Dad's Last Stand

 In memory of my father, Frances Merle Weber 1908 - 1999　


I got up that morning same as always
Kind of surprised I was still around
Well, breakfast for one more day anyways
Cereal and evaporated milk and pearl tea, half a banana…
When I think back now I’d been talkin’ ‘bout dyin’ for quite some time
My brother, Bill, dropped dead of a heart attack at forty-six, so
I kind of thought the same thing might happen to me.
　
I was always talkin’ ‘bout my heart givin’ out so that
No one would be too surprised, kind of warning them you see
I never thought I’d be livin’ yet at almost ninety-one
Oh, I could be ornery, I know that and most of the time
I kind of liked to just be alone, no one to bother me
But I did like it when the kids would come home to visit
And I tried to put on a cheerful face most of the time when they did come ‘round.
　
　
I‘d had a dream one night ‘bout a big house with all kinds of room
Thought it was Maw had come to get me and was showin’ me around
The ceilings were awful high, and I wondered why you’d waste all that space!
Guess it was a dream, thought it was, but it seemed different than that
Kind of like I was really there.
　
Later there was a lady came in the laneway and she was the one
Found me lyin’ on my face next to the tree at the back
Where I used to wash up after hayin’
Just fell down and stayed there, that was it then.
Saved Glenn findin’ me, was better that way.
I stayed around ‘til they called Gun and Carol, they had to
Get the police to come and make all that fuss,
Hardly seemed worth all that bother.
What else did they expect to happen when it was
An old bugger like me?

Ninety-one, imagine that.
Well I finally got to go see Maw.
They done ‘er up right, nice funeral like Maw’s was…
I always told them not to feel bad, made me feel bad
To see them all standin’ round cryin’.
　
Well I sure had enough time.
　
Nice up here in this here mansion with the tall walls…
Awful nice seein’ Maw again 'a course
Still don’t see why they wasted all this space.

with love

cailin raine

Like Creeping Charlie

She had lived her life tidily
Never shifting from the parental molding
Careful not to stretch too far beyond the brink.
Slowly the stiffening had entered somewhere
Inwardly she had shifted into pain and then
Found a constant companion in grief
When had the happiness melted away?
Like the ice on the old pond up over the back pasture.

One day she sat by a stream and let the cold water
Sift against her toes, cool and clean and new
And realized that she had stopped feeling
Had butted the flow of life inside of herself
Until she no longer knew who she was.

Why had she let the mold lie in her chest like stone
Encased in a hardness that did not allow tears?
Why had she let their opinions matter when her own heart
Had words beyond description and rays stronger than the sun?

She took the hand of her tiny boy and walked home
With a new awareness, a new hope
She would not let them stifle her any more
It was her life and her heart and she gave her spirit
Back to herself.
　　
Inside the house the sun entered through the rear kitchen window
She peered out at the lawn rippled in tufts of incessant weed
It was like looking into the window of her soul
She saw the Creeping Charlie that had spread all the way to the fence.

She walked out to the tool shed and took the hoe from the rack
With renewed strength she hoed all that Creeping Charlie
Pulled and hacked and ripped and cut until there was not a shred of it
Left behind.

cailin raine

The Earthen Way

Above me the herb-scented ceiling reeks

Of sage and scent and I suck and breathe in

Heavenly earthen aroma

Rafter-dry hanging bundles dangle with dust

Wood begetting arid plants of healing, health, and sustenance

And I breathe.

On the slanted cool of wooden chair supported and snug I sit

Comfort arms stroke me and I lean back on the straightness

Heady with the wood and the scent and the earth

I revel in its firmness and inhale the silence

And I breathe.

Pots and pots

Pile upon pile

They line up the walls

Pottery soldiers holding high, strutting in procession

Stacked according to size

They frame and fill the wooden wallboards

With smooth crockery sienna warmth

Hinting of a pregnant promise of growth

And better things to come!

Wicker bushel basket bursting

With the dryness of bundled fennel, savory, and thyme

Rosemary, lavender, parsley, peppermint

My tongue and senses are sharpened

I ache with the love of it!

And I breathe.

　

Wooden slats of floor beneath my feet

Bare-pressed against the coolness

Yet another earthen promise there to feel

In my toes and in my soul!

I worship the silence

I succumb to the dizzy scent

And I breathe.

pen name ~ cailin raine

Colleen Weber

To My Man

When you love me

Savour each moment and taste

The sweetness, let it linger

On your lips, feel the softness

Silky and sweet, my hair against your skin

Don't waste an instant of the ecstasy

But feel our closeness, reaching

Straining towards the joy of living

One another's heartbeat, and crying

Inside one another's tears, smile

At me when the pulsing is over and

Still hold me close.

Don't turn away, don't be afraid of me

But search my soul in the softness of

Our after love and trace my face

My life before you, I am open to

Your touch, and want your love

To rise again and possess me with

Wanted force and sweet possession

And yet I am free within your embrace

To soar the heights which our love

Makes possible, take me again

And again to that place where joy is full

And immense, how I yearn for your arms

Around me in earnest desire and mad yearning

Come to me with animal passion and tender, sweet

Giving touches, exquisite because you want me

As much as I want you.

cailin raine

If I Walk

If I walk the man-made dikes atop the grass grown wild

And wander along those pathways worn by hunters, men

I trod on the soil of labour and I reach into their souls

Excitement burning in me because I stroke their world.

The wind tosses my darkened curls about my face

My eyes turned skyward trace the clouds and the hawks

As one they soar sky high and daring, elevated beyond

The daily endurance and drudgery of day by day routine.

I am caught in the magic and I do not want to leave

This land of sacred heron and proud, white crane

The geese honk and chatter, the ducks fake a startle

A parade of sound and performance as I watch spellbound.

How I wish to be a part and not a spectator

To take the wind in my hands and hold it

To take the long, wild grasses and clasp them

To feel the languid waters against my soul and…keep it all for me!

I walk on and on and I never want to go

I want to keep these minutes, I want to climb into

The heart of them and stay to watch the maple leaves

Turn crimson and then fall softly to the carpet beneath.

I do not want to miss a single breath of it

I lean to touch the bark and caress the roughness

Against my cheek - I can feel the spirit stirring within

And does he wish to hold me just the same?

The golden rod and nannyberry, the dogwood and sumac

The wild apple smell in my nostrils makes me dizzy

The kind of buzz I could crave forever

I walk and walk and I do not miss a beat.

Dragonflies flit and land, dart and dash about me

Big, striped bees land on my shoulder and I gently push them on

Hawks bravely dip and hover, waiting for their mates

Nature itself is clapping aloud.

The sky is still blue and it is hours since I rested

I know my body commands me to take it home

The sun shimmers still even though the afternoon is dying

Ending, always ending, the things that I love all seem to leave.

One last long, sweeping gaze and I must depart

Back to a world where busy is the order of the day

I long for the disarray of tumbling weed and grass

The surprise of hidden bridge and concealed creeks.

If I walk in this Hullett place I remember the best

Of all the places that I have ever been

If I walk in this marshland space I am cleansed

And I go freely back to where I came from.

cailin raine

Winter Icing

　
Frosting glimmering on icy limbs light with shimmer,
Branches heavy under ice coats of milky white
Shiny in the dancing, glancing early morning sun rays,
Each twig encased in precious layers of nature’s icing sugar.

Matching stone-like snow banks sit like
Hardened, shellacked meringue,
Frozen into delightful curves as if
Nature’s knife has designed and then suspended its work.

The sound of silence echoes softly across
The still fields sparkling, rimmed with statue fences
Locked in the glossy embrace of cold, watery fingers
Sprinkled with sun-dappled frothiness.

Patterns and designs frozen in snowflake precision
Scattered across the surfaces of wood and water,
A masterpiece complete as if chiseled with effort,
Instead, sprung upon us sweetly in effortless surprise.

Nature smartly grinning in stunning performance
Smiling in supreme satisfaction and smirking, a little,
But then, slowly her artistry gives way to another timeless luster,
The slow, gradual melting nod as Nature sighs, “Adieu!”

cailin raine

Blood-Story In The Snow

The animals dreamed of us
Near the mouth of the den at the end of acres
Fur-scattered rug of snow
Doored the entrance to the blood-stinking lair
The kill had been plain.
Snowshoes stopped in tandem, our breath hot on the air
They were still there, spirit-sneaking near us with hot-kill energy, Sparking crystal-lights of fire in the fine, blood-misted snow.

We read the story, slowly tracking the deep-dots of
Prints struck hard against the ice
Deep-melted in the dark-rooted soil
Marks of shiny-struggle and the deer’s last day.
She slowly going down like the final sun
Loathe to give up her last beating-breath
Heart in her mouth, eyes shedding fear
Other eyes lacing hers from across the creek
Glitter of life within, tenderly walking towards her closing cry.

The pack had taken her in bits and in pieces, yipping and yowling
A bone-chilling-kill in the soft-falling night, dusk-settling
Daring to pierce her flesh, rip her sweet, mottled hide
Red-blood drip-spotting first the blaring whiteness of snow
Misting the glitter-prints of coyote paw, desperate heaving-hoofs
Patterning the killing-field with her last effort to cling
Where life had given dawn, and frolic, and saucy dance.
The going down was long… her struggle brave and valiant
She did not give her life freely, but death was her gift in the end.

The slayers slumber with shiny, blood-glistened tongues
Hot blood-breath against the darkness, now deep and black
The pack lies silent in succulence, bellies full
Beside the carcass left alone in bone-brittle defiance
She, passed on to a better dream, whole and full and finished.
Killers seamed in survival-flesh beneath blood-smeared fur
Living inside the wolf-wisdom of ancestors lurking in the past
Cunning and clever, each pup full-tummied against fertile female
Alpha-dreams dance in the hot-bellied den, dawn seeking another day.
The animals dream of us.