Category: Landscape

Poetry by Patrick Jennings
Read More
Tyaughton Caonoeing, Tyaughton Lake, Chilkotin Mountain Range, British Columbia, Canada

Fathers ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #197

Paddling
On a perfect day

I remember days long past
Of sunshine and calm
Depths still clear
At forty feet

The rod held
Expectantly
In your son’s hands

Paddle in yours
The strokes
A gentle
Powerful
Grace

You didn’t care for fishing
But I did
So out we went

My youth
A stream of summer memories
New England lakes
Bass and wallabies
A pickerel here and there
The perch and sunnies
Disdainfully thrown back

Paddling today
On a perfect day
I reflect on those times
And the times that would follow

Times of storms and dark clouds
Murky shallows
When we were not always
So gentle with each other
Awkward
Sometimes graceless
The depth of you
Forever unreachable

But still I knew you
As the father who’d take me out
For no more than the pleasure
Of my pleasure

That is
I knew
Always
That you loved me

You’ve been gone now
For longer than I ever had you

For your eulogy
I used the metaphor
Of the missing wingman
A natural for the pilot father

But on this day
Of sunshine and calm
Of depth and clarity
I notice a second paddle
Laying against the empty seat
Wishing your hands were upon it
So that once again
We could take on this task of living
With the harmony of paddling
Together

Continue reading Fathers ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #197
Poetry by Patrick Jennings
Read More
Into the Grey, Britannia Beach, Howe Sound, Sea to Sky Highway, British Columbia, Canada

On Carrying the Days

Time passes
The days accumulate

The good days
The bad days
The days that broke me
The days that healed me
The days I shone
The days I withdrew into shadow

These were the days which made me
These were the days of reckoning
These were the days which guide me

I carry them all
In my burgeoning knapsack
A dull weight
On my shoulders

Then one day
I realize
I carry a burden
Impeding my progress

So I stop at the side of the trail
Open my knapsack
Look inside

All these days!
All these dark days!
Why do I carry them?

I take out the bad days
Leave them beside the trail
Take out the broken days
Leave them beside the trail
Take out the days of shadow
Leave them beside the trail

The knapsack feels lighter
I walk easier
Manage even a skip in my step

Continue reading On Carrying the Days
Poetry by Patrick Jennings
Read More
Old Sound, Britannia Beach, Howe Sound, British Columbia, Canada

Before ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #190

I float
Gently
Back in time

To an age before
This silence of spirit
And its sorrows
These days of hardness
And slight assurances

Back to a time
Of no small beauty
When time itself
Came in an abundance
Applied to the creation
Of wondrous things
While wonder was divinely inspired

Meaning was no fleeting connection
And purpose a life’s rendition

Before profit and growth and ROI
Became ends and means and purpose

A time long before
The remains of this pier
Were ever a pier
Before ever a ship
Sailed these waters
Before any European left the shores
Of a land not yet named Europe

Gently floating
I let waves and bird song
Dominate the frantic race
Of engines on the highway behind me
Breathe the ocean deeply in
Exhale millennia of progress

For a moment, at least
I exist in a time before
All that I am
Was ever possible

Can I let this self die
This day
Allow a time before
To lead me
To a time that follows

Continue reading Before ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #190
Poetry by Patrick Jennings
Read More
Arc of the Earth, Smokey River Valley, Rocky Mountains, Alberta, Canada

The Mere Fact of Existence

Feeling the arc of Earth
Below me
Atmosphere
Thick with sky

Crossing terrain and distance
The minutes pass as days once did
For greater men than me
When only Prometheus
Had tested the sky

The land rolls by
All the while stoking awe

Not just for historical men
Bound to Earth
Also for this small speck of stone
This mote of blue
With its invisible billions
In an incomprehensible emptiness

Then, awe too for this small speck of flesh
His hubris of no small magnitude
Believing he matters at all
For the mere fact of knowing his existence

His feeble attempt for eternity
Words released into the twin fantasies
Of consciousness and silicone

Continue reading The Mere Fact of Existence