old guys in shades ... (Faiers poem)

old guys in shades -
think Purdy on the A-frame lawn
Plantos  outdoors in Cabbagetown
Milt - cigar forward thrusting
I'm one now
Morley said I looked like Ray Charles
almost cool ...!
at the dam reading last summer

hair thinned & graying
and longhair not cool for decades anyway
youthful looks long gone
time to pose in dark sunglasses

on this springlike March 11th
Chase and I wandering farm roads
to avoid muddy snowmelt
on our usual bushland back trails

beer in my backpocket
swigged out of farmhouse sight
-
face in the sun - minutes pass
perpetual biscuit bribes to Chase
then I catch the pose -
old poet in shades
harsh face sunthrust -
wind sweeping gray hair
mind in the cosmos
crows in the fields
noble poetic posing

last swig of beer
transforms the loose-held Zywiec bottle
into a hoser Aeolian harp

a nimble mouse skips
free from roadside brush
tiny brown squirrel chitters
at licorice allsorts dog
and old guy in shades
poetic posings

Zywiec works its magic
and that kidney stone fragment ceases
its annoying journey to an outlet
all now perfect on these parallel ridgetops
miles north of Highay #7

this is Purdy Country
and I've caught myself mid-Purdy pose
much shorter and dumpier perhaps
but reminiscing - imagining - poeticizing
on this fragmented day
strange chest twinges
and stoney irritants forgotten
we pause too long on our sunny stroll

Chase and I continue ...
lovers on a 4-wheeler pass
between sugar shack rendezvous
we wave - and I lose my best pocketknife
stuffing the Zywiec bottle back pocket

this hike is a four-step
a boxed walk north of Deloro Road
we turn lake south and magic reveals
a damp glen of mystery - sexual

where teen boys - lured by tree nymphs
spurt virgin cum on mossy green mounds
nymphs will rub this spoil
ecstatically into woody hollows
to spawn fey ones humans only guess at

a statue to myself
like Milt thrusting Cuban cigars
skyward
like Al on the A-frame lawn
like Ted posing somewhere in Cabbagetown

old guys in shades
lucky to find solace
anywhere
harsh old faces sunthrust
dark shades protecting
minds in the cosmos
memories in the hollows
with wood nymphs and schoolboys


first draft March 11/2012
Marmora, ON