LOST STARS
by Norma Linder

Some poems make me feel
like weeping
From time to time,
lines from them return
to haunt me

“May that day never come,”
Ray Souster said to James Deahl
“when we can no longer
sit under my mulberry tree
discussing literature”
But that day did come,
wrote James in a poem
in one of his many collections
that day did come

Sometimes, I’m overwhelmed
with sadness
for all the poets who have passed
beyond our sun
We like to think no stars are lost
when their bright lights go out
We like to think their written words
will last
but look around
— discarded books in cardboard boxes
sit on roadside curbs
untouched

Still, we bash on
because it seems important that we do
because it is

Closure

October’s dying leaves
bear blood-red beauty
of impermanence

Under a curtain of rain
in Wellington County
on an autumn road trip
we drive by a huge
stone church
in a small village

Propped against
the slate-gray steps
of the abandoned building
a large black-lettered
wooden sign
catches my attentive
eye:

THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES

For Love Alone

Late in the afternoon
at the entrance to the mall
a frail old man
in rumpled blue serge suit
tucks a violin
under his long white beard
and fills the August air
with haunting music from
Cavalleria Rusticana.

His instrument
almost a part of him
he plays for love alone
eyes closed against the crowd.

After a mystical hour
the old man stoops
picks up his worn black case
tenderly encloses
his violin inside it
and shuffles off
leaving a scattering
of silver coins
on the ground behind him.

He played for loved alone.

At Canatara Beach

Bathers bounced back
from hubcaps of parked cars
become
the works of Grandma Moses
chromespun in noonday sun.
Sailboats perceived
through the amber archway
of my outstretched arm
take on a new perspective.

I close my eyes
my body melting down
against the great hard globe
of Father Earth.
He meets me thigh for thigh
hot-iced with sand
and all the long lost languid afternoon
warm breezes kiss me
with a thousand tongues.

About the Author:

Norma West Linder is the author of seven novels, fifteen poetry collections, two children’s books, a collection of short stories, a play, a memoir, and a biography of Ontario Lt. Governor Pauline McGibbon. Her volume of selected poetry, Adder’s Tongues, was published by Aeolis House in 2012. She is the mother of two daughters and a son. Linder lives in Sarnia.