After Leaving a Lousy Job

Another new morning
comes with
another new education:

I can finally agree
the winter is over
as spring surrounds us,

the proof once more
being how a starling
feeds one of her young
among the impatient many,

quite like the opened dandelions
and the warm mothering sun.

 **

No New Cases Today
for Victor

As I wait and watch for the crows
hearing the distant periodic cawing
a kind of group ruckus the trees hide.

During those moments of seeking
a tiny plane
drops its roving shadow,
growing larger and longer
moving through the neighbourhood
like some kind of reminder
I see as a spotlight.

A darkened circle ready to reveal
the breakthrough to bring about
the beginning of a cure,
exactly where and when it will be found.

 – September 1, 2020
…Truro, Nova Scotia

 **

The Influence of Duty

Each unshelled peanut a treat
thrown into the wet uncut lawn
beneath the family’s first morning member
to arrive handling a wire in the wind
seemingly sent to further any teachings
to learn despite the speeding fools
up and down the avenue hour after hour.

Even as the day offers many sights
it is the single black-feathered mystery
balancing on that dormant cable strand;
I speak out loud during our visit,
share how leaves sound like water
and watch as the caws begin,
beak open to alert the others
another “breakfast” has been served.

In a few moments, more like seconds,
the rest of those who heard the invite
clasp spaces beside her, still waiting,
to be other than the first
like a wife or long-gone grandmother
who called her sons and daughters
to a meal she’d eventually join too
and be part of in a dutiful way.

 ——————————————— 

Chad Norman lives and writes in Truro, Nova Scotia. In 1992 he was awarded the Gwendolyn MacEwen Memorial Award For Poetry, which was judged by Margaret Atwood, Barry Callaghan, and Al Purdy. His poems appear in journals, magazines, anthologies around the world. His most recent book, Parental Forest, is scheduled for Spring 2024 (Northern Hemisphere) with Montreal press, AOS Publishing. His poem, ‘The Shoulds’, will be included in the Lunar Vagabond Collection, part of a time capsule scheduled for a Lunar Codex lift-off to the moon November 2024.

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