In The Middle

of a life that's as complicated as everyone else's,
struggling for balance, juggling time.
The mantle clock that was my grandfather's
has stopped at 9:20; we haven't had time
to get it repaired. The brass pendulum is still,
the chimes don't ring. One day I look out the window,
green summer, the next, the leaves have already fallen,
and a grey sky lowers the horizon. Our children almost grown,

again how to love, between morning's quick coffee
and evening's slow return. Steam from a pot of soup rises,
mixing with the yeasty smell of baking bread. Our bodies
twine, and the big black dog pushes his great head between;
his tail, a metronome, 3/4 time. We'll never get there,
Time is always ahead of us, running down the beach, urging
us on faster, faster, but sometimes we take off our watches,
sometimes we lie in the hammock, caught between the mesh
of rope and the net of stars, suspended, tangled up
in love, running out of time.

— Barbara Crooker from Radiance. © Word Press, 2005

You're the one I want to check out

These greeting cards by Kit Allen are very cute (hints of Dick Bruna I think).

I Close My Eyes

I close my eyes like a good little boy at night in bed,
as I was told to do by my mother when she lived,
and before bed I brush my teeth and slip on my pajamas,
as I was told, and look forward to tomorrow.

I do all things required of me to make me
a citizen of sterling worth.
I keep a job and come home each evening for dinner.
I arrive at the same time on the same train
to give my family a sense of order.

I obey traffic signals. I am cordial to strangers,
I answer my mail promptly.
I keep a balanced checking account.
Why can't I live forever?

— David Ignatow from Against the Evidence: Selected Poems 1934-1994.
© Wesleyan University Press, 1994. Reprinted with permission.

Well, that explains it

In yesterday's Globe and Mail, an article about "the arc of happiness": turns out that, independent of circumstances such as gender, economic status, marital status, &c., most of us are at our happiness nadir in our mid-40s. The good news is that we bounce back and describe ourselves as happier in our 50s and 60s.

Possible reasons for the dip? We come face to face with our unfulfilled dreams, and admit our personal weaknesses. Reasons for the subsequent upswing? We've come to terms with our faults and are able to celebrate our strengths.

I'm Not There

What looks to be a very interesting new Bob Dylan film, I'm Not There. The title comes from the elusive, ambiguous, mysterious, as yet officially unreleased Basement Tapes song, “I’m Not There (1956)”. Can’t wait to see this!

Bye bye birdie

The National on CBC Television tonight aired a depressing piece about shrinking bird populations in North America. It's worth watching but it's enough to make you weep.

The God Who Loves You

It must be troubling for the god who loves you
To ponder how much happier you'd be today
Had you been able to glimpse your many futures.
It must be painful for him to watch you on Friday evenings
Driving home from the office, content with your week—
Three fine houses sold to deserving families—
Knowing as he does exactly what would have happened
Had you gone to your second choice for college,
Knowing the roommate you'd have been allotted
Whose ardent opinions on painting and music
Would have kindled in you a lifelong passion.
A life thirty points above the life you're living
On any scale of satisfaction. And every point
A thorn in the side of the god who loves you.
You don't want that, a large-souled man like you
Who tries to withhold from your wife the day's disappointments
So she can save her empathy for the children.
And would you want this god to compare your wife
With the woman you were destined to meet on the other campus?
It hurts you to think of him ranking the conversation
You'd have enjoyed over there higher in insight
Than the conversation you're used to.
And think how this loving god would feel
Knowing that the man next in line for your wife
Would have pleased her more than you ever will
Even on your best days, when you really try.
Can you sleep at night believing a god like that
Is pacing his cloudy bedroom, harassed by alternatives
You're spared by ignorance? The difference between what is
And what could have been will remain alive for him
Even after you cease existing, after you catch a chill
Running out in the snow for the morning paper,
Losing eleven years that the god who loves you
Will feel compelled to imagine scene by scene
Unless you come to the rescue by imagining him
No wiser than you are, no god at all, only a friend
No closer than the actual friend you made at college,
The one you haven't written in months. Sit down tonight
And write him about the life you can talk about
With a claim to authority, the life you've witnessed,
Which for all you know is the life you've chosen.

Carl Dennis, from Practical Gods. © Penguin Poets, 2001.