Vol. 4, No. 1
Writers:
Irene Baros-Johnson – To The Further Reaches (Pt 3)
Janet Brush – The Cruelest Month
Harry Garrison – Music And Lyrics And Videos
Ron Gillis – Iona Cape Breton 1949
Audrey C. Greenhalgh – My Secret Love
Cathy Hanrahan – Winter Morning
Nicole D. Myers – From You I Return New
Chantelle Rideout – Dearly, Winterly
Tom Robson – Hunting in the Forest
Mary Ellen Sullivan – Mantle of Spruce
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To The Further Reaches III
Poem by Irene Baros-Johnson
When did Preston start walking west in spring,
Follow blaze-trails, to gather church-goers?
When did he buggy-ride to preach there
With Welchman James Thomas? Biographies
Of other ministers of his time show Preston
Must have watched, as comers from afar
Trudged home with their torches bobbing.
Clothes must have become threadbare and
There were many loaves and fishes times.
Preston married widow Mary Maulibock.
Against American slavery, he fostered the
African Abolition Society with S. Clarke.
He encouraged deacons and new ministers.
September 1, 1854, Father Preston founded
The African Baptist Association of twelve,
Soon 15 churches, with over 500 members.
Multitudes bewailed his death, July 14 1861,
Processed to Dartmouth Crane’s Hill burial.
Stemming from him in the 1840’s, Preston,
Hammond Plains, Beech Hill, Africville,
And Dartmouth Lake had churches.
He rode fortnights to Horton, Granville Ferry,
Bridgetown, Bear River, Weymouth Falls,
Greenville Church near Yarmouth, to Liverpool.
Why’s there no statue of Preston upon his horse?
Parents could take pictures of their young ones
Set upon Kate’s saddle in front of the great man.
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The Cruelest Month
Poem by Janet Brush
“April is the cruelest month.”
So said T S Eliot.
………….He was never in Nova Scotia in February!
Glorious sunshine – but inhuman cold.
A little warmer – snow, hail, slush, freezing rain,
Warmer yet – rain melts all, clears the streets.
Do we dare to think of spring?
Nor’easter descends – bitter cold, snow, cruel winds.
Oh so cruel, crueler than April
could ever dream of being.
Glorious sunshine – the cycle begins again.
So it goes, round and round,
Until February is done.
Now for March…
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The one place
Poem by Tim Carter
Standing beside the open sea
A moment of tranquility
Looking out I see
The sea looking back at me
I feel the gentle salty breeze
It clears my mind
Enters my soul, I’m free…
If only for a moment from the burdens of life
With its simplicity
The rhythm of the waves
Moves me internally and eternally
On this journey to find and release me.
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The Walk
4 Haiku by Sophia Clark
Distant creaking trees
Will crack and cackle at sky
Boom! A trunk falls down
…………………*
Rustling to my right
The meadow grass is shaking
Will something jump out?
…………………*
Cold air scorches throat
My heartbeat thundering still
Opal moon is mute
…………………*
The green trees look grey
With night time tucking over
I left my light on
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Winter Walk
Poem by Tim Covell
My boot clad feet bear me along the beach.
The sand is soft and shimmers as it moves
In the wind that washes from the waves;
Snow sits along the shore,
…..beyond the salted swells.
Between the waves and white,
…..the way is clear;
Further view fades into fogs.
Imprints around impart impressions
Of others near or far.
Near here none, today, nearby no sound
Save wind and water wearing on the land.
Other seasons, shrieks and sighs
Shared sands soothe or startle feet;
Warm water welcomes us in,
Inland in hand on land explorations made.
My boot clad feet bear me along the beach.
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Music And Lyrics And Videos
Poem by Harry Garrison
Are sex and violence really
primarily bodily functions,
or are they more accurately
labeled things of the mind?
I do not want to be better.
I am already feeling great.
I want to feel differently,
through the music you make.
The song subjects are dark,
but my emotions are bright.
Fireworks go up and explode
with brain-shapes at night.
Some words are a bit skewed
in meaning, going sideways.
They interest and intrigue,
and sometimes even provoke.
You appeal to my peripheral
sight, my marginal hearing,
my oblique kind of thought,
and my sense of everything.
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Iona Cape Breton 1949
Poem by Ron Gillis
A station, a bridge, graveyard, a church.
Evening bells ringing, train whistle screaming,
Dogs scurrying,
Men with tongues wagging,
At hitching post standing,
Little children playing,
Evening birds nesting,
With Babes in mothers arms resting.
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My Secret Love
Poem by Audrey Currie Greenhalgh
If you could only know
How I’m filled with longing
To hold and kiss you so.
If you could only see
All the pretty pictures
I paint of you and me.
If you could only hear
The symphony my heart sings
Whenever you are near.
If you could only taste
The sweetness in my breath
As it brushes past your face.
If you could only tell
How I long to linger
In the magic of your spell.
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Winter Morning
Poem by Cathy Hanrahan
The first light of morning skims the snow
Steely grey, almost artificial
Pink hue rings the skyline
A purple burst below
Layers of colour stacked
above the snow capped roofs
Broken branches tossed about
Evergreens weighted and hanging down
Fading, scattered animal tracks
Patches of earth at random
Sullied brown winter bruises
Blown bare by the wind
Crusty day old snow
Yesterday clean and light
Today hard and crunchy
Tomorrow dirty and used
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Strange creatures
snakes with legs
aliens from pre-historic times
scornful flickering frog eyes ,
full of suspicion ,aloof , always alert.
My daughter’s family had a pet iguana
that scuttled round the house
striking ferocious poses.
One summer day it vanished into the woods.
In September when nights grew cold
a boy found it a mile from home
basking on the sun warmed shoulder
of the road to Herring Cove.
She told the boy to keep it.
Her kids had tired of its fierce independence
Their Golden Lab had established
a relationship of sorts with the iguana
but they were from different time zones,
different eras, and were never really close.
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Butterfly
Poem by Scot Jamieson
“Work,” they say.
Work hard at hard work,
work harder, work smarter. Learn:
learn to work, work at learning, but
you along the way will learn as well,
that learning has no end . . .
this I’ve lived, but like the months
of ice and snow (that bring
the hundred coldest days, the 144,000
coldest minutes every ancient year)
do not prevent the one minute
of most years, of me noticing
the inadvertent whimsical cameo
of some silent, fragile butterfly,
my yearly 144,000 minutes of drudgery
and learning, routine or intense,
don’t so far seem to circumscribe
some magical sense of silent meaning
as it flits its minute random minute
across my inner summer fields.
And my haphazard life and all its years –
across what sunny fields do they fly,
and in what summer, on what Earth?
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You forgot to tell me I forgot you.
How forgetful we are.
Forget me not
For I long to be remembered
in your child-like dream
magnificent clouds purple orange and pink
ablaze in the Technicolor sky
my heels turn the other way
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One Cup of Tea
Poem by Emily Krauss
One cup of tea
Can go a long way
We socialize
We grieve
We dream
Over one cup of tea
There are smiles
We feel relaxed
Our insides are warmed
Over a simple cup of tea
One cup of tea
Can go a long way
One cup of tea
Can bring up memories
To reminisce
One cup of tea
Can be shared
Between family and friends
Just one cup of tea
Can be enjoyed
By millions of people
All over the world
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I excavate you for moments at a time,
sometimes for hours,
then you bury yourself again.
You disappear deeper and deeper
into the ground.
I have only glimpses of you now.
I toil away, shovelling as fast as I can.
You are with me once again,
freed from your self-imposed exile.
Then helpless, I watch you sink back,
offering no resistance.
I cannot hold on. I must let go because
now you are fighting me,
fighting to be left alone.
I tell you, as the sides cave in,
as the ground swallows you up,
that you are entombing me as well,
banishing me, to be buried alive
by the emptiness around me.
And now the sad, sad rain is coming down,
mixing with the soil, turning it to cement.
Though I know it will never yield again,
I pound the hardened ground
to the point of exhaustion,
to the point of madness.
I do not yet know if I will be here forever.
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From You I Return New
Poem by Nicole D. Myers
to understand how we were
brought here by love
to be such a woman to find
you in the melody of hymns
to count the scattered stars
strewn across your sea
to gather the precious stones
flecked along your shoreline
to decipher the guarded
grammar of your body language
to travel the safe passages
traced along your warm flesh
to enunciate accurately that
I am bare to your essence
to articulate the profound
poetry forming on my tongue
from you I return new
to the world
to the heavens
to the ground
to know why we will surpass
the glow of northern lights
to be the kind of miracle you
discover at the end of desire
to love
to aspire
to nurture
from you I return new
…………..from you I rise
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Democracy
Poem by Jaywant Patil
People the world over want democracy-
of the people, for the people and by the people.
Sound fine to most us on the surface.
What about the minorities and the marginalized?
Elections where money plays a big role,
votes can be purchase with money and gold,
minority human rights trampled and sold,
isn’t democracy but a mockery of democracy.
True democracy is rule of the people,
for the people, by the people,
where minorities are protected
and big money plays no role.
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Dearly, Winterly
Poem by Chantelle Rideout
Whorl of snow in the wind
tunnelling a slow, cool daze over us.
The way you used to bury longing—
stacks of shirt-sleeves and button holes
piled atop the slanted scrawl addressed
to you at the bottom of the drawer.
Could it be the way light multiplies
in this weather? Vague shapes
of picnic tables and playgrounds,
blank versions of summered memories.
The red plastic of the slide peeking
through; cool austerity with which
you fold the letter back up.
The type of snow banks you can scale
like rocks, as long as you tread softly,
the ice-sleek glaze over your eyes.
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Hunting in the Forest, Sixty Years Ago.
Poem by Tom Robson
Young Hunter.
Leading his prey to a hide.
Turf floored, gorse free,
Warmed by the evening sun; yet hidden
By waist high, lush, green summer ferns.
Nine hundred years, a royal hunting ground.
Yet still the New Forest.
Wild life forbidden to common man.
But lusty youth ignores the rule
And guides his prey towards her fate.
No blood lust in this young hunter.
No urge to make a killing.
The Common heath has sunny, summer space
To lay his doe to rest; where he
Can take advantage of her youthful innocence.
But again, this hunter is denied.
Her resolve and this era’s inhibition
Defeat frolicking, fumbling, fondling
In this romantic setting for first love.
He’ll hunt, again tomorrow; and fail.
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Mantle of Spruce
Poem by Mary Ellen Sullivan
Dedicated to Rita Joe
I went to my window
to watch the spruce trees
along our driveway.
Comfort wrapped ‘round me
as I watched the way
the branches flowed in the night.
Like how my grandmother used to rock me,
holding me into her softness
and singing to me
He`s got the whole world in his hand.
I’d look up into her smiling eyes
like they could surround me.
Imagine that.
It`s kind of like a poem,
My Gramma and the spruce trees.
So now I know what to do
if I get scared.
I`ll hum my poem and rock
like I`m on a big spruce bough.
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Untitled
Poem by Tamara Williams
Bodies glisten in the complimentary
light of the after.
Back from their voyage completely
euphoric and light.
Enraptured, like children with eyes, fingers,
toes, hair, no hair…
The feelings of not being able to, and
not wanting to stop; remembered.
Listening closely you can still hear
the soundless sound of unison.
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