Hummingbird

I shot a hummingbird
from the tip of a douglas fir,
felled by a pellet as it lit
jeweled and flighty
upon a verdant bud

I watched it tumble
green/gold
copper/crimson
branch to branch,
lifeless to the bracken thicket

But I could not find it,
merely stunned perhaps
and recovered to freely drill
the magenta paper-blooms
on salmonberry canes

And summer blazed and waned
and I returned to that tree,
to the mystery of bones revealed
in the matted grass,
a tapered beak curved and black

I held it weightless in my hand
and whispered for forgiveness,
a boy searching
for the limp warm feel of death
and the tack of blood on fingertips

Out of Sight

some things elude us,
who has slipped through
a rent in the world's skin
and found another to outmatch
our old vision?

unseen light pulses to a rhythm
unknown to us,
but you can believe it
if you wish, it is all there
in your dreams

sometimes I glimpse them
dancing from the corner of my eye,
a jaunty meter of colour
and perfection, other realms
standing next to me

lips quivering and mercurial,
a voice of recognition to anyone
that chances to capture them passing by,
angels and dead brothers singing,
cheering us on

Trillium

the rain slashes like misery
and the woods shivering and fetal
with winter long dead in the old leaves

the birth of green light
will save the sunless wounded,
bring them to their knees

when you rise above
the dank and rot, there with your
trinity of blooms spinning in liquid eyes

Growing Brains to Save the Planet

     Slow down, yeah you, looking down into your hand, your device. You are like me inside, afraid to stop and discover that you cannot handle the world. Let your foot off the pedal and coast for a while. We used to do this as kids. My Golden Hawk CCM 3 speed. Wow! No one said learn ten thousand things before you lose your front teeth. Today we cram things into our brains. I wonder if there has been an increase in hat sizes, you know, the way hormones in chicken grow giant kids these days. Do you worry that you might miss something?
     To be outdated is the worst, you say, out of touch, uniformed, not in the loop, left out, alone without a phone, no one wanting me, admiring me, calling me, including me. All these things are who I am. They inform and shape my identity, the me, my face, my image. My followers love me, I think. Superficial, well that could be an issue. But what's your point? How many friends do you have?
     How long can you keep it up? Where is it all going? My God, my mom used to say be home by dinner. That sounds like neglect now. But hey, we all need friends, friends that are real, that are warm, that support us. And I will admit, there are times when I feel left out. But, I'm not quite sure what I'm being left out of.

A Wasted Life

the hours fall like ashes
from your kindness
as I kiss the hurt
the world has given you

all the time you loved me
there was no other
but the silence killing
me out along the bay

the sea remembered me
when I stood upon
the shore wondering
about the depths of it

so many times my footprints
were filled by another tide
rising to erase my passing
as if I never lived at all

there is not a time for you
and there is no time for me,
there is only this and the drift
of clouds that pleases you

you know I am not a man
that comes easily
to whispers when shouting
is all I can hear

but I am willing to silence
the untold stories
that I hold so dear,
strip them down

to what they are,
yesterday's dreams
wasting
like unpicked fruit

Avatar Grove

we name them to suit the sense
that we have of ourselves,
the grand theme of using things up

ours to consume
ours to do as we wish

such power for the thinker,
but the old trees - that douglas fir
on the west coast rising 300 feet
and a 1000 years old, not a whimper
about its lofty height

just a presence that will make you weep
when you stand before it, waves
of uncontrollable joy and wonder
as if you have discovered truth

it seems so clear,
how the Universe picked you,
that moment

some years ago, perhaps when Champlain
wandered about old Quebec City,
the tree felt an alien wind shifting
about its limbs, a chill creeping up its
massive trunk that comes when
the world finds you out

to kill the ancient ones, is to kill the part
of ourselves that wants to learn
why they stood so long,
what they know
and what they have seen

David Suzuki taught us this,
that our children, and on and on,
need to know that they still rise
like worlds from the
moss and ferns

Trees

how long have you been standing there
with your rough legs thrust down into the earth?

did you notice how we run around you,
the collective chasing of someone elses dream?

maddening really, the way we don't even notice you
as if you are the background of our lives
that never changes

so why is it that we see you for the first time
when you are gone?

is it a fault to want the picture
that lives in the glossy pages of our projections?

all that sky now is without a breath,
and the life in your limbs is nowhere
to be found

and the old ones that stood a thousand years
did nothing but fall at our feet

do we ask too much?