Dee Evetts
Essay #14 March/April 2023
It was 1989 in the Slocan Valley, in the Kootenay Mountains of British Columbia. The Upper Valley could be reached in those days — just as now — by two principal routes. That from the north involved a remote and infrequent ferry followed by a long drive. From the south, a far more direct approach involved running the gauntlet of single-track road cut into the face of a thousand-foot cliff. On average — it was claimed — two motorists a year were swept by rockfalls into Slocan Lake, dizzyingly far below. Today, following the blasting away of several million tons of rock, there is a veritable highway, with acres of steel mesh hung in curtains from above to contain the rock slides that still occur.
And the relevance of this? You may very well ask. It was the sense of isolation — the other-worldliness. At the same time, these were the waning years of so-called hippie freedom (which I tend to think endured rather longer in remote areas than in urban ones). The last hurrah, if you like, for making our own rules — for working out an alternative code of morals and behavior.
Be that as it may, as a relative newcomer to the Valley I found myself inexplicably at the birthday party of an upcoming B.C. poet and local resident, who later became a friend and collaborator on a series of four kasen renga (renku, if you wish) over a span of as many summers. Among the people she had invited to her party were her ex-husband, her partner of ten years who succeeded him, and her current lover. I anticipated an awkward occasion, but was proved quite wrong. The three men sat together and consumed large quantities of birthday cake while swapping stories about their hostess’s eccentric mother in California.
This was a time of endearing optimism, and a belief in particular that love — and friendship equally — could and should transcend jealousy. Out of that era came these “zero-loss” moments, as I conceived them to be, that I attempted to record in haiku:
my former lover the Milky Way:
steps over me in the dark she squeezes in
to nurse her son between husband and ex
Today there are doubtless still such naifs among us, though I think they tend to keep a lower profile than we did. Be that as it may, the overall tone now seems more down to earth, less idealistic.
winter afternoon — still and all
filling the flat tire news of my ex’s divorce
for my ex-wife unsettles me
There is a tenderness as well as a sense of ongoing commitment in these poems, by Michael Cross and Charles Trumbull respectively. Such declarations offer a modicum of faith in humanity, and some kind of footpath that leads us toward sane and civilized behavior. Inevitably there remains that main thoroughfare — which to some extent all of us make use of — where small jealousies and resentments continue to rankle, along with imagined acts of petty revenge. I appreciate the honesty apparent in the four poems below, by Stacy Prendergast, Tony Pupello, Nancy Young, and John Stevenson.
my ex’s wife family reunion:
serves me cherry pie his ex squeezes
on our old chipped china fresh lemonade
the stillness Father’s Day
when I call him she tells me
by my ex’s name I’m not the father
A feeling of chagrin — or is it simply quiet amusement? — pervades the first of these. I admire the telling detail, “chipped”. Take that away and you have a much more ordinary poem. On what seems to be a similar sort of occasion (for at least these folk are not only talking to one another, they are actually eating together) in Pupello’s poem I detect some intriguing undertones in his use of the words “squeezes” and “fresh”. There is sensuality here, I find. Could that be lingering Desire that we glimpse skulking behind the lilac bushes?
Nancy Young’s “the stillness” could transmit a chill to many readers, I would guess. On whichever side of this experience we find ourselves, it is one of those frozen moments — the utterance that cannot be withdrawn. But what is more natural, after all, when one has lived with another person for so many years? Is it then not forgivable in the present? If it is not, surely then suffering is being unnecessarily invited. (Though all this is easily said.) Meanwhile I see Stevenson’s poem as the outsider in this group. This is because we cannot know — there is simply no way of telling — where to locate this experience in time. My hunch is that it is post-divorce, possibly even years later. Equally well, of course, it can be read as one episode in a messy break-up — or even indeed the final catalyst for separation. However you look at it, it seems a spiteful act that has been deliberately and cruelly timed.
After that a dose of humor is what we need, and here is Roberta Beary to provide it:
family picnic
the new wife’s rump
bigger than mine
I find this hilarious, and gloriously truthful. The poet is not claiming to be svelte; she merely observes that her successor is more ample in the nether regions. This strikes me as a fine example of domestic schadenfreude. Others might simply call it catty. Either way the poet has hit her mark. I particularly applaud the choice of “rump”, with its various bovine and equine connotations. Of all the countless terms available — polite and coarse alike — this was definitely the right word for the job in hand.
Coming down from what feels like a haiku poet’s version of a contact high, let me steer back towards the more mundane (though far from unimportant): the whole business and paraphernalia of shared custody. Tom Painting, John Stevenson, and Claire Gallagher have provided the following glimpses of what has to be at best a complicated business:
my toddler Christmas Day
helps pack her travel bag the exchange
co-custody of custody
weekend custody —
granite boulders grow
from remaining snow
A first reaction to Painting’s toddler might be feelings of compassion or even pity that such a young person would have this additional challenge in life, so very early on. I think this could be a misguided response, bordering in fact on the sentimental. My own perspective regarding this derives from having been confined to bed, after contracting rheumatic fever, for over two years from the age of five onward. I never felt sorry for myself during that time — merely cross sometimes that I could not go outdoors to play with my siblings. It was simply the new normal in my life, and I did not question it. I can easily imagine that shared custody — assuming two loving parents — might be experienced in a very similar way.
Stevenson, with what I think of as a characteristic irony, brings attention to the mechanics (so to speak) of stage-managing such holidays as Christmas. Likely enough, again, the child or children in question will be only too happy to get “two Christmases”, so long as this is harmoniously managed. The sub-text here is that the adults are apparently not exchanging any gifts, and this does cast a measure of doubt on their relationship as co-parents.
Gallagher’s haiku is by far the most elusive of these three. Is it that the weekend is dragging, and the poet spends considerable periods of time staring out the window at the effects of a thaw that is evidently in progress? I am not quite sure. I do know that the poem conveys to me a deep feeling, something akin to sadness — and yet not quite that, exactly. A measure of apprehension seems to be in the mix; those boulders have a potentially ominous aspect.
I shall close this essay with two rather quiet poems, both of which have the quality of lingering on in the mind. Tom Tico is the author of this one:
Divorced years ago . . .
but the pine that we planted
towers over her yard.
I feel no inclination to say anything about this, save to observe that it is transparent, open, and timeless.
And finally this, from Marcus Larsson:
her children
far ahead of mine
winter shore
There are so many ways of interpreting this picture. I have tried it different ways, and always return to my initial response. Whatever the details or circumstances may be, I receive a strong intimation of friendship, above all else.
