Quite the tale(s) there, Max. And it does move through them.

I almost wish you’d named some of the ‘callers’ in 2…

Poem as travelogue…

Doug
> On Oct 21, 2015, at 9:40 AM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> My Trip East
> 
> began badly, ended better.
> Leaving Seattle -
> painfully early start,
> palpitating heart,
> late, not quite too late.
> 
> Ouf! settling in our seats,
> she of course by the window,
> I with, at my elbow,
> shoulder, thigh and calf,
> a big man pressing flesh
> 
> flat five long hours...
> Here’s Boston and relief;
> to genteel Cambridge,
> our high hotel room.
> Walking out round
> 
> Harvard Square, here’s
> the Coop Bookshop,
> still sublime. Fancy,
> on one’s doorstep!
> If only books weighed less -
> 
> note their names for later on.
> Sleep now and sleep in:
> Friday she can drowse,
> I tour bookshops and browse.
> Groliers - still all poetry!
> 
> quiet, faithful, orderly -
> I could spend a fortune
> here; chatting quietly,
> the assistant so informed 
> (elderly, naturally).
> 
> I tell her: in another age
> in the other Cambridge,
> John Ashbery read at King’s, 
> supported by Bill Manhire, 
> who outshone him.
> 
> This I'd seen and heard -
> oh both good, the Kiwi 
> merely better-tuned.
> Fame is Manhattan, maybe.
> Manhire is Wellingtoned.
> 
> I exit empty-handed,
> even deferring buying 
> Kiwis - much-travelling,
> some read, mostly unread,
> down under and unheard.
> 
> 2
> While the wife earnestly
> conference-goes at Lesley,
> I’m free to meet my friend
> the professor. In Divinity’s
> old building, see, 
> 
> this lecture room so tiny,
> where Emerson told
> young America to be
> American. Michael and I
> transfer it to our Auckland
> 
> fifty years back when 
> such calls, needed and heeded,
> woke us to the local, then
> the regional, the native,
> the new place so ‘other’ 
> 
> than the Old Country
> (which we hadn’t seen);
> the need for roots,
> new shoots, for fruits
> distinctive. Well, has it
> 
> happened? or are we
> still near the British coast?
> like Shetland, with more sheep?
> or rocky Cornwall at most?
> Underpopulated,
> 
> tethered, provincial?
> From our old shared homeland
> he shows me new books.
> When I read them, they’ll
> settle some doubts.  
> 
> 3
> I have a deferred date 
> in Quincy Street:
> three museums of art
> in one, made greater
> by new architecture.
> 
> Artworks from all times
> and places seem at home.
> Expatriation, yes,
> but caring curators bless
> the works for our caress.
> 
> 4
> Her weekend conference done, 
> it’s time to fly to Brooklyn,
> to see if here’s the place she needs.
> If all your life you’ve never felt
> your home was home,
> 
> dreams draw you on.
> Next day in our rented room
> she sleeps; I walk Park Slope
> up gentrifying avenues
> to Prospect Park, her hope
> 
> in my pocket. Yes, she might
> try life here and feel it’s right.
> Here’s where we’d shop,
> walk the dogs, go to plays,
> slip to Manhattan by subway.
> 
> Next day she says we’ve seats
> for a great new show on Broadway.
> Let’s go in time to walk
> Manhattan’s High Line Park!
> We do, and here she spies 
> 
> on either side, as we stroll
> with all the rapt strollers
> through gardens of delight,
> apartments for lease - each right
> for making her home,
> 
> her first true home. Chelsea?
> yes, please, the thrills of Town,
> the quiet of the High Line,
> prospects of the Hudson,
> walking dogs easily.
> 
> 5
> We fly out towards Seattle
> next night, while Jet Blue’s fly-hi
> brings her laptop the best
> properties for lease in Chelsea.
> She’s singing to herself
> 
> some song by Joni Mitchell
> she always knew carried 
> for her some promise of home.
> Myself, I carry in my satchel
> the poet* saying ‘no home like place.’
> 
> The home he left when I did,
> shares our hearts with some
> very ‘other’ places, good for a time.
> East West - home’s best?
> North South - anywhere there’s rest.
> 
> [for my wife Marilyn Black 
> and my old friend *Michael D Jackson]

Douglas Barbour
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Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuation 2 (UofAPress).
Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).

	Done in by creation itself.

I mean the gods. Not us. Well us too.
The gods moved into books. Who wrote the books?
We wrote the books. In whose dream, then are we dreaming?

		Robert Kroetsch.