poetry

transubstantiation

transubstantiation

things die every day
forms collapse and reconfigure
traces disappear

but here my friend has taken a piece
of our dead walnut tree
riddled with cankers
hacked to lengths
left in the shed for years

and with a patient steady loving hand
she’s turned it into a rolling pin
our hands can clasp and make with
its life converted to the heft
that will make things smooth and sweet

reincarnated and repurposed
like the Little Fir Tree’s obverse
she’s brought its wood
into our warm kitchen
where it’ll now shape apple pie

poetry

gingerbread houses (without gingerbread)

gingerbread houses (without gingerbread)

made from materials
from the open minimart:
2 packets of biscuits
just-add-water Royal Icing
a box of food colouring
a bag each of M&Ms
and Sour Patch Kids
and (most importantly)
imagination

look what emerges:
sunflower gardens
Twister games
swimming pools
snowmen
Christmas trees
busy minds hands hearts
3 sugary scenes
and one yummy new memory

poetry

recipe

recipe

not sugar and spice –
stuff of plantations
exploitation
tropical malaise –

I’m more made of
emerald moss and fiddlehead ferns
nodding jewelweed and shy trilliums
pliant giant kelp and playful otter fur
moonlight and starshine and lightning
crisp wintergreen and warm raspberries
quiet may apples and brisk creek water
brilliant wood lilies and half-closed gentians
retreating seafoam and irrepresible crane cries

I’m not so sweet –
more made from the must
of shale clay and duff
seasoned with ocean salt
scented with woodsmoke –
unable to be
otherwise