Adrift With Jerry or "Beware the Jabberwock!"

“’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.”

 

            I saw, once, a very funny thing. The memory of it, of that ocean crossing, still brings a smile. It was a seal, lolling in the sun, rolling belly up atop a picnic table that was then adrift at sea. Whether this table was there amongst the waves by chance, or there a-purpose (the end result of an adolescent prank, let’s say), well the seal could not tell me. All questions he ignored, as he luxuriated under the warmth of a blue sky. It is a silly story, and rattles in the head.

 

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

 

                A smile, pen a-blur. A seal on a wayward table. The mind gives the pen leave to write of it. There are worse ways to start a tale told whereby isolation and wistful melancholy are the prevailing emotions.  Unlike some, this mental illness is easy to hide. Make sure people always see you laughing, and they don’t think to ask if you are sad.

 

“He took his vorpal sword in hand;

Long time the manxome foe he sought –
So rested he by the Tumtum tree
And stood awhile in thought.”

 

            I am here alone, almost. Khayyam, of course, faithful, has come. This solitude is by design. I like it, and do not want for company. “I wish I was going with you,” she had said the day before my leaving. An awkward silence had ensued, the sentiment not having been shared. I need this time. It is for me, and for me alone. Selfish, perhaps, but there is no ‘us’ here, not yet. Only thoughts, memories, no spoken words to another human being in almost a week. The sweetness of this time, the happy ache of being alone.

 

“And, as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!”

 

            From Ashburton Head, I can see both the near and far places. The dark imposing cliffs of Seven Days Work, rushing broken to the sea. Chimney smoke clinging desperately to the crowns of fir trees in the lull between hills that is Whale Cove. The wind, against which I face, threatens again and again to nab my cap, and hurl it from this high place, to chase the eagle which has since winged away, our footsteps having disturbed this isolated eyrie. I am sorry for that. The bluffs and jagged chasm here is the bird’s home, we are the interlopers.

 

“One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head,
He went galumphing back.”

 

            Later, Whale Cove beach, and its boulders make a fine seat. Feet up on driftwood, back nestled on stone, I watch the dying of the light on Hole-in-the-Wall. It is a long evening, better suited to June than December. Lucky in that, in this slow fall of shadow.

 

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
He chortled in his joy.”

 

            Khayyam laps water noisily from a stream. I watch a group of seals dive offshore, near a herring weir. Eating, perhaps. Perhaps at play. It is a mystery to me, watching these hounds of the sea. But there is no table. No lone seal barking in happiness, sunning its belly, lolling away time in the swell. Thoughts in this solitude.

 

“’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.”

 

            Is this time my table? The Sailor Jerry has a potent kick tonight. The drink and the pen conspire against me. Flow of consciousness has become an inevitability. Do I idle away this time in the sun, barking and lolling alone? I smile to think so. That happy seal is a memory of sunshine, even as the sun dies for another day, even when on a high place, against the wind.

Oh Canada

                Yesterday I wept. Tears ran down my cheeks as I tried to negotiate my way along a stretch of Quebec highway which had become perilously laden with snow. The winter storm that had been forecast had arrived. The stress of it had me clutching the wheel in a sort of manic death grip, and when I finally rolled to a stop at a roadside rest station, my fingers ached when pried away. But this was not the cause of the tears.

                I wept because, for the first time in a very long time, I was proud. Proud to be able to say I am a citizen from north of 49. The Syrians had begun to arrive.

                I have made a very real and conscious effort to keep the Know-Mad free of my own political thoughts. The passion I feel for politics and the issues make me write poorly, for a start. I also wanted to focus on stories that could unite, and not divide, as political musings so often do. But not today, not now, in this new era that has dawned for us here in the True North, Strong and Free.

                As a nation we have endured a decade of true darkness. Civil liberties were assaulted. Scientists were muzzled and told that if they wanted federal funding they could not discuss science. Social programs were left in tatters. Debate was labelled weakness, and fascist resolve was heralded as democratic virtue. It was our nation’s darkest hour, the Harperian era. Once lauded as a nation of UN peacekeepers, we had become NATO “yes men” willing to wage war without global consent. People became embittered and sullen. Fear was intentionally sought out to replace thought. And worst of all, xenophobia was dressed up in the rags of patriotism.

                What could we as Canadians do in the face of this reckless agenda of hate? That question was answered. And the CBC, that vital lifeline to the Canadian ethos (as any cross country traveller can tell you, tuned in while the postal codes whir by) was there to share the moment with a people in need of this holiday miracle.

                Calls were made to people from coast to coast to coast, and what these people relayed was a spear of summer sun to me on that treacherous winter road. The Prime Minister and his cabinet were there in Toronto, and again in Montreal, at the airport, to greet the very first plane loads of refugees (refugees no longer, Trudeau the Younger proclaimed, but landed immigrants now, as soon as they walked from the terminal). A spontaneous rally was held in the downtown core of Fredericton, complete with singing and dancing, to welcome these new comers in what must be a strange land. The Saint John Value Village proclaimed that all Syrian immigrants could shop there for free to get clothing and household items. A sponsorship group in Kelowna, spearheaded by the Catholic Diocese there, told of how, after the horror in Paris, the people in that community rallied together, not in an attempt to restrict or limit the immigrants slated to come there, but rather to ask “what more can we do?” And more they did do, pooling resources to sponsor even more families to come and live amongst them. They answered violence with open hearts, investing in the commonality of our shared humanity. In the Yukon, volunteers set up a home for a family of 10, expected to arrive any day now, the whole of Whitehorse prepared to warm them even as the thermostat is set to plummet. A woman in Toronto, along with her mother, re-financed their home, and maxed out their credit cards, to the tune of 250 thousand dollars, so that they could bring all 43 of their family members from a refugee camp in Lebanon. A community group in Prince Edward County, Ontario, fuming at the Harper regime for actively working against the refugee process, has since welcomed a family of 14 to live amongst them, opening their small rural home to the change such an arrival inevitably would mean. Welcoming the change, embracing it.

                The Harperian right still hounds the debate on the periphery; like mad dogs looking for any opening to seize upon at gnaw at. They ask questions like “shouldn’t we do more to help the people already in this country, like the homeless?” Of course, we can and should do more to assist those already in need in this country, but such a narrative is bold indeed coming from the political right that eviscerated social programs during their tenure in office. But the CBC took those concerns to the streets of Calgary, and asked the homeless in that place what their thoughts were, if they felt that the Syrians should be passed over in favour of they themselves. And with a single voice, the homeless on the streets of Big Oil Country answered loudly and clearly, that Canada should do everything in its power to help these refugees. That this debate should not be reduced to an “us or them” issue, that Syrians should not be punished in the name of the homeless community.

                And so I wept. This was the Canada that we had very nearly lost. This was the Canada that we always had the potential to be. Oh Canada, indeed.

A Sigh, A Vigil; Algonquin Park

                He leans over the counter, bringing himself closer to the ranger. Hard to tell if this is arrogance, or just him being himself. Pulls his Gucci sunglasses down the bridge of his nose so he can stare at her over the rims. Arrogance, then.

                “What’s your most famous trail?” he barks out. Peacock hair, Italian leather loafers to match his shades, DKNY denim. He doesn’t fit in here, shouldn’t. Here, with the ghost of Tom Thompson, the memory of voyageurs and railroad men. The wolves and bears. Not for him, this place, should not be. Took forty five minutes to fight the gridlock at the West Gate. A teeming horde belies this thought. As if Markham has vomited its contents onto highway 60, making the Park a sort of Nature Disneyland. So many humans looking to “get back to the wild” that they have pushed the wild away. This is Thanksgiving at the Park. Two-legged lemmings staggering under the weight of camera lenses trekking along the shoulder of 60. Some don’t even bother with the walking, undoing windows to take snapshots as they whiz by. Not for you, this place, not for any of you, a voice wants to scream out. But it is, it is for them now. Not now for the ghosts and memories, the wolves nor bears. It is all cameras, tourists, blazing autumn hues, diesel fumes and auto horns; Algonquin Park with the timbre of the downtown core. Sad, so sad. The ghosts could weep at this sight.

                “It depends,” the female ranger tells the peacock in metropolitan feathers. “How long do you have to spend out on a trail?”

                “Two hours.” Seriousness in his tone. Not kidding, then. Laughter now. The voice that wanted to scream giggles instead. Two hours, to experience the Park. To see it, breathe it in. Feel it. In suede Gucci loafers. This absurdity feels surreal, like a Camus hero fighting the sun on an Algerian beach. What brings anyone here now?

                The tangle of tourists lining up to photograph the trees from the same vantage point, one click and shuffle at a time, creates anger. It simmers, lodged deep down. Takes an hour on the back country trail to leave. No tourists now, here in the bone cold valleys hidden beneath vivid leaves, amongst weeping, moss shrouded stones. They stay by the highway, the snack shops, outfitter stores. Convenience ever close to hand.

                The weight of the backpack is good. Solid. Creaking knees at times when the trail meanders down into the damp hollows, sighing muscles with every ascent, naked rock shoulders rising above wilderness lake lands. A trail well travelled, but less so. Not Disneyland, not yet. Woods stretching away, as dark and deep as a Frost poem, holding fast to memory. Not what they were, not now, but not less than needed, not yet.

                A night fire, a lakeside. Crisp, clean air, Fall in it now, of course. A short walk from the circle of light, to the jagged edge of the water. Ripples, stirrings of a night breeze, fish below bobbing up for water striders. Not the peacefulness found in the still of a heavy night. Tonight is light in feel, autumnal. The dome of the sky is high, far off. Stars now, beyond count, the cliché. Truth in that, in seeing the spread of a galaxy in cool autumn, beyond burning neon angels. The Milky Way is visible, a chalked, misted presence, the heart of our galaxy whirling away in its insignificance.

                To sit here, both by fire and lakeside, under stars, a river of cosmos, licking flames dancing with heat, to know of that insignificance. Closer to the divine? Yes, and no. There is Something, and not Nothing. The greatest awareness of all is in that, too great a thought for this night, or any night to follow.

                Sit, with the ghosts and memories instead. Ghosts, under stars. Tranquility. A lake at night, deep in the dark of the woods. Tomorrow, back to highway 60, and its vomited humanity, peacocks in suede, who are in this place, but not of it. A sigh, a vigil. Stars and ghosts. Algonquin Park.

Coyotes on the Hill

                The fire has gone out of the autumn. The brightest of the leaves now a faded yellow. Not sad, but tired, worn. Leaves tremble, longing for release, for the far off ground that is their destiny. The cycle this represents. Time, told the old way, seasons, begins from endings, coiled and serpentine, eternal in this. The images there, poetic. Profound. Not this cold linear view of the world that modernity has adopted. The straight lines of progress costing us the wisdom of far off yesteryears. Circles within circles, beginnings begetting endings, ending beginnings, the serpent eating its own tail. The twisted path of genius.

                The smell of leaf rot is thick. Not unpleasant, affirming. Brown, curled leaves to crunch under foot, rustling about in a swirl of movement. Khayyam, strength of heart, weak of leg, trots (too strong this word, with his limps and aches) into foliage well into senescence. Gaia’s slumber begun, first notes of winter’s deep, sonorous toll. The knowledge of this not a wound, not a fear for the days of long dark, nor the ache of the cold.

                A lone toad sluggishly moves away from the slag of the rail bed on which Khayyam walks. The tracks (straight lines of progress, gone now; a message in that) nothing but a memory, allow the mottled fellow an escape, a last clutching gasp of warmth. He burrows into leafy cover in the thick of some sumac. Not that Khayyam has a taste for toads, but he doesn’t know that about this dog.

                We walk far. Explore this new path. Forgotten rail bed, wooded glades, long stretches of field, crops taken in, harvest come and gone. The houses are distant, spaced far. A distant dog senses us on the tracks and sets to barking. Khayyam perks at this, but does not deign to reply. He has slowed, hips bothering him in the damp. No sun to warm us, though the day is not cold. Grey though, damp. He limps, so we turn.

                At the road crossing a white Pontiac has stopped, pulled up alongside our path. “There are coyotes in the field,” she says. Blonde, pretty, she is concerned. Turning, I see them. On a hill, looking our way. Several of them. Odd, seeing this in daylight. Odd, seeing them in a pack, not a lone trickster. They are far, on their hill. Khayyam, big, golden eyed, has not noticed them. The hill is distant. Not a concern. She is worried, asks “will you be okay?” A smile, a nod. Not far to go now, even for old hips on damp, flat lit days.

                A wave, a road crossing, the rail bed again. Line of progress away from the hill, through trees set to sleep in the dancing of seasons. A trickster yips once. A look back, all are gone. Silence then, the leaf falling deafeningly, to rot and give of itself.

Portents of Eternity

               

                A “super moon”. This is how yahoo news has described the night previous. This is the age we live in. An age of blurbs. Sound bites. An age when people check their mobile devices once every 15 seconds. There is no time for more. Attention spans are short. Viral sensations come and go, flitting across cyberspace in nano seconds. And so, the spectacle of September 27^th, 2015, is reduced to “Super Moon”. Pictures are available. No need to leave your device behind, to venture out of doors. Mobile networks are only too happy to bring the show to you. And let you move on in another 15 seconds to whatever else may catch your eye.

                It is an age without wonder. Soullessness abounds. The extra ordinary becomes merely “super” and wonder slips away. Not for us all, this loss of the world, this magnificence. A walk into the darkness, at the verge of the woodlands. Night sounds all about. The chirrup of crickets. The lone croak of a frog. The trilling of toads. William Blake may well have called these night noises portents of eternity too great for the understanding of Man. That is the wonder of this night.

                The burnished copper of the moon, loud in harvest glory. But muted, shy. Her face dimmed, veiled against the hungry stares below. Is she full of modesty? Perhaps coy? What is in her face this night? That she would duck behind the world and closet the brightest part of herself? The age of this shy moon weighs down on the watchers. How easy it is to remember (if remember is the correct word) that she has been here with us since there was an “us”. That she has danced her way across the night’s horizons for untold eons. Great age becomes this lady. Not maiden shy, then. Not coy and playful. No, those are games for the young. Demure, modest in her power. Giving us the pull of her tides, the kiss of her light. Not strumpet brazen in her gifts. A lady always; Diana, Artemis, she of the silver light and keen eye. What mountains in her gaze, clarion calls at her lips? So many have gazed up at her in delight. So many in despair. She rides out their looks and prayers, beyond the ken of the wise

                How can this feeling, the wonder inside of Man, be captured in a 15 second info bite? Nowhere is there room for poetry in the soul of today. No mention made of laying out on a blanket, held close by a girl with eyes so blue you could describe them as cold, icy, if it were not for the glowing warmth therein. Fingers tracing the contours of your face, lacing your hair. Lulling you down into a soft trance near to sleep, head pillowed on her thighs. Above, the hidden moon deepens her shadows. Stars beyond the scope of the eye flit amongst clouds full of threat and silent yells. Yawps you cannot hear with your ears, but can sense at the periphery of the sky. The night breeze has flower petals in it, and dew and happy memories of sunshine. Eyes heavy fight to keep this ancient lady in view, but she of the blue eyes kisses them closed. Let her. This night will not come again.

                It is not a super moon. It is wonder and poetry, a moon of hidden intentions, happiness in the darkness, yawping clouds full of mountains. And blue eyes.

A Sharp Northern Wind, OR, Endings, Beginnings, That is the Gift

                The wind is a knife, sharp, cutting from the north, across the snow laden expanse of Gull Heath. Battering the cliff’s lip, falling away to the sea, eroding the massed jumble of rocks, the Southern Cross.

                The sky without ceiling, blue and high, distant scudding clouds, phalanx’s drawn up in battle lines. Other days, these massed troops may rush the Maine coast, or clash above broken rocks, scattering seals and puffins, perhaps waking the lone lighthouse keeper (the last of an extinct breed), or march with grim vigour to assault this landfall, the Queen of the Fundy Isles. Not today. Today, those dour soldiers remain a distant thought, threatening the periphery, a glower only at the far reach of the horizon. Thoughts, so long carried, regrets. Brown eyes, (a colour too oft dismissed as common – not her eyes, hers more arresting, always) full of tears, or questions, perhaps an accusation. Of why. A different wind that day, a different winter. A house by the lake, lost. An ending to dreams dreamt together. No answer made, how could there be? Also knives, these memories.

                The road ends here, where the rocks cascade to the greying sea. Or begins, it can be supposed, seen from a different direction. Here we must stop, here we may begin. Does anything ever truly end without the offer of a new beginning? Is anything in this life ever so simple, or direct?

                The trees are defined by the unfaltering severity of wind and salt. Shrunken, bent, gnarled. Wisps of moss cling to trunks, to branches which have surrendered needles, surrendered life, to this harsh whip of elements. Twigs, bent fingers, reach for the sun, like supplicants, old men broken in spirit, begging alms of the sky. There is a starkness to reality, here at the end of the road, a lesson to be seen, if one so chooses to close one’s eyes and see, before making the new beginning promised by turning away.

                She offered forgiveness. Her words said as much. Her actions tell it differently. A different coast, her refuge. The place she went for solace, too far. No accident, that decision, to run to that distant strand. She can’t be blamed for that. Merely a reaction to events beyond her control, events not shaped by her, but felt all the same. Still, you can wish her path had not led her so far, that forgiveness had been possible. There is real fear there, in that thought, that the losing of her is a wound that will not heal.

                There have been others, of course there have been. Both before, and after. But none are her, none can be. Not their fault, that lack, nor hers. It is just the way of things.

                Thoughts now as fast as the wind, cutting through layers. The irony, not lost here, alone, back to the heath, that the tea drunk, tea from Mount Othrys, isn’t suitable. Tasting of earth, of sunshine, of good things, of a land that has never felt the ebb and flow of a tide. To drink this tea here, a land defined by the rage of its ebbing and flowing. But it is good. Also, it is an escape. Thoughts of tea, of tides, of Greece, and of Southwest Head, do not offer the cutting blade of memory.

                Here, at earth’s end, where stone and water collide, you can feel that beginning. The newness you have sought, have known for so long you have needed. The sky, a sort of bluebird sky, aerial sapphire in hue, limitless and eternal in quality. Standing in pure winter sunlight, it feels awkward to wish for a moonrise, or stars. Awkward, but true. Some feelings seem more genuine in softer light.

                A brother offered words recently. Not advice, not intended as such. The words, a consolation, perhaps? Offered freely, intended generously. “There is nothing before, or after for us. There is only the time given. That is the gift.”

                That is the gift. It is a thought. A moment. A life can turn on a moment. At the road’s end. Where it begins.