Robin Metcalfe
one bite
one bite
into a fresh
apple
is enough
to prove
the universe
miraculous
cranberries
picking cranberries
in the relentless cold
one hand ungloved
at a time
to pluck frost-ripe
red spheres
nested in the moss
some frozen hard
some bubbles barely
icy frail
this is what
the land has
to teach me
today
these tart sweet sudden
instances
of flesh
Paradise Taxi
don't say no to the Paradise Taxi
it may only come once
then be gone
don't turn away from the Paradise Taxi
another may not come along
you won't need your bags in the Paradise Taxi
you won't need your brush or your comb
just be ready to ride
for the Paradise Taxi
may lead you a long way from home
some say
I'm not ready
some say
I'm not sure
some say
I'll be there in a bit
when my nerves are more steady
when I feel more secure
I'll be happy to come
but not yet
don't say no to the Paradise Taxi
for it only comes once
then it's gone
in a breath
in a moment
it appears at your door
get on board
or be left all alone
don't ask where it's going
don't ask where it's been
as it drives through the day and the night
though it takes you through danger
through hunger and pain
it will lead you to joy and delight
never say no to the Paradise Taxi
it comes only once
then it's gone
take a chance
take a ride
in the Paradise Taxi
it's here for you now
come along
spring blizzard
storm blustering the windows
blunt fists of air
a rattle of rain
wind hoots
and keens
its hounds
set loose
to sound
the limits of the night
morning on the deck, Jampolis Cottage
the long clear line
of the horizon
says
be still
the shouldered cliffs of Blomidon
across the Minas Basin
say
be mindful
of where you are
the veil of haze
on the farther shore
says
remember
how much you do not know
the sun's heat
through the maple
says
be thankful
you are alive
hummingbird
green as a beetle's back
bright as a fish
you perch
on air
needling
the trumpet honeysuckle
angling your beak
deep into a bloom
you twist
the lithe torpedo of your body
push away with tiny feet
an obstructing leaf
and inject yourself
headlong
into that sweet well
going about your momentary business
you visit
on each flower in its turn
this small
muscular
intimacy
carrion beetle
a small piece of jewellery
crawls across a patch of dirt
in the garden
the size of a large man's thumbnail
enamelled a glistening black
and bearing
a singed alabaster shield
Necrophila americana
lays eggs in dead bodies
or in fungi
the flesh of which
the larvae and the adults
consume
also eating their fellow guests at the necrotic feast
the larvae of flies
and of other carrion beetles
they are of the family Silphidae
named for sylphs
a race of spirits inhabiting the air
mortals
not bound to souls
their fossils date back to the Middle Jurassic
talismans of eternal renewal
of death into life
of corpse
into food
into larva
into pupa and
into imago
this lapidary extravagance
advancing now across a dry stone
as it has done
the past one hundred
sixty-three
million years
birds
birds shift
on bare branches
an abacus
counting down
the days
of winter
cranberries
picking cranberries
in the relentless cold
one hand ungloved
at a time
to pluck frost-ripe
red spheres
nested in the moss
some frozen hard
some bubbles barely
icy frail
this is what
the land has
to teach me
today
these tart sweet sudden
instances
of flesh
don't blame it on the weather
the weather
in fact
doesn’t care
it’s not being indecisive
or keeping us waiting
it just is
this fog-cradled morning –
the occult far shore of the harbour
this alternation of bright and dim –
is not trying to tell us something
not toying with our hopes
and fears
we are the ones becalmed
stranded in an in-between
of our own making
the weather is not a message
but some of it
is evidence
time now
to come clean
to confess our crimes
if only
to our own
deaf ears
unsettled
the land here was
levelled
before the house was built
the trees felled
the ground bulldozed
burying the home burrows
of those who lived here
the mice and
bees and
beetles
we settlers call that
development
today
the flags are lowered
after the bodies of
two hundred and fifteen
Indigenous children
were found buried
on the grounds of a residential school
in Kamloops
in the land of the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc
today
a century ago
a white mob
wearing police badges
burned down the hopes
of Greenwood
Tulsa, Oklahoma
levelling
thirty-five blocks of homes
and schools
and businesses
built by the ten thousand Black residents
the number of dead
unknown
but in the hundreds
we have called the land
real estate
as it settled
over the bodies
today
on Turtle Island
survivors use
ground-penetrating radar
to try to read the earth
beneath a century
of silence
and call the lost names
of the dead
the news today
to say the least is
unsettling