snippets

knowledge is being trimmed

razors cut up sonnets, and soliloquys

novels become novellas, then snippets, 

then an AI paraphrase

words pronounced.  Correctly!

a chorus of hollow words echo 

in cement block rooms

   they call this "literacy"

classic novels fade yellow

pages fall

to empty bookroom floors

trodden on and swept away

 - slow motion Fahrenheit 451

the tired monk looks on

with sad eyes

and writes a new song

unwound

i)

tattered

ragged Jets cap

sun and sweat bleached

one can barely make out the team colours

in his hands 

a few last remnants

of his wire spool

40 years unwound

project after project

a beautiful metal metaphor

ii)

the sky is grey

pools of water 

a hill of dirty snow melts

a few slow tears fall

a deep gut soul lament

sometime tears are prayers

cul de sac

lights flick on

first the nurse

a dialysis veteran

she greets her firefighter husband

coming off a long...and busy shift

one quick kitchen kiss

then away

more lights 

construction worker

knotting up his boots quick

rushing out the door

helmet, tools, coffee

off with an F150 rumble

then a burst 

light after light pops on

teachers, government workers, 

moms dads school bus kids

dog walkers hustle

a few retirees zip out

newspaper under their arms

7am coffee waits

the sun pops up over

the split ranch house

as the last car leaves 

the cul de sac

School

school

a cigarette bookmark

marking my place 

in some used Tolkien tome

lit up by a campfire

reading it again

under patio lanterns

school

flipping the cassette tape over

reading Salinger, Hemingway,

Kerouac

Guns and Roses 

low in the background

school

filling moleskin

after moleskin

with poems, sketches,

lists of backyard creatures

school

the one or two...(maybe a few)

beautiful authentic teachers

school

from dropout, to teacher,

to old tired monk

a classroom

first it was the former Yugoslavians

like Marko running with his family

to Canada

bullets ripping through his house

right over the dinner table

then Somalian teens

who'd never been to school

seeped in violence

bristling with anger

followed by Syrian girls

falling in boot sticking mud

and more zinging bullets

landing months later

in a gang riddled neighbourhood

new city - more guns

now a Ukrainian girl

she can speak three languages

but not English

she sits quietly in the back

sinking deeply into her desk

a sprinkling of Libyans, Lebanese, 

West Africans, and Haitians...

for 75 minutes

we sit, laugh...even learn

binding us together bit by bit

in unconditional hospitality

lakeside path

walking stick swings in steady rhythm

the tired monk walks the path

up and over gnarled pine roots

and broken bedrock

heeding the mossy patches

just a bit further up the high bluff

stops

pours tea

breathes in woodland air

takes in lakes, a creek, a beaver pond

one lone island

a red fox wanders

out of the junipers

looks for a moment

smells the air

turns back 

the way she came

two kits follow

the monk sips 

one more taste of green tea

pick up his walking stick

jogs down the hill

laughing

 

the abbess appears

the old monk sheds his sandals

wades into the mucky ditch

swinging his sickle

mowing thick swamp grass

just ahead of torrential rains

pulling heaps of vetch

stuck in choking muck

rakes, shovels, loads

three heavy barrows full

the water runs free at last

down through the culvert

into the low valley stream

the abbess appears

smiles

offers a dark rich

French press coffee