Yet to Be

The joy of the afternoon,

had left a sweet ache
of something-in-the-air:
amorphous as mist that, probably,
wasn’t there, at all –

for anyone but me.

Held, 

breathless, lest, 
surrender to what was reality:  
might flick the phantasmagoric
whiff of chance away –

from what was yet to be.

notes:   I do remember that feeling - and smile still, at the thought of it.

Chance:  The unknown and unpredictable element in happenings that seems to have no discernable cause.

photo:  Tossing the Ball at Deer Lake – W. Bourke

© 2013 Wendy Bourke

Drifting in Spiced Cider Wafts

I had meant

to tidy up the old photographs

but instead, 
spent most of the evening
drifting in warm spiced cider wafts
and remnants of bedtime stories –

the kind, my mother used to tell: 

the ordinary stuff-of-life
abracadabra’ed by a magic spell,

until, as the years passed,  
the recollections became
too intrinsic for words.

And so, as had become my way,  
I wandered, in let-it-be
russet and golden orange – 
sweet, as a bitten apple –
October memories;

staring, at length, at long ago
paint-pot dappled snap-shots
that had fallen round me,
like blazing leaves that fluttered
on imaginary autumn breezes

and swept, gently through me,
in wordless reminiscence.

note:  Pictured above is our Matt – almost thirty years ago.  (I believe that is a purple corn cob, he swiped off the Thanksgiving Centerpiece, that has him so engrossed.)   And, Egad!  Speaking of:  “Where do the days go?” – I was floored when I noticed, we’re just a week away from Canada’s Thanksgiving weekend.  (Back in Northern Ontario, by this time of the year, it was anybody's guess whether we’d make it, before the first big dump of snow!)

photos:  Autumn Breezes and Waiting for Thanksgiving Dinner – W. Bourke

© 2013 Wendy Bourke

summer becomes winter

she had sat 

a gentle honeyed lamp 

on the edge of her flower box, 

as was her way of welcome.

and the golden glow  

exhaled like a steaming pot 

of hot tea, beneath 

the prickly silhouettes of 

black branches and blossoms and leaves -

rather theatrically, I thought.

 

for a moment,  

it seemed to me,

there should have been snow flakes, 

falling on the last of the summer flowers, 

feathering the chilly air 

in white magic.

when suddenly, she appeared atop the stairs:  

a, somewhat quizzical, frosty specter
– luminous (almost) – 

in the amber entrance to the house;

clutching, oddly enough,
a winter white mango mousse,  

bejeweled in tropical fruit.

 photos: Lantern on the Flower Box and Tea and Mango Mousse – W. Bourke 

© 2013 Wendy Bourke