Snow Falling On Moir

Snow falling soft on Moir,

Geddes plow ridges

banked with corner drift

sculpting slopes of earlier peaks

draped with whiteout swirls,

dust devil kin ranging foothills of frozen slush

backdropped by red brick walls

yellow filigrees of Victorian gables

sidewalk valleys unseen until scaled

flurry veils of white ghostings

chased around street corners

driven by wind gust, spiral curls

through boot-stomped open gaps

rise between hardened older snow

surveyed by us inside our coats and scarves;

fake fur hats and woolen toques pulled snug

before descending the crested embankments.

The snow still falling soft on Moir

barrier cliffs of ploughed up heights

scaled in felt-warmed boot steps

swirling corners coriolis

cresting drifts in slipstreams

sculpting curves as we climb

stomping steps into being:

a mittened hand in the other’s;

eyes on dangers beyond us

bootprint holes shared on the downside

made by those this way before us,

turned into hardened steps

and left for those who follow

Our eyes are ahead in the valley of drift

side peaks of snow ploughed, driving-cold wind

discovers ways inside us, hat scarved-ears

snugged down, huddled in, bent into the swirl

using each other to not slip on underfoot ice

in frozen imprints created by others:

variable strides alter ours as we

crush down soft places between

establishing a flattened path for others.

Snow is falling soft on Moir

once we return to it from around the block.

Joined the League of Canadian Poets

... a few months back, having qualified via my works published by others

and by my own self-published works. Moving to Stratford ON in a month, since life in Elora is too much like being a retired serf in a town now run by oligarchs who showed up during COVID intent on buying up all the downtown property as their private fiefdom, nothing here for my gal and I beyond the Elora Poetry Centre which is itself winding down via the olding ages of its founders.

Morvern and I hope to become involved in the poetry scene there, and my early years on Toronto's alternate theatre from which I wandered into dance and out of the city once married into rural journalism the writing and self-publishing of six history books, while making a living as a cook and then a stone worker, never harmed the process of writing poetry.

When we moved to Kingston ON during Covid we became part of Bruce Kaufman's poetry community and we both loved being part of his world, a gentle giant, and a consummate poet and the 'dean' of Queen's Radio poetry.

He is is to Kingston what Jeremy Luke Hill and Vocamus Press are to Guelph and Wellington County. Noble souls who serve others. Morvern and I have been exception fortunate in those two connections.

The Playwright in me however, intends on making a last stand in a town with actors and dancers and practitioners of all the theatre arts. 

Having entered into league with Canada's oldest poetry circles, and slowly learning my way around all the minefield issues of aging poets and rapidly changing performance venues and modes, I am angling for a role as a wise man this Christmas, having healed the damaged child within, and survived the passionate intensities of the young man's opinion's and impulses, and with 23 years of life with the same woman, and her son and mine now in their thirties, gave up drink  nine years ago, and pot a year and a half ago, the fine balance of my mind and soul have been restored, I think I may have finally matured, and am ready to see what becomes of me.

I intend on aging out well.