Don't Beware
I recall a day that seems decades ago,
When I walked down a grassy path.
Prior to - my constitutional bath -
I craved a desire to know:
�Who was the first to bravely hike out and see
The wonders of our blissful home?
Who fearlessly stepped out their door to roam
Beneath the leaves of a maple tree?�
So off I then stepped from that straight grassy path
Onto soil of a past unmade.
In no time at all, my valor did fade,
And I cowardly forsook my rath.
�Tomorrow!� I said, �I will try this again,
Mysterious land I will see!
Hardly a challenge, I this time won�t flee,
I will cling to my previous plan.�
So now you must see (I won�t lead you astray),
That fear has no place in our world.
Had I not gone back to that path, unfurled,
I would not beware I am today.
The Gravedigger
How deep does the gravedigger dig
Through the glacial hue of frosty soil?
On an endless eve of the whitest snow
The gravedigger digs in the driest cove
�Till death is but a dash of dirt away.
The taste of steel meets wand�ring worm
To endeavor the task of earth unfirm,
And plant the dead so flesh and bone decay.
When all the life of earth has gone,
And foot nor claw nor paw does spawn,
No graves to dig � so ask you this I may;
�When the gravedigger comes to end
A morbid life which he did tend,
Who will plant the gravedigger�s bone cach�?�
Toronto, 2004
Shakespeare! you should be living at this hour;
My how Toronto needs you; he is a den
Of soiled water: priest, pig, and politician,
Our blue maple leaf and CN tower
Are lackluster; missing a strident power
To ostentatiously show off - selfish men!
Oh! Resurge him, magical muse, and when
You do, his sins and filth may you devour.
Your pen was like the warm red sun, and Art
Was made when shone on paper from God's one tree.
He requires a bard to write him free.
An iconoclast you were not, in your day -
In cheerful godliness; but before you start,
Know that He is my home, and there I'll stay.
