FOUR POEMS
by Amber Westfall
BEWITCHED
I fell heavily into Rumi for a spell
and decided to try my hand at devotional poetry-
this while paused in an October shadow
of grain elevators,
on the docks off Georgian Bay,
as sturdy tourists boarded the Miss Midland,
to take in autumnal splendor from the dark waters
of this great lake-
and so I thought:
Where does my devotion lay?
I found one answer in your sweet face
and a dream I had,
in which we sat side by each
where you took my hand
and I understood that you
knew
me,
and with that tactile knowledge
my heart abandoned reason.
Dear God, so this is love!
WHERE DOES MY DEVOTION LAY?
(Ode to Dog)It springs from your watchful look
across the room,
waiting for me to take my rest.
I listen expectantly for your steps,
that unfailingly bring you
to the bottom of my bed
where you spend the night
curled at my feet.
WHILE WE WERE TOGETHERAt the Art Deco exhibit in the ROM
I had you slung low at my waist
and you fell asleep in the cradle
of my pendulum arms
(sometime between 1912-1917).
You woke just as I paused
in front of Frank Lloyd Wright's
magnificent stained-glass window
for a schoolhouse
(was it around 1935?),
and I found one more answer
to that eternal question.
(I think you know the one I mean).
OCTOBER FIRST
It's another falldown day
after a morning spent
on finances.
My head hurting
in the numbers and columns,
frustrated attempts at making matches,
pulling off what seems like no small miracle to me.
Thinking:
if it were Hallowe'en,
I could dress up this archaic husbandry,
and I would be
the best chun tzu I could be.
That Confucian hostess at ideal ease
in every corner of this house,
down to the leaky basement office
with the orange and green carpet,
and outstanding cheque number six seventeen.
AMBER WESTFALL is currently seeking redeeming beauty in a suburb of Toronto, Ontario. She is a somewhat confused agnostic with a B.A. in Religious Studies and a penchant for interfaith dialogue and Eastern traditions. This is her second (incredibly fulfilling!) year as an assistant at L'Arche Daybreak - a faith-based community for people with intellectual and physical disabilities. She's been writing poems ever since she knew what a poem was.