THE RESTLESS MUSE

THE RESTLESS MUSE

she is at my shoulder

reading what I have written

and I’m an eight year old once again

she reaches down to point out

a mis-spelled word

she has the smell of lilacs

and powder

and she has no idea how hard

I would work to please her

she was my first small boy crush

on someone of the opposite sex

for many years since

even though I haven’t seen her

since those days in forty four

and for a long time

she inhabited my dreams

anonymous

always getting the best

from me

almost larger than life

a film star presence

inspiring my poetry and dreams

she the physical her

must be dead and gone

being thirteen years older than me

but her twenty one year old image

is always on the periphery

of my dreams

my motivations

always a mystery

somehow have peeled away

and I now see her

with amazing clarity

she would move to the next desk

and gently correct

the other students

and I would plot how I could

regain her attention

Albert  my Metis desk mate

would whisper in badly fractured English

to help him with something in the text

he didn’t understand

and I would enthusiastically assist

Albert was a tough kid

a wonderful asset in the schoolyard

even though 1944 was an awful year

for the world

and the family I was boarding with

had two sons off

at the war

one in Italy one in France

and a daughter working in war industries

in Winnipeg

I had a pony

and enjoyed being in school

because the nearest kids

to the Brock’s farm

were three miles away

and school was my only chance

to interact with other kids

I spent a lot of time

sniping the pigeons in the barn

with a single shot Cooey 22 cal. rifle

where I was rationed

to one 22 short

and could only get

another round

by producing a dead pigeon

pigeons in the hay loft

ruined the hay with their scat

so at least during the day

I could get them out of the loft

and flying outside

by knocking them off

like a sniper

my best score was ten

one spring afternoon.

my other pastime was flying a homemade kite

out over the summer fallow

and watch the kite dance

about three hundred feet above me

a watch the hawks circling

waiting for them to dive

on unsuspecting gophers

and ground squirrels

with my hands

behind my head

listening to the buzz

of the insects

and the sounds of prairie song birds

the subject of my very first poem

know it Mrs. Hicks

your golden boy has remained faithful

love has never left this eight year old heart

even though it inhabits

a seventy six year old body

and where ever you are

your twenty first year

still

lives on

JWL