First to arrive and last to leave the robins make you think you're in for an Indian Summer but I believe we're past that now still it was nice to see a group of four splashing in a puddle on the driveway when leaves have already been raked and first frost settling in to nightly routine unlike the English robin these are apparently a species of thrush still dainty in their own way their russet breasts matching the pumpkins on the steps I had a silly thought perhaps with their entreating chirps they were trick or treating perhaps they were old residents of the street come back in disguise to tease and remind us they're still here though much changed and diminished in size but tall yet in spirit as they tugged at the lawn for worms or whatever was going when life was already draining from the trees and the whispers of the dawn.

The day is yet young there where you are and I have just been to a screening of You Are Here about the stranded passengers who were fed and found shelter in Gander Newfoundland when American air space was closed in the wake of 9/11 and jumbo jets descended on the town like waves of locusts or bombers returning from sortie and run in stacked formation one atop another as they landed and parked nose to tail as if on some aircraft carrier preparing the way for an assault by land from the start the locals had her skald (for those who know nothing of witches and cauldrons to have her skald means to know your fate and have it in your hands) and sprang to action as seafaring people do used to missing bodies lost livelihoods and death and disasters at sea housing passengers from hither and yon in schools and churches and meeting halls and billeting them in their homes for 24 hours they made sandwiches fried fish and chicken threw toget

I can't remember how many times I went to the window to watch the street go by I have been surprised each time I saw someone I had seen before and others who were new I have been old when in a dream about opening the door of a wedding cake library when the guard was asleep I didn't know if I would see another book or another morning I have gone two weeks eating only bread and margarine and the odd spot of coffee here and there I have been down and out I have been hopeful when somehow the clouds broke and the weather changed and the sun came out to meet me half way as I greeted the day after all I have been ashamed when in spite of kindly gestures and caring words I startled or offended where I made to comfort and made to play I have been conciliatory when hands were rough and handshakes were extended when fists were clenched. I have been silent when night passed and a fever broke and I gathered the last apple that fel

The force of the storm twisted a tree off its roots so that it looked like the stem of a pumpkin carved in that pumpkin Forgot Me Lamp just like I forgot me coat and boots and hat.

I knew a lady who learned how to break dance in shoulder pads and high heels she wore a belt with a big buckle to show she was moving her hips and she sang without moving her lips

I wasn't going for a ten poem day but now it's come to that let me take pause to get this right it's Sunday and last night there was a frost and this morning I didn't know whether to scrape the leaves off with the snow in the end it didn't matter because it warmed up enough for the snow to melt and a wind took away the lasagna of leaves hard to tell what was cheese and what was sauce also there was the hint of coffee and fried eggs coming up from the basement there was probably bacon or it wouldn't have been a fry up but let's stick to the facts as seen or observed because they are different those one's trying hard to be a fact and the other is stated as if it were and I promised myself there was no place for Plato or the fictions in which we spend most of our lives so cards on the table most likely there was bacon and the heat was on and making it easier to stay in bed when the day was beckoning w

At the end we exchanged gifts tokens of a deeper commerce the kind once entered never ends in another life I could have called her sister in still another friend but as it was we had reached beyond make believe and in legal terms we had already had full disclosure not that I had hid anything or that she had stolen any secrets from somewhere I had forgotten but ours was the reckoning of eye contact I not knowing where to focus she not wearing mascara or hiding her eyes behind her bangs I wondered if she had had some stress because when she straightened the curl out of her hair an S-shaped patch and a few strands of white spoiled the contrast of black hair against white skin it never showed that it was hard for her to hear of things she couldn't change or to offer comforts that couldn't heal but chicken soup is chicken soup as any Jewish mother will tell you it couldn't help but it couldn't hurt and when I thanked

The other day I saw a falcon chase a bus I had heard of peregrines nesting in the city downtown on the roofs of skyscrapers so I don't think the bus was near a nest but I can't account for the run unless she was counting on bigger prey this afternoon I saw a flock of crows flying west they were flying high I know because they were impossibly small like afterthoughts in a well painted sky they seemed to be heading to Carleton perhaps there was a football game or maybe the weather was better there and when I came home this evening the last of the sparrows startled from a milkweed pod brown and ready to make a nice paper once it was hulled and ginned into a batch of pulp in the end the falcon beat the bus maybe the bus driver wasn't trying but I'd like to think it was the indomitable spirit of an apex predator taking her place but this is Autumn and fairy tales don't come true except in Spring and in Summer games of dar

When you leave town follow the train tracks it doesn't really matter whether they are passenger or freight rails and take note of the telephone poles close in to the city the polls will be tall and the insulators will be white when the insulators change from white to blue you're getting into the country after a while the poles get shorter and may have more than 1 cross don't worry unless you lose sight of the tracks or the poles get taller with their crosses closer to the top and lacking insulators those are hydro poles and it means you are going north or south and Montreal is west once you find the tracks again you will notice that the corn grows as tall as the telephone polls and you may see 3 or 4 or 5 even 6 crosses all supporting insulators but the wires only resting on the glasses of one cross and after the six stacks you are away until you see the flour mill and that's Montreal.

I forgot that without kick or crawl roll or holding onto the coffee table or the couch or those first tentative steps we'd never save time or get where we want to go walking is all about pushing limits feeling oats close races tight finishes narrow escapes we were born to run that race even as we limp towards perfection we see without care for shutter speed f-stop aperture aspect ratio or available light I remember the first time you stood standing under the kitchen table I wondered whether the table was holding you up some sort of overreaching puppeteer but it was you doing it yourself and then I knew as you took your first steps you were off and away and I knew that part of my job was done and the next milestone came into view how to keep you safe when you were more comfortable straying than staying near.

You are a bird you were made to fly so fly away now while the sky is clear uncluttered except the breeze I'll stay rooted and heal I am a tree meant for holding nests in boughs and crooked elbows my wounds are superficial still I wouldn't have you wait to tend me the worst that can happen to me is scars enfolding my bark reminding me but invisible to birds and the passing of leaves so now soar I know you can circle if you will to confound the bats and never look back but keep your compass pointed to warmer climes and the chance of rest before the great migration begins again I'll stand steady stretch my arms wide and catch the next bird that wants to be held in unthreatening arms safe from the wind and the other colds that don't always fit with the season for now I make do with crows or ravens or rooks I never know what to call them they are restless vi

I'm pretty sure it never occurred to her that a real heart was on the line when we did that dance that's so well known as to be trite to mention in so light a fashion so I hesitate when I say I'm pretty sure to give her the benefit of what she's worth and what was risked anyway in that half lit room perhaps it was migraine that made her dim fluorescents in favour of incandescents or maybe she was going more for mood to make it easier for me to talk and her to listen and occasionally direct or redirect to maximize learning or maintain the flow of unprocessed feelings and measured ambivalence like suits with a bit of room in the back for when we indulge and lie to ourselves about the trade off between what we need and how we'd like to be or they way we'd like to be seen if we had our druthers and nobody was counting or keeping score I was talking about a moment that I wanted to hold up in grateful appreciatio

Having a soup and a sandwich is never a solitary affair what with MS Glutamate and CA Propionate watching over the feast but there were always others with less auspicious sounding names whose manners were nevertheless livelier and more forthcoming there was always salt and pepper in packets that split along invisible perforations to give a kick and a bite to soup otherwise unremarkable and there were crackers to dip it always seemed a shame to crush and soak what was made crisp and perfectly formed rather petite than tiny and noth the real thing if not with salted tops and there was the cut of the bread Mother Tucker gave you the choice of thick or thin even before the pizza makers caught on and if you were in Poland maybe the rye would have had pumpkin seeds but we were far away from there where we were the issue was alfalfa sprouts and Dijon mustard for a change and we pushed healthy with lettuce and tomatoes and the obligatory pickle

I never thought about until now but the Brookses Roy and Reggie made a regal couple 4 kids and a spider monkey going strong Jessie and Leslie were the older boys Charlene may have been the youngest Pal was what his name said Down's didn't dampen his enthusiasm or ours when I raced the go-cart towards the highway detouring into a driveway to avoid a worse fate I did shift the gears while Jessie ran behind I knew the gas and the clutch but not the brake so stalled it out in the end when my foot magically hit the pedal that was unknown to my foot I think Roy ended up hang gliding when water skiing and demolition derbys lost their charm I don't know whether Brooks took Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump which, apart from the coulees under the High Level Bridge was probably the closest he could get in Lethbridge to real height and true thermals in prairies before they stumble into foothills and everything changes where the sea bed has risen and

We've had frost before now but this is the first morning we have had snow and so many of the leaves haven't even dropped yet the green in some maples not even drained many still showing yellow or orange or more rarely red I wonder whether the maples are intent on leaving a legacy this year along with the apples that are determined to live on tempting to the last with their unfallen fruit now more likely than not to be windfelled rather than picked the snow is light and the flakes are large and not melting on the lawn but blanketing the leaves that have fallen and muffling the sounds of the city in this way the snow is unlike rain which makes a noise when it hits the pavement and rain tends to bring out ambulances with their sirens and so the day is sleepy and seems unperturbed by the lack of light for this reason I am inclined to stay indoors but that won't answer my purposes or help my mood or hasten the compl

When you take the bus you get used to waiting and watching the cars go by when you are a gamer you might aspire to be a first person shooter when you are one of Plato's butchers you cut meat at the joints when you are dry or thirsty for coffee you might try the cafeteria but you probably won't like it when you are a child and it rains and it storms and the storm sewers overflow onto the streets you meet your first tadpoles and perhaps a frog or two when you work in a hospital you have to go to a lot of meetings and are exposed to all kinds of germs but every once in a while someone asks you how you are when you think about it you can't really help the way you look so you must forgive yourself for that and for the bald patches starting on your forehead and the back of your head.

A border collie came to me in a dream the dog had been declawed and I shook his pads the dog was called Sure Thing but I got it wrong the first time out of the chutes and called him something else perhaps Of Course or maybe Indeed or Coming Right Up or Also Ran it doesn't really matter because I can't remember anyway but he gives a mean shake just the same.

I didn't give you wings to fly but it was I not the stork who carried you and brought you to term and carried you again until you could walk and adjusted my pace when you couldn't keep up and scooped you off the floor when you cried I did not feel your pain but I wracked my brain to learn your cries which was pain which was thirst which hunger which frustration or too hot or too cold which anger which alone which unspecified uncomfortable when it came to cuts and scrapes or bad dates or boring afternoons or sibling things I salved your wounds or made you laugh or took you for ice cream or shopping or something else similarly nice when I was light of spirit anticipating your arrival my freckles came back people teased and asked how many souls I had stolen in my youth I laughed remembering this and that I didn't expect them or my freckles to return but someone said it happens they do come back my step was light when I was h

Sometimes we were charmingly medieval tucked up in statu pupillari in our 16th Century flats going along with the charade of going over the wall after a night with a girl or promising to register an overnight guest with the porter in the lodge or subjecting ourselves generally to the Principal and Fellows who made their own laws and set their own punishments in Paris in '68 the students took offence at the police entering the Sorbonne which they felt was a sanctuary a refuge where you were immune from prosecution or patrolling the Latin Quarter where they hadn't done anything wrong in Oxford we didn't put up barricades or overturn cars or slash the tires of buses or claim a soulevement etudiant we were not Marxists or Maoists or Trotskyites or Castroites nor did we carry the black flags of anarchists ot have Godard film exchanging cobblestones or cast iron tree grates for tear gas and billy clubs or listen to how we were doing from radios lo