In My Own Words – Page 56 – The Poems of David Garlick

I stood in my garden, on a warm summers morning.

The flowers were smiling, resting from toil.

Red Robin was busy, a snail slowly slithered,

as I heard a strange drumming, from freshly turned soil.

A ripple a roll then a sort of a bump sound,

quite regular really, except for the thump.

But I couldn’t quite make out from whence it was coming,

so stone still I stood there and just moved my head.

For a moment all’s quiet, then once again drumming

but it wasn’t quite drumming, as it never changed pace.

Could it be walking or perhaps it was running

but always a thump at the very same place.

The Robin had stopped his prodding and pulling.

The Snail took a pause, put his house on the ground.

The flowers still heavy, with their jewels of water,

incline their bright blooms to pick up the sound.

And then all at once a strange creepy crawly

came running and thumping his way round a rock.

His dozens of feet, all in step as he wriggled

his way round obstacles, that lay in his path.

But each time his legs moved, one after the other,

at the end of each wave, the bump sound was heard.

So I stooped to examine, this busy brown insect,

that hurried along to goodness knows where.

“Good morning Centipede,” I said speaking softly,

for a loud voice can scare an insect you know.

“Please tell me,” I asked him, “why such a hurry

and what is the thumping I hear as you go?”

He stopped for a moment, waved with a feeler,

then with a soft mutter, and a smile on his face.

Told me a story that’s sad though quite funny,

how he’d broken a leg, when he tripped on a lace.

For with one hundred shoes to tie every morning,

it’s really quite easy to overlook one.

So now in a cast, till the bone was all mended,

he bumped and he thumped as he ambled along.

“Please try to be careful, he said as he left me.

Always make sure that your laces are tied.

It’s really quite painful, to fall and break something

and they’ll not let you move, till the plaster has dried.”

David Garlick, Victoria, October, 1990

If we wrote the words of a song,

would we only use one word, dull?

If we wrote the music to this song

would we only use one note, bland?

If we sang this song

would we give it life with rhythms?

Or would it be sung dull and blandly?

If we sang our dull, bland, monotone song

would we expect people to appreciate

what we were trying to say?

If an orchestra played our music

would we think that people could enjoy it

or would their minds wander

and their thoughts take flight?

For even a triangle

may be played well and clearly

the volume and speed of the notes

adding that special flavour

only available from triangles.

Then why do we read those precious words

which have been given to us

without expression?

Without conviction?

Without grammar?

Are we sharing our poem or

covering it with a thick tarpaulin?

Making sure that our emotions

and those we want others to feel

lie dead and dank on ears,

which came to share and

have now been cheated!

David Garlick, Sidney, April, 2007

Are deserts desolate and bare,

to you, dear reader of these lines?

Do you fear barren, ravaged cliffs,

deep frowning fissures, thirsty rocks?

Does lack of water or thickening tongue

bring dread when thinking of a place,

where you are alien and lost

on a great plain that never ends.

But there is also beauty here,

a haunting, lonely loveliness.

A stark simplicity of line-

that you must train your eye to see.

Can a great dune of drifting sand,

move in the pictures of your mind.

A shadow picking out the crest

that sports a plume of migrant grains?

The dazzling sun, a brassy disc,

set high and quivering in the heat.

Sucking the moisture from the land,

that lies submissive in its blaze.

But look again and you may see

a clean and passive sleeping giant.

Waiting in sterile purity,

where time is nothing but a myth.

Waiting, why? I hear you ask.

For what can change in that vast plain?

Time stands in silent agony-

suspended till that first warm rain.

Then, one year, those jewels from heaven

fall earthward in a glittering shower.

The dust pock marked by heavy drops

that strike the sand with muffled beat.

A lake is born on lower land,

where once we saw a sandy plain

that radiated mirages-

of pools and palms and minarets.

Slowly the water penetrates –

the soil, that was a barren waste.

To find those seeds which lie in wait

for years till moisture quickens them.

Soon the desert turns to green

and flowers bloom in multitudes.

The crops sewn by the peasantry

grow tall and strong, heavy with grain.

The sun, like Midas in the sky,

Turns the green wheat to fields of gold

and then with sickle and the scythe a precious crop is gathered in.

The threshing is a festival

in thanks for bounty freely given.

The fates of man and beast and land

a stated fact in what is “Written”.

So drums of hide, like tambourines,

are warmed by fires to tune their note.

Which struck produce a pulsing beat,

that must be answered by men’s feet.

Round and round the threshing floor,

men dance in swaying, ancient steps.

Thrashing the grain from brittle stalks,

with fronds torn from a lofty palm.

On and on through evening light

to darkness, ruddy from the glow-

of fires for drums that sound the pulse.

The giants work is done once more.

And now the soil is bare again.

Some places checked like chocolate bars.

The flowers fade and turn to dust

to blow away on sandy breeze.

The drifting sand becomes a dune.

Light sears eyes, off lime stone cliffs.

The simmering plain is there again.

The sterile purity is back.

The desert is not desolate.

It has a beauty all it’s own.

That calls to us, who know its song,

a wailing cry of keening wind.

David Garlick, Victoria, 1986

Part One

Our father named us, The Animals!

Come here animals, he would call.

Nancy, the eldest was Rabbit.

I was Rat!

Rats have always fascinated me.

I would have loved to have a white one

but there was some resistance to this,

so I had to make do with another boy’s

It would enter a sleeve at the wrist

to pop out brightly at my neck,

Wow!

In India’s large cities, the Brahmins

would catch rats in wire cages.

Brahmins must not kill anything,

so they would carry the cages

into the street and let them go.

The rats would race back

into the houses again.

Perhaps this is where the term-

Rat Race, comes from?

Norwegian rats roam the world.

Big gray and fierce with long

scaly tails and twitching whiskers.

Some people fear them but they

can be friendly if you take the time

to understand them.

En mass they can be scary!

More later!

When I was on night shift, at a large

refinery on Bahrain Island, they would

come to visit me. They came

along the steel building beams.

They never challenged but

would cautiously share my sandwich.

Above the Club terrace fairy lights

hung from catenary wires.

At dusk, these lights would blink on

and then brave rats would tip toe

across the wires overhead.

Women would scream.

men would laugh,

rats would scamper

and occasionally a drunk would

fire an empty bottle at them.

With Gravity in mind,

this was not popular!

In the surrounding desert

there were many creatures

living out their important lives.

Among them and to me, most

importantly, wonderful, joyful,

beautiful Jerboa, Kangaroo rats!

Fleetingly racing along

head light lit roads. Jumping,

bounding, darting and then diving

into the shadows which bloomed

at the roads edge, disappearing

in a springing of legs,

into the friendly desert.

When Liz joined me on Bahrain,

I shared the desert and

its creatures with her.

We explored old favorites and

new places, gleaned from conversations

with other enthusiasts.

Our tiny Morgan sports car,

such fun; our magic carpet.

Liz does not like rats, that much!

I was still learning to curb my

male enthusiasm for adventures!

I had heard that the causeway

to the company’s oil docks was

worth a visit at dusk.

The little car hummed along

the cooling rock built causeway

as the sun dipped to the horizon.

Pipe lines running parallel to us,

occasionally made half loops,

expansion joints, along the way.

We arrived at the security gate,

just as the sun hissed into the sea!

I turned the car around and we waited!

Day light ebbed away, we heard

a squeak and then many squeaks!

Then we saw an unbelievable sight.

The rocky sides of the causeway undulated!

It was alive with large Norwegian rats!

Our little car was low to the ground.

It was open, being a sports car.

Liz yelled. “Lets get out of here.”

I did as I was told!

——————End of part one——————-

Of Rats and Other Animals – Part Two

Some years later we moved to Canada.

It was not as easy as it sounds

but is was the right thing to do.

Our eldest was showing signs of

the same learning disability that has

plagued my life, made it interesting,

caused all sort of problems but also

broadened my horizons, my view of life.

My understanding of people.

I started all over again

but I had expected that, I made progress.

Fort McMurray, Alberta, was exciting but raw.

When Liz and the children came we were

moved to Fort William, Ontario, at the Lake Head.

But that is, yet again, another story.

Nine months of Chlorine and Mercury!

Dead brown bears in the trunks of cars,

hunting rifles, snow, skiing and kind people.

We were recalled to Edmonton, a long car trip.

There, horror of horrors, chlorine and caustic again

but also oil refineries, gas and chemical plants.

Happily a return to rodents but not rats,

which are hunted down and exterminated.

Alberta is rat free but has all sorts of mice,

including Shrews, feisty little things!

Musk rats, who visit industry regularly.

Do not try to pick up these furry creatures,

sharp teeth cut through armored gloves!

Water voles abound, amongst other

interesting creatures; we lived in a zoo.

In the fall, before the snow came, you could

watch water rats swimming under the still clear ice.

The Musk rats were in the rushes and joy

of joys Beavers built a huge lodge on the lake,

topped with an active Canada Goose nest.

Bob cats were visitors, Porcupine were common

and flying squirrels lived in the trees of our

three acre paradise. Field mice and vowels

made nests in the hay bales, children flourished!

In time, on to British Columbia and back to rats.

Now we live on a small acreage. Humming birds,

Bald eagles, Wood peckers , Flickers and a

myriad of others birds and natural wonders.

Raccoons by the dozen, leaping squirrels,

grass snakes, deer, huge slugs, bugs, rabbits

and our pets, dog Shadow and cat Penny, the hunter!

Dear Penny regularly presents us with gifts

from the great outdoors. Birds on the wing,

snakes on the floor, mice on the run

and RATS on the loose in the house

to be shown the door.

Life is at it should be, multi faceted!

David Garlick, Sidney, March, 2008