A drop to drink

Old OneFish

Rests his too-long fins 

Looks so peaceful and cozy

Hovering above the ledge of a bowl

Or lightly in his hollow log

Just that little thing.

So nice.

I sit on the stairs so I can hang with him

Pull up the coffee table

Rest my laptop

Like his fins

He eats lightly these days

Like any well-aged person

Impassive, disdainful, as extra food drifts past

Young TwoFish darts for every morsel

She vacuums the extra from the bottom.

Do they hear the storm battering the hatches?

The house felt like a submarine last night.

Me, under the water, but cozy inside.

I'm going to have to brave the storm

To go for drinking water

I should have put some buckets outside last night

So much water came down!

The waves are frothing

Whiter than cream

Everything around here is called white this or blanche that

I wonder if it's named for the waves and not the sand?

It's the kind of weather to name a place for

For sure.

But OneFish is peaceful as ever.

And Kokopelmana Twofish doesn't seem to know 

There's a storm either.

Beauty without

Beauty within

Water without

Water within

Must plan better

To get a drop to drink!

I think of this as one of those CBC poems -- those things people come up with when they live alone in the country with quiet time to think and then CBC people put them on the radio for other people who live alone in the country. :)

Russ Everett

 I knew this man named Russ.

We met online and I think we were maybe friends right away.

We didn't date, precisely. No kisses, none of that.

But connection, yes. Wasn't that what we were all looking for online? 

Well, 

I think of him a lot, anyway, more than a dozen years later.

So I guess we're connected.

I remember lying under a tree by Glenmore Reservoir

Staring up at the sky.

Was that the first time we met?

I think I remember him saying that I taught him something that day. 

Something about staring up at the sky. I don't remember what, but maybe, simply, that it was important to take time to do that, lie under yellow-leaved trees and marvel at the blue blue sky.

He taught me.

He taught me something important, but at the time he said it, I was surrounded by less wise friends, silly little folk who believed in making others fit expectations (an impossible task, really, a foolish goal). 

Russ said, "If you want him, you gotta accept."

And I think I said "but..." and "what about..." and all kinds of other silly, small, foolish things.

And Russ was a mountain. Russ knew.

If you want him, you can only take him as he is. That's how it works, said Russ.

Russ was not silly, and Russ was not small.

And Russ died way too young, but his lessons live on.

Alone but not alone

Me attempting to emulate Rumi. Will keep practicing.

 To bed alone, and awake, alone…

Well, I can

Take the time to stretch the body

To drink the lemon water

To ponder the advice of friends

Open the door and the air here is kissing me

Embracing me

Calling me to walk

But the neighbour stepped on a nail (that does not sound poetic)

the sea is singing to the right of me

I could use some jokers to the left

Ah. A deer. 

Another doe and her daughters

And then another two.

Jumping and joking, as requested.

Blue jays

Fluffing and flitting 

Even funnier.

A friend from France

Joins me for some conversation

The shades of loneliness

Men, our kids, ourselves… 

A heart touch.

I am alone, but not alone.