC, July 2009

11.

"Down Under," as they call it,
a woman has been dragged to the floor,
her clothes torn and dirty;
a man, dressed in a blue satin suit,
like a French cavalier, watches me.
I phone the police and wait and wait.
Then I leave, go to some building
where I am with my father-in-law;
I ask him what he would do
if this man arrives here, he says
he would not let him in the house.
I am on a busy street, I am waiting
for the man in blue. Finally, he arrives
at the head of an entourage,
half-naked women on horses,
clowns, acrobats, dwarves, fire eaters,
it’s a parade that only I can see.
I hold up my hands, fingers outstretched at them:
I yell “Die! Die! Die!” as though deadly energy
will come from my fingers.
They are a lot more powerful than I am.
I feel insignificant, alone against this man
and what he represents.


12.

My son tells me he wants me as a “friend”.
I reply, “I am your father, not a friend;
a father is better; I love you as a father,
a friend is less than a father.”

Dream Journeys: "Psyche's Night Journey"

9.

Former Prime Minister Chretien tells me
he’ll do what he can for us
to hang onto the building,
but there are other people who want it.
Also he wants me to lose weight, improve my health.

10.

In a basement, flooded with two or three feet of water,
big shits like loaves of bread
float in the water and I try to break them into slices
with a paddle so that when my wife arrives,
walking in the water, she won’t step on the shit.
I try to stuff the shit down a drain

Dream Journeys: "Psyche's Night Journey"

7.

I am walking along a street of ice and snow.
I stop and pay for a newspaper with tokens from the casino.
Then I am in a dentist’s office full of Americans,
all smiling and young, in cubicles.
The dentists in their white jackets
are all eager to work, even when
a small black dog tries to get into the building.
I open a door and a stag is there
also trying to get in.
I try to hold him back, but he’s large
and incredibly strong as he breaks through the door.
Now he’s in the building, in the hallway, in a room.


8.

There are three of us sky diving,
holding hands forming a circle.
We are not falling, instead
we are ascending the sky.
As we rise higher, the physical body
feels not only healed, but ecstatic
in freedom from earth and an aging body:
I did not want to return to this life
I am living, I did not want to return
to the old life. I weep as I feel complete joy.

Dream Journeys: "Psyche's Night Journey"

5.

I am a student again. I sit in the back of the classroom
with some women around me.
When I leave I put on my coat and think
I could offer to drive one of the women home, but I don’t.
Then I am at a banquet and someone is telling the poet George Johnston
that the university will name a building after him.
Jeanne, his wife, is there and she says she could cry hearing this.
George is wearing a very white shirt, he’s shaved off his beard,
and I embrace him, congratulate him on the building with his name.
Later, I ask the woman “Was George a student at the U of T?”
and she says he was and that’s why a building will be named after him.



6.

I return to 4614 Oxford Avenue to visit our old home.
I am in the flat when the present tenants arrive,
I point to out to them the leaves I’ve just raked,
how I’ve improved the lawns.
In the living room there are four fireplaces:
three are new, gas or electric. We visit other rooms.
I’ve forgotten my camera. I tell them who used to live in this building.
They seem to remember the people who lived upstairs,
they may have committed suicide in the 1980s.
I go for a walk, and it’s all traffic rushing by.
An old woman holds up her hand and crosses the street.

Dream Journeys: "Psyche's Night Journey"

Church in Ste-Anne de Bellevue, QC, 2009

3.

At the bottom of a garbage can in the kitchen,
the honeybees I left there fly out as a great black cloud.
I run to the living room and then close myself in a sun porch.
A dog, with a black face, joins me.
“They stung my face,” he complains.
Others join us and somehow we get rid of the bees.
Meanwhile, someone is sitting on the stairs outside by a pool in the garden.

4.

The key is broken to the old Volkswagen,
but it still starts the car.
I am with people I don’t know
and we arrive at someone’s house
after driving along a street in the city;
I tell a woman, “You can be selective
and find a country to live in,
like finding a place in the city.”
We sit in her house, she is a retired academic.
I look around and when she returns to the room
I ask, “How did you continue getting so many perks
even though you are retired from the university?”
When I am in the car, leaving, a young girl
comes over to say goodbye and we kiss on the mouth,
her tongue is, momentarily, in my mouth.
I am in a car, or on a couch with my wife,
and want to make love, but a man enters
and we must discuss business.