for Phil Hall
What, me, guard sheep?
I made that up; this is poetry.
It’s my soul that’s sheepish
Knows wind and sun
Grabs onto every Season and follows, looking.
Nature’s peaceful today; it’s empty
and it’s my pal.
But it saddens me: what if sunset
turns my lights out too
when the parking lot goes cold
and nightfall’s butterfly presses at my body, glass.
But being sad isn’t all bad,
it’s fair enough and natural
What else is a soul for?
It’s so sure it exists
when the hand cuts flowers, it doesn’t cry out.
Like the racket of the mail truck
Coming around the curve of the avenue
My thoughts are happy.
Yet simply thinking this makes me glum,
For if they weren’t happy, there’d be more variety:
Instead of being happy and glum
They’d be joyful and happy. What the heck.
Thinking bugs me, like walking in the rain
When the bus goes by, a huge wind splattering greasy water.
Ambitions and desires? My head’s wet.
Being a poet isn’t an ambition,
it’s a version of being alone.
Por imaginar, ser cordeirinho
(Ou ser o rebanho todo
Para andar espalhado por toda a encosta
A ser muita coisa feliz ao mesmo tempo),
É só porque sinto o que escrevo ao pôr do Sol
Ou quando uma nuvem passa a mão por cima da luz
E corre um silêncio pela erva fora.
Quando me sento a escrever versos
Ou, passeando pelos caminhos ou pelos atalhos,
Escrevo versos num papel que está no meu pensamento,
Sinto um cajado nas mãos
E vejo um recorte de mim
No cimo dum outeiro,
Olhando para o meu rebanho e vendo as minhas ideias,
Ou olhando para as minhas ideias e vendo o meu rebanho,
E sorrindo vagamente como quem não compreende o que se diz
E quer fingir que compreende.
Saúdo todos os que me lerem,
Tirando-lhes o chapéu largo
Quando me vêem à minha porta
Mal a diligência levanta no cimo do outeiro.
Saúdo-os e desejo-lhes sol,
E chuva, quando a chuva é precisa,
E que as suas casas tenham
Ao pé duma janela aberta
Uma cadeira predilecta
Onde se sentem, lendo os meus versos.
E ao lerem os meus versos pensem
Que sou qualquer coisa natural –
Por exemplo, a árvore antiga
À sombra da qual quando crianças
Se sentavam com um baque, cansados de brincar,
E limpavam o suor da testa quente
Com a manga do bibe riscado.
(I’m making this up!) to be a lamb,
(Or to be the whole flock
with a flock’s funny gait on the hillside,
one leg shorter than the other)
It’s just that I feel what I write at sunset
or when a cloud’s hand shields the light
And my neighbour goes in, after cutting his lawn.
When I sit writing poems
or when walking Vaughan Road or along the alley
I write poems in my head, because that’s how I think.
The pen I hold is my shepherd’s crook,
And I see my own figure
on the crest of Bathurst,
Guarding my flock and viewing my ideas
Or guarding my ideas and viewing my flock
and smiling half-goofy like my friend Phil.
Hello to you, Phils of the future:
I take my hat off to you.
Look, I’m in my own doorway on Winnett
across from another parking lot.
I hope you’ve got sun,
and rain when you need it,
And that in your houses
you’ve a chair and a window that opens
where you’ve just read this: it’s a poem.
And that reading it makes you think
I’m a natural –
For example, an ancient tree that thrives on a buried creek,
Where children plop down when they’re sick of playing,
And wipe the heat off their sticky foreheads
with the sleeve of a Τ-shirt,
their striped Τ-shirts now wet in my striped shade.