Following is a poem from Anne's forthcoming new chapbook, Van Gogh's Park:
A Child's Secret
Sophie is three
she sits
across from me
at the restaurant table.
She presses a finger
to her tiny mouth.
"You have a secret"
her mother Robin
says playfully.
Sophie nods and wiggles.
What secret can she have at three?
How can it start so early
this burden of secrets?
Sophie smiles
keeps her finger to her lips.
The purpose of literature
says one famous author
is to reveal our secrets.
Is that why it's so difficult to write?
Don't tell, don't tell,
the child is warned.
Sophie sips her kiwi juice
and listens to us talk
about traffic tie-ups.
She doesn't understand
and shakes the pink curly ribbons
on her gift.
Robin adopted her from China,
flew back with Sophie in her arms.
Sophie has a secret.
At three, she has memories
her mother can never know.
The following poem was completed during August 2008:
Van Gogh's Park
In this neighbourhood park
I find your flowers
the iris
and now the sunflower.
This park is more an afterthought,
at the edge
of a kids' playground
and a football field,
a park that is unkempt
but there your flowers grow.
They remind me
of you who suffered
from neglect
yet you worked so hard
until you felt
there was no option
but that
wide night sky.
Beyond the stars,
a glorious shade of yellow
you never saw before
The following is a new poem, uncollected, published in 2007 in freefall, a U.S. literary magazine:
Glow
You teased me
in the hospital room
I smiled
even so ill.
You saw me
at my worst:
dirty hair
nauseous
pale and moaning
like a ghost dragging
its tubes.
But you have a deep gaze.
Your care has given me
back the taste of life
there is a glow
in the shadow
and warmth heats
the coldness
of mourning.
Now I feel more like an angel
light, playful,
able to express this
From An Angel around the Corner/ Un ange autour du coin
(Borealis Press, Ottawa, 2004):
Ottawa: First Evening
I walk on Sparks street
the wind blows my hair
newly streaked
the yellow of a child's hair.
The July sunset
shines on people
drinking beer
on the pub terrace
while a rock band sets up.
You liked to play the guitar,
wrote your own songs.
I walk a stranger among strangers,
looking for books, instructions,
more love.
A Celtic boutique attracts me:
I enter the old interior,
see long dresses on a rack,
Irish tea on a shelf,
jewellery everywhere.
I remember our wedding rings,
how I placed them close together
in the green velvet box.
I try on a cladagh ring,
a silver one with an emerald.
I slip it on my right hand,
the tip of the heart pointed outward
because I am alone again.
I can't afford the ring,
return it to the young girl
with long black hair.
I think of my Irish ancestor,
my great-great-grandmother Lalor
buried in the family plot
at Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery
where you rest since a year.
On the radio, bagpipes play
and my heart leaps
as I imagine green green fields
in that country
where love will one day
be complete.
The following appeared in Gusts: Contemporary Tanka magazine (2005-2006):
When you were alive
we walked under a canopy
of stars.
Now you tread the jewelled
floors of heaven.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Raspberry-coloured toe nails
pink streaks in my hair
light-headed
so long without a kiss
love songs make sense again
©Anne Cimon, 2008
|
