That old dinosaur bird came galumphing down the river Like an aeroplane on its last legs, Whose engine is bumping and jumping Through the twilit air.
Not the most graceful bird, But incredibly beautiful in a Picasso’ish kind of way, And Picasso would be thrilled to paint him If he had his time again, And make of that heron
A rapturously lovely, joyful, Sort of dazzling cubist display.
Uh oh, there he goes again! Crashing down so close to the water He could dip his long archaic beak Into the river and spear a fish. Or seize that crouching ginger cat watching him And flip it into the trees for the fun of it.
‘SPLASH’ he goes, and the whole river shudders, Other birds whistle and shake their heads, ‘Dinosaur bird,’ you can almost hear them say, ‘When are you ever going to learn to land In a proper, elegant, bird-of-flight’ish sort of way?’ But that bony bird doesn’t care. He just flaps away.
Growing older and having survived cancer at 40, a long time ago, certainly focuses the mind on the future and I was very aware of this when I wrote the poem FUTURE TENSE. I've always loved writing and still remember the excitement of the first longer piece of work I did. It was very experimental and I was certain it wouldn't get published. It probably wouldn't have but one of the small magazines, who did such great work for new writers, took that piece and many others. But that wasn't all they did. With infinite kindness, they often pointed out where I could improve my writing.
My first book was a picture book, MATTHEW AND HIS MAGIC KITE, but after that, I started wanting to capture the humour and interest of where I lived, so PRIVATE-KEEP OUT came next followed by KNOCK AND WAIT and ONE WAY ONLY. They're not biographies because all I wanted to do was to catch the spirit of those times.
It would be good if everyone wrote an account of their lives so their times are not lost. So many valuable histories unwritten and unread.
When I was a girl, I loved the American writer, BETTY MACDONALD, with her very funny accounts of her family and her life in the 1940's. But NORMAN MAILER's, 'THE NAKED AND THE DEAD' spun me up to the stars when I stumbled across it in the subscription library I belonged to at fifteen. ERNEST HEMINGWAY's 'CHRISTMAS IN PARIS 1923', was so sublime and beautiful it was like a torch for writers and the Toronto Star Weekly must have published it with joy in their hearts. I wonder if there still is a Toronto Star Weekly?
View all posts by gwengrant
