Poetry

The last of this year’s gull chicks lingers
Pulls its head in, acting helpless
Neckless, dappled, seal-like sulker
Demanding food, its parent pacing
There’s wind and fish it should be chasing
Push it off, is what I’m thinking
Its wings will work, its feathers flutter
As good a day as any other
It’s so far down before the pavement
Where cars and dogs and bikes all threaten
What’s the worst thing that could happen
The odds are good its mind will open
To sky and freedom’s boundless wonders
Of course, you tell me, I’m no parent
No fledgling NEETs are in my basement
My judgment’s harsh, my heart a shell
Unbroken by emerging offspring, I shouldn’t tell
This gull to force its chick’s first flight.
Absolutely, fine, you’re right.

October 2, 2026

The tailgate goes up, the stage is set
A man a woman, a cage, a pet.
As the Coastal Renaissance nudges the docks at Swartz Bay
What must be to come seems preset, hardly even a play:
Dog into cage, then all will drive away.

But soft, there are words (none from the dog),
And though they are not heard in the silence of our car
What gestures there are tell of tension,
A hardening of resolve, perhaps, a problem to be solved
Then it’s woman to the driver’s seat, while man and dog for themselves must fend
At the end of Act I, the ramp begins to descend.

The cage is unloaded from the car
The man begins to fill it up with bags and boots and coats and such,
“But where”, I think, “Will go the dog, its cage thus full?”
Is this the Theatre of the Absurd, a struggle for order in a meaningless world?
On a ferry’s deck, who would have thought to find such drama
Tail lights come on at the end of Act II, and starting engines raise their clamour.

As Act III starts, the man has made an empty space in back
Beside the now-full cage, a void that lacks only the uncaged dog
A triumph, it would seem, just as cars begin to move,
But in a nod to Beckett and Camus
The woman shakes her head, it will not do,
So to the front-right seat the man and dog both go
The tailgate closes, they drive away
And that, it seems, is how they end their play.

As epilogue, I try to synopsize the thing and share my view
My wife’s look says to me I’m overthinking things again.
We two drive off too. The end.

September 2026

The District of Saanich was having a poetry contest for residents of the CRD, so I wrote this one as something that would have a local flavour.

Fezziwig didn’t say it in the book, you know,
Though I assumed he had until I looked,
Film’s fool.
Noel Langley, that’s who.
“It’s to preserve a way of life that one knew
And loved.”
1951 must have looked different than 1843
Something about time, Langley knew, like me
Or you.
Dickens thought change rolled on rails
Langley saw that it jets past
Little lasts.
Jorkin won and Fezziwig lost
“It’s the age of the machine and the factory.”
We inherit the cost.
And every summer now, we choke on smoke
Wildfires burn, glaciers fall
But that’s not all.
Did you know the young no longer even say “hello”
It shows the world we knew is lost, finished
To deny that would be Jorkin’s “gammon and spinach”.
So now I mourn what passes from my way of life
And it’s not just the biosphere collapsing that makes me worry
This week it was Dolly Parton and Tim Curry.

September 2026

Ever since I went looking for a quote in Dickens that turned out not to be there, I had thought about putting my disappointment into a poem, until a couple of celebrity deaths finally crystallized my thinking. This got chosen for the 2026 “Vend-a-Verse”, a fun project that dispenses poetry from a gumball machine.

Midnight, August 29th or 30th, 1956,
The fixed course of our province was upset,
Bettered by the birth of a little, fun guy.
Fungi (hello homophonophiles!) must have rejoiced
Voiced electrically through hyphae their delight
That night, sensing the arrival of a future friend.
“Send tidings,” they will have said, “To flowers, shrubs, and trees”.
Pleased, no doubt, to thus include those others,
Brothers, those biota in their stationary leaning,
Meaning no slight to us lifeforms more peripatetic.
Pathetic, however, are we, to have let full seven decades pass,
The last, perhaps, to state what mushrooms knew back when?
Today, then, let us all now give Andy his fair due,
And tell him that we humans love him too.

August 2026

Our friend Andy is a famous botanist and mycologist. If you own a guide to plants or mushrooms of British Columbia, odds are that he’s one of the co-authors. Remarkably, because he was born at midnight, his birth certificate lists him as being born on two different dates! Anyway, this was written for his 70th birthday.

When your new and shiny black belts
Are just grey and worn-out cords
And you’ve done a hundred thousand kicks,
Won medals, broken boards,
You may think back to your instructors
Who got you here today
And wonder if there’s something owed
Some debt you must repay.

An obligation does exist
The very same we owed
To our own teachers, some now gone,
Who set us on this road
Let karate help you build full lives
Lived well and without fear,
Then someday pass it on in turn, And we’ll say all debts are clear.

December 2025

The tradition of the UVic Karate Club is that all of the instructors say something about the new shodan (first degree black belt) recipients at the holiday party. As a visiting instructor, I didn’t know them well enough to be able to say anything personal about them, so I wrote this poem instead.

There’s a lady who’s sure all that’s not young is old
And she’s sad because Tim’s 67.
Now he’s got there she knows, he’ll be wearing old clothes
At the store he’ll forget what he came for
Ooh, ooh, and she’s sad because Tim’s 67.
He may seem on the ball, but she wants to be sure
Though those cognitive tests are demeaning
He still sees and reads books, hears the songbird who sings
And not all of his thoughts are misgiven
Ooh, and his mind may wander
Ooh, and it makes me wonder
Does it make him depressed to remember Adam West
Does his spirit still cry for the Beaver
In his thoughts does he see that old black and white TV
And the voices of Jerome and Rusty
Ooh, it makes me wonder
Ooh, really makes me wonder
And it’s whispered that soon we won’t quite catch the tune
Then a hearing aid just stands to reason
And we’ll want to sit down if we have to stand long
And we’ll make inappropriate laughter
Oh-oh-oh-oh-whoa
If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now
He’s just sprinkling morning glory
Yes, there will be sponge baths to get clean by, but in the long run
There’s still time to change the shorts you’ve worn
And it makes me wonder
Ohh, whoa
Your birthday’s coming, and it won’t go, in case you don’t know
The cake is calling you to join it
Dear lady, candles must now be blown. And did you know
Your birthday wish lies on the whispering wind?
And as we sing the birthday song
Our voices more off key than on
It’s getting late and we all know
Our early bedtimes go to show
How we’re all still growing old
Our lives were not very hard
Though it seems they’ve gone quite fast
Once we were young and had a ball
It’s a shock, though on the whole
And she’s sad because Tim’s 67.

June 2024

I hesitated about whether to include this pastiche written for someone’s birthday, but then I asked myself: what’s the rock and roll thing to do?

Globes with meagre light inside
Whose warmth is not enough to lift or rise
May yet, for those who look up from below
Show that in their path to ground
Flakes of snow do not refrain
From shining as they fall to earth
Despite the fact that all they ever know
Is winter.

December 2022

In the winter of 2021, I took a photo of snow falling past one of Victoria’s globed streetlamps, which we then used on the front of our Yule cards in 2022. I wrote this poem to go inside the cards.

Dream to waking, melding smoothly
Ponder transformed friends and places
Till crows and Harleys say “get up”
So slip out softly, leave Jane sleeping
For CBC-tuned bathroom chores
Then pull jeans on above the jammies
Grab a mask and keys and wallet
No-sock sneakers onto feet
Gently close the hallway door.

Have I thought long to see this morning’s face?
No! Today is not for too much planning
Just amble toward the java place
Cross the bike lane, don’t get flattened
Reach to touch sun-dappled leaves
Who, that is one unhappy squirrel
The sparrows, though, they’re copacetic
Singing somewhere in the eaves
Wave at the owner of the comic book store.

Ooh, it’s the smart, red-haired barista
Think of something cool to say
But it all gets lost in masks and plexi
Just grab the cups and then away
To two doors down, the trendy bakery
Croissants and Danish, “spare change mister?”
And I’m a homeward-heading, bodhisatva
A friend to all creation, then
I’m at the stairs, up to our floor.

Jane is up and in the bathroom
Kick off the sneakers and the jeans
Carve the pastries, taste the coffee, BOOM
That sweet first jolt of morning brew
Back into bed with laptop open
The New York Times, I’m fine, good morning, how are you?
Settle in beneath the quilt, the morning’s free
And I am too, for one sweet morning out of seven
No work or class or worry or chore.

May 30, 2021

Masks, plexiglass barriers, what a strange time it was during the pandemic. There were good days, though, and this poem is a reminder of one of them.

Last week of the year
Babysitting others’ files
Sullen resentment

December 2020

“Since you’re working between Christmas and New Year anyway, would you mind keeping an eye on my files? Nothing is going to happen on them.” It wasn’t true in my articling year in 1988 and wasn’t true in any of the subsequent 35 years of my legal practice.

Summer piano
Ice cream infuses the notes
As the truck rolls past.

While I enjoy adulthood’s state
And having stayed in bed quite late
Smile at the tune she’s forced to play
And ponder how I’ll spend my day.

May 28, 2021

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the Roadtrek Zion
Not a creature was stirring, even Finch, our little lion;
The van was all quiet, it had been winterized,
So that sub-zero weather wouldn’t leave us surprised;
The mice were nestled all snug in the vents;
Though they’d sometimes come out to leave us “presents”;
And Miki in her toque, and I in my Outdoor Research cap,
Had plugged into “shore power” for a comfortable nap,
When out near our campsite there arose such a clatter,
I fell out of our bunk to see what was the matter.
Away to the driver’s seat I confusedly stumbled,
“Late-partying neighbours”, I cursed and I mumbled,
Our high beams on the vista beyond our front hood,
Lit up the firepit, and our gas station-bought wood,
There I saw what you might think was crazy or daft,
Yes, a miniature van and a tiny Packraft,
With a little old driver, like a star on TV,
I recognized him at once as Saint Hike’n RV.
More distant than stars the campgrounds where he’d stayed,
And more precious than diamonds the camping fees that he’d paid.
“Tofino and Kumsheen, Porteau Cove and Cape Scott!
Bear Creek and Jasper!” (he gets around quite a lot),
To the top of the province! to the top of the mountains!
Paddling ponds and the ocean and rivers and fountains!
I’ve hiked in the rain and I’ve hiked in the dry,
In the fog of the valleys, in the snow near the sky!
I’ve helped Henry pull shopping carts out of the water
Though I can’t find that sunk snowmobile (someone really ought’er);
And I’ve stumbled with Mike down a long, muddy trail
And gone out with Tim for a summertime sail.
Toured RV shows and even went out to a factory
Looking for the vehicle that’s most satisfactory.
I’ve gone camping with friends and with viewers and fans
I’ve admired the custom work done on their vans.
But don’t think that I’m hung up too much on our rides,
They’re a means to an end: to get us outside!
Since we live in a land full of vistas pristine,
Of mountains majestic, and valleys serene,
Greater beauty than art commissioned by Borgias
I can only describe it as being just gorgeous.”
After talking so much, the saint started to wheeze,
So he pulled out some craft beer and a hunk of vegan cheese
Which he quickly consumed, followed up by samosas!
“How ’bout next year”, I asked, and he said “Nova Scotia,
Is a place that I haven’t been yet; I might go,
Or Tortuga or Spain or perhaps Borneo.”
Those names made me foresee an ending quite tragic
Til I grasped that his miniature van ran on magic.
No hydrogen, diesel, or gas made it run
So he didn’t need roads for his RVing fun
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
He got back in his van, and straight up it rose;
He turned on his GoPro, and his dashcam vid too,
So I knew that I’d see him on YouTube…with you!
And I heard him exclaim, as he started to climb —
Happy Christmas to all, see you next time!

December 2023

Our friends Gord & Miki have their own YouTube channel documenting their trips with their cat Finch throughout western Canada in their recreational vehicle, a Roadtrek Zion, and their hiking, paddling, and other adventures. This poem was one of their presents for Yule.

In throwing their punches and kicks

Canadians use a strange mix

Coups de poing et pied

To the body and head

Leave opponents confused by their tricks.

May 30, 2017

In 2017, the JKA World Championships were in Limerick, Ireland, so a karate limerick…perhaps I should have resisted the urge!

The heavy snow flakes
Bounce the rhododendron leaves
The small birds are hidden.

December 31, 2016

I had hoped for the gossip of harbour seals
That gifted last night with speech
They might speculate about the purposes
Of those would-be pinnipeds
I see bobbing black-capped by the dozens
Among the winter waves of day
But as the old year fell away
I fell with it
Into the kelp-columned depths of sleep
And if any spoke there I could not hear
So now the seals and I must wait another year.

December 26, 2016

Legend says that animals can speak at midnight on Christmas Eve, a belief supposedly dating back to when animals like the ox and donkey were the first to witness the birth of Jesus and were granted the gift of speech or the ability to kneel and praise God.

One stayed in Scotland
Floating, hiding
Locked in the loch’s abyssal deep
Consigned to shortbread tins and postcards
In that tartan realm where Wallace sleeps.

The other never
Cared for limits
For being told “It’s not for you”
She left the cold of Caledonia
Spread her wings and west she flew.

She found another
Bigger ocean
Where people didn’t fear tatsu
And there she’s grown in fame and glory
For isn’t that what dragons do?

October 13, 2012

Norma Foster is a groundbreaking karateka who is originally from Scotland. I wrote this poem for her kanreki, her 60th birthday. The year of her birth – and of course also of her 60th birthday – is the year of the water dragon in the Asian astrological system.

The purple vetch we saw
Twined with leggy dandelions and dwarfed spruce
But the — swallows? — were just trills
Songs from somewhere in the tall, dune grass
And the wind we inferred
From the tendrils of sand
It wove about our ankles
The sea, of course, we knew intimately
And will remember
Whenever we lick salt from our lips.

June 26, 2013

Do not change the coarse adjustment while looking through the eyepiece
Mr. Stacy would command
But always we would
Driving the objective lens downward
Shattering the coverslip and slide
The crafted illusion
Of the microscopic world.

We meant no harm.

In those times we had not learned
To temper the force of our regard
In those times physics had not taught us
The impossibility of observing a phenomenon without changing that phenomenon.

A friend tells of waking hung-over in a Kootenays motel
To see his first wife on a chair beside the bed
Staring
Just staring.
What did she see when she looked at him?
What did she not see?
And which was it that put her on a plane to a new life later that day
A life without him?

My younger coworkers ask
“What does your wife think of you doing that?’
And are surprised that I do not know
Have not questioned
Do not believe
That knowing
Is better than not knowing.

These are the people without Number 14 lenses in their welders’ glasses
Who stumble through the streets after an eclipse
Knocking over flowerpots and children
Complaining of the blackness of the world.

When I was a much younger man
Our neighbours had an allegorical barn out back.
It may not be there now.
It was leaning all a-kilter even then
Some previously agreed-upon beams and rafters
Having already been removed in those changing times.
I would sometimes take refuge there from the sun of my own thoughts
Where the light was reduced to narrow beams between the boards
Just enough to loft the motes of golden dust
And make them pretty.
One time I found the metaphorical harness hanging
Of some great beast that could once have dragged this world we know
Into what was then its modern state.
Among the reins and straps and tack
Were two blinders
On a bridle of cracked and dry symbolic leather.
I took them from the shelf
Carefully balanced them beside my head on either side
And with a few quick tugs
Discovered to my surprise
They fit me perfectly.
Since then, I have seldom gone without them.
Voting for politicians who say they care about the things I love
Loving friends who by the children they create
Explain the giant vans and SUVs they buy
Buying myself the things that replace the older things
That aren’t as nice as once they seemed.

I’m fine.

And if, perhaps, you’d sneer to see these limits on my sight
Consider first those wraparounds that shade you from the light.

April 26, 2013

A playwright could write me a story
Where my unlikely dreams all come true
A shipwright’s nails and hammers
Could build a windjammer
That I’d sail ‘cross an ocean to you.

A wheelwright knows how life keeps rolling
On journeys we haven’t foreseen
A cartwright sees the cargo
Of dreams I’ve embargoed
And my treasures of love’s might-have-beens.

A millwright could erode your resistance
To the notion that we two could be more
A ploughwright could sow
A dream we could go
To a place that we haven’t before.

March 17, 2013

9:30, the Quay,
Coffee, the paper, scrambled eggs:
Saturday morning!

May 15, 2010

Columnar Peak will still kiss the sky
And the whisky jacks, they’ll all still fly.
In the snow, the Opals and Diamond will shine
And hut-bound hikers will savour their wine.
The Gargoyles, they’ll still play their ancient games
And Elfin will carry on much the same.
The mountains and meadows won’t miss Julie
But what’s true for them is not for me.

January 11, 2010

The beginning of a wasted day
Dozens of round tables in a hotel ballroom
No coffee
Because although diversity is very, very important
It doesn’t merit coffee
Or muffins

And while Bill is “a big supporter”
He can’t be here
So Brenda speaks instead
And as she speaks I gradually calm
A bit

My mind stops raging at the waste
The hypocrisy
The token effort
The oversimplification
The slogans
The quotes from people whose names mean nothing

Until at last I can tune her out
Pick up a pen
And write this

June 8, 2010

It’s Solstice on the Lion’s Gate,
Snow swirls above the pavement.
Stone sentries, regal and sedate,
Are wreathed in festive raiment.

Someone puts wreaths on the stone lions at the south end of the Lion’s Gate Bridge every year. This was written for our Yule greeting card in a year when we used an image of one of the decorated lions on the front of the card, but…I’m not sure of which year!

Pugs and corgis disappear
On tennis courts with thigh-deep drifts,
While hardhats building the new hotel
Trade laughs and snowballs between their shifts.
The Canada geese seem most perturbed
Shaking their tails with each measured pace.
The aikido instructor sports a cloth-eared cap
To shovel the sidewalk in front of his place.
The regular crowd at the Rusty Gull
Act vintage parts just like seasoned mummers,
While down on the Pier we watch big ships
Sail off for lands where it’s always summer.
It may be because it’s unexpected
That snow makes our neighbourhood feel so connected.

Another poem written to go inside our Yule greeting card, and once again I can’t remember what year it was!