24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
My body practices each month to hold
and let go. The habit of opening
and pain caused by something
leaving. But my husband has the character
for carrying. I love too much and not
enough. Attach and leave. My mother
fluctuated. Her pride in the loving. My pride
in the abandon. Always forgetting
a person is re-being every time
you look and look away.
I am a reptile and exist in varied colours and size
I have long tongue, a swaying gait and crests on my snout
If I am large, I also have a beautiful, prehensile tail
I thrive in warm habitats from rain forests to deserts
My feet help me grip tightly to narrow or rough branches
My distinctive eyes help me observe two objects together
Being special, I can see in both visible and ultraviolet light
I can sense my prey from a five to ten meter distance
My tongue is twice my size and has an elastic recoil mechanism
I love insects and my long tongue helps me grab my victim
I lock my prize on my tongue with wet adhesion and suction
I survive in both heat and cold with my thermoregulation
You may be unfamiliar with the above facts about me
What I will share now, will help you recognize me this instant
I protect myself by changing my colour as per my surroundings
My top skin crystals reflect the longer wavelengths of light
When I am relaxed, I reflect the colours blue and green
When I am excited, I appear as yellow, orange, green, and red
By now, you must have guessed my identity, yes, you are right
I am a chameleon, I swiftly adapt and escape from your sight
Olive, the pet cat had olive green eyes. I was seven when I picked her from some roadside. I cannot recall the exact place. She looked starved. So I got her home. Named her olive which my friends said was funny for a cat. It sounds more like a name for a parrot. I loved olive though she littered here and there and my mum got angry. But we toilet trained her. But after somedays Maa said olive is not a she turned out to be a tomcat.
Olive was my favourite pet
Yes it was a tomcat.
He put on so much weight
But he died when I was ten
And now I feel nostalgic
Immortalising him with my pen.
The spring day was cool and fresh with a luminous light drawn down from a mixture of cloud, sun and light rain.
Many puddles edged the road in glowing arcs, yet one small, silvered pool caught my attention and drew me back.
At the edge of the cloud-streaked water lay a tiny dead mouse. I could not see how it had died – there was no visible wound – but its sleek grey body curled peacefully around the edge of the puddle.
The light was strange that day; it dazzled, it reflected off damp metal, it brought all lying water to life.
The puddle was luminescent. It glowed.
And the tiny mouse – so perfectly placed – looked as if it was staring deeply into a portal to another world where all mice ran untrammelled and free and none died ignominiously at the side of a small damp country road.
© Anne McMaster 2016
INT. NIGHT. DINER.
ANNE
(A Vivacious brunette with black patent heels and red lipstick walks in, laughing.)
Syl, we’re both drinking something stronger than coffee, right?
SYLVIA
(Tall, but wearing flats, and long-ish hair in bangs.) If it has lemon in it, I’m fine with whatever you order.
ANNE
I thought so.
SYLVIA
(Motions to booth. ANNE nods her head.) Do we have anyone joining us?
ANNE
Do we need anyone else to join us?
SYLVIA
Is this to be a completion discussion? Pater/mater? I mean…
ANNE
– Pick my poison?
SYLVIA
(As drinks are served.) I think we already have. (Motioning to menu.) A slice of pie sound good?
ANNE
(Lighting a cigarette. Waves her head “no.”) Go ahead, though.
SYLVIA
Like I need it. Ted pinched my hip this morning.
ANNE
Pinch his back.
SYLVIA
The Hughes’ men don’t respond well to playful tweaks.
ANNE
And our bodies do?
Veirdoffus Chuben… who needs it!
I have so many stories all of them true
most about dogs, as I’ve had a few.
From shepherds to dobies and a mixture or two.
Let me start with our shepherd,
who had a friend Benjy,
a beagle he knew.
Our dog was named, Veirdoff, one of a kind.
My mother named him or he’d be left behind.
It’s a deal that we made, to take him home.
That big pawed puppy, if only we’d known.
“So who needs it?” Is the translation, you see;
a name he would carry without shame.
Veirdoff was a smart one, yet dumb in some ways.
When his friends came to call, he bolted like the wind.
This cute puppy grew to a beast of a dog
so his friends learned to use his strength.
Let me explain a thing or two
before I divulge, what he did.
One day he came home with a large gash
on his nose that didn’t seem to bother him.
He didn’t complain, but we called anyway.
His vet said to use, blah, blah from the house
and it would heal, quickly, without a bandaid.
To our dismay the lesion remained
without getting any better.
Just when we, were going to call for
an appointment; he was spotted, across our lawn.
We watched as Benjy and a new friend
got out of the way, for Veirdoff.
Lo and behold, there was our dog, brave as can be,
removing a metal garbage lid with his nose.
From our neighbor’s, trash can, no less.
Yes, he used his nose to lift off the lid,
then he put his front paws on the side
of the pail, to tip it.
As soon as it tipped, Benjy and friend
dove in for buffet, while Veirdoff stood
guard, behind them.
We watched his escapade
from start to finish
not a scrap did he have
in his mouth.
We opened the door and called him;
his buddies ran, leaving him alone
to face the doggie music.
Of course he could’t clean the mess they made
so we picked up the smelly garbage remains.
There’s many a story to be told about Veirdoff,
our big boned shepherd, a pooch to behold!
There was this odd sense of being watched as I walked,
So I shot a glance behind me,
Nothing,
Looked to my left, to my right,
Nothing
Then finally looked above and there he sat,
Perched on gnarled koa branch, staring directly at me,
Unblinking,
Huge black eyes twinkling with arcane wisdom,
Twin pools of the infinite,
An almost mocking look on his white feathered countenance.
In that moment I understood why the tribes hold Owl in such regard,
Why the Hawaiians considered him Amakua,
Why forever he’s been associated with wisdom,
Guarding the portals between this world and the next,
Part bird, part spirit.
His eyes penetrated mine, seeming to gaze past the flesh directly into my consciousness.
We stood there for an eternity, locked in unspoken soul to soul communication
Locked in that hypnogogic state between wakefulness and dream
I lowered my eyes and gave a nod, a gesture of respect,
He stretched his coffee-blossom white wings and silently disappeared into low hanging clouds
Soaring up the slopes of Haleakela.
Mahalo, my Pueo friend,
Aloha…
We sit with knees on cold concrete
To stare straight up into the sky
That narrow circle of the heavens
Not blocked by suburbia’s lights
Silver ice diamonds
Peeking through dark night
Reminding us of the wilderness
Where our souls may take flight
Not weighted down by concrete
Or the fuss of mundane life.
Every now and then,
God adds one more gift in His benevolence
The aurora borealis
Which stirs from deep within His children
The urge to join in freedom’s dance.
Transplanted
The creature darted across midday’s blistering parking lot,
sheltering in the shade of one car, then another, as I watched
through the glass of a doctor’s office door in my new home town, cool within.
It was lean and low to the ground, with tufts of fur rakishly angled
atop its erect ears, steel grey from a quivering nose to the tip of a long,
gorgeously full tail, an animal never to be imagined in this nearly treeless desert.
Its unmistakable silhouette, though skinnier and of a different color,
transported me in time and suddenly I’m homesick for green grass,
swaying walnut trees, and the evening rush of wind from an incoming storm.
Another hotfooted padding across the parking lot brought me back from
sleek, red squirrels scurrying and chattering through Indiana trees, to this pitiful,
flattened, grey cousin, straining to survive, a transplant to this dusty western town.
Tracy Plath
There are many,
One path is crowded,
Another maybe stranded
And there is one more,
Which you will discover on your own.
Thinking that you lost it,
or its too late
Isn’t the solution,
Yes we must stand up
To open our own gates.
The way founded
Will be new and unique
We can craft it in our way
We could run at our own speed.
Though, don’t forget
Such path are invisible
They run among the crowd
They become our little secrets
until someone founds !