In My Own Words – Page 31 – The Poems of David Garlick

Black dust a cloud.

Where is the rain?

Dry dugouts crack.

Where is the rain?

The grass is gone.

Where is the rain?

Red rimmed the eyes.

Where is the rain?

Grit edges teeth.

Where is the rain?

Sand devils swirl.

Where is the rain?

No crops will grow.

Where is the rain?

The cattle die.

Where is the rain?

The wind mill squeaks.

Where is the rain?

The moneys gone.

Where is the rain?

The mortgage grows.

Where is the rain?

Our faces gaunt.

Where is the rain?

The rain, the rain , the rain.

David Garlick, Victoria, June, 1988

The Prairie drought of 1988

A spotted snake of people

writhed down Bourbon Street.

The night was full of colour

and the patter of their feet.

It’s scales of hats and faces

of “shades” reflecting light.

It’s body pulsing wildly

to the music of the night.

We passed by sleazy curio shops.

Photographs of “girlie shows.”

We passed by courtyards, quaint cafes

and men dressed up in women’s cloths.

Then down St. Peters Street we turned,

to the place that we were seeking.

Pulled by the wailing trumpet sound

and a drums incessant beating.

Three bucks we paid to enter

“The preservation Hall.”

With the portraits of it’s heroes

hung on it’s grimy walls.

Old men sat there, just waiting,

their horns upon their knees.

Others flexed their fingers

on their strings or on the keys.

And then they started playing

on those battered instruments.

And music welled up, flowing from

deft fingers old and bent.

The lisping of the trombone.

The bleating clarinet.

The blaring of a trumpet.

A rumbling deep base note.

The strumming of a banjo.

The drummers measured beat.

The piano’s dancing “ivories”.

Their music was replete.

And as each one, in solo,

was applauded by us there.

Their music filled that tiny hall

with skillful loving flare.

But now, their notes still ringing,

in my old and failing ears.

I felt we were applauding

musicians through the years.

Those early players of this Jazz,

their pictures on the wall.

In that shrine to great musicians

known as Preservation Hall.

David Garlick, New Orleans, 1990

In the cedar long house the People met.

Quiet filled the hall. Only shadows moved –

in the dance and flicker of torches.

Heads bowed in mediation, the silence

screamed of sorrow, anguish and shame.

His transgression.

Waiting, outside, in the sunshine,

his eyes rose to the backdrop of cliffs,

mist shrouded. Combed by spiky spruce.

Jeweled with glimpses of blue. Spirit filled.

The silence pressed down surrounding him.

Alone in all the world with his thoughts.

His guilt

Closed ears woke to muted sounds of sorrow.

The call of the people, it was time.

Slowly he entered the long house, head bowed

to kneel, hands cupped,

before an emblem of his misdoing.

Their pity on his cringing back,

worse than harsh words,

more painful than the lash.

His shame.

Beside the icon, a twisted taper stood.

Cedar fiber, pine resin and down.

The masked elder stood, bowl in hand –

he placed a charcoal ember on up turned palm.

In the great hall the sound of rising wind –

whispered. “Awaken the ember, light the taper.”

One chance.

Scorched skin shaking, breath fans black to red.

Placed by the taper, will the tinder catch?

Black turns to white, move the tiny coal.

Gently blow to quicken red again.

The down flares, the taper is alight.

The people are the first squall of a storm.

His hope!

Pitch gouts flash and spit.

The emblem still un-scorched,

bright hot the light but all alone the taper flames.

Fading, sputtering, then a lone flare jets blue.

Reaching out to the icon, supplication.

The sound in the hall was of a waterfall.

The emblem consumed by fire –

and in its dying leaves the ground.

His prayer.

The white ash flew, an insect in a grass fire.

A flaming locust, butterfly, or cobweb.

Then fell to earth nothingness on the earthen floor.

Head bowed, face against knee,

great sobs of remorse and relief.

Buckskin fringes soaked, with tears washed clean.

The people the sound of a fierce gale.

Forgiveness.

And The People raised a great shout.

Crash of thunder that drove the storm away.

Their cry of joy echoed against the cliff.

He rose to take his place, head held high.

Arms enfold him, warmth and understanding.

No longer outcast, part of The People.

The river of life flows past many rocks.

Catharsis.

David Garlick, Victoria, October 1995

I rattled a rat with a stick, one day,

who climbed up a drain pipe to get away.

It ran on the roof and jumped in a tree,

where squirrel like it rattled at me!

David Garlick, Victoria, October, 1998