POETRY by Dawna Proudman
I began writing poetry while attending the University of Waterloo and continue to turn to writing as a way to express deep and complicated feelings, or, sometimes, just to celebrate small everyday miracles. ELEMENTS OF GRACE is a collection of my poems published by Brucedale Press in 2005. The blub on the back reads: "The poems in this book reflect the journey of a poet, chef, mother, artist and healer...contrasting the wry heat of emotion with the warmth of kitchen comforts. While honouring the shades, fears, and griefs of life, Dawna Proudman's words speak of redemption, healing, and finally, contentment." Available from Brucedale Press or send me a message. $16 plus shipping.
I've shared my unique approach to writing through Just Write! workshops since 1993. As a member of The League of Canadian Poets, funding is available for workshops in the schools. Contact me or visit https://poets.ca/ for more information.
From time to time I'll share more recent poems here.
ODE TO THE COMPANY OF POETS
(published in Bywords.ca, November 2021)
Everything’s a poem today:
the luminescent melted peanut butter
on my toasted cinnamon bagel
smiles at me like my grandfather’s face
each time we arrived at his door.
I’ve been away from here,
not just from home but from this
celebration, this hallelujah
that takes in the world, wraps it up
and sticks a bow on it.
Snippets of poems swirl around me.
Glorifying the minuscule, the ordinary,
the grotesque. The sponge toffee orange
mushroom caps, musty scent of swamps,
burning leaves, cedars and spruce,
the cocky dip of the blue jay’s head,
the golden cupped scythe of moon
the ain’t it weird and gloriousness
of being human, being broken and tempered,
heated, molten, vaporous, and then,
deep breath out, deep breath in,
solid again.
We laugh about ear wax and snot,
talk about bullies and victims,
the fuzzy and uncomfortable stuff we wanted to hide
until someone said “I love that about you”
or “I’ve done that too.”
Words blast and bless us
like power washers dusting off the
“hope you like me” smiles --
the “fuck you if you don’t” grimaces --
all of us excavating all we know
or think we know, the seen and unseen,
like the underside of our skin,
or a new set of teeth, foreign, intimate
inviting our tongue to lick us over and over
like a mother cleaning a new born kitten
all the backwards facing spines on her tongue
stripping our meat from our bones
until we feel well and truly home
ENOUGH
I plant gardens
harvest fresh peas and beans,
at peace at last
with the loneliness I wrestled
all my life,
this nest I come home to now,
this place of rest
and restoration
where a glimpse of a cardinal's wings,
or jostling clouds
layering grey over white, striations over poufs,
or a foxglove opening its trumpet
revealing it's speckled throat
is enough
this joy I've come so late
to embrace, is what my daughter
and her children offer up
their faces gleaming,
sunlight on waves
exuberance racing
transcendent skies
I'm a junkie,
celebrating their highs
lost when they leave
until I go down to the shore alone again
fill my lungs with what is left
this life I feather
with all there is to love
BROKEN
The drowned, it was said, could be heard at night singing.
Why do you never set out while you can?
It’s fix yourself now or always be broken.
A grave, a stringless guitar, a last song.
(Steven Heighton. “Gravesong”. Jan. 2002)
What if the broken bits are mosaics,
pasted together with pain and joy?
What if, instead of wondering why
so many people left
I’m ready to embrace those who stayed?
What if the wounds and blemishes,
imperfect, jagged, raw,
are as intriguing as the taste
of a new lover’s scars and skin?
What if the way I’ve cobbled myself together
with mea culpas and tithes
with moans and blessings
glows now, like stained glass
when the light shines through?
ONE CLEAR NOTE
If we’ll but give it time, a work of art
‘can rap and knock and enter in our souls’
and re-align us – all our molecules –
to make us whole again.
– Address at Simon Fraser, P.K. Page
our hollow hearts -- held gingerly as
the pulsing nugget in the narrow cage
of a sparrow’s breast
heaving beneath one broken wing
the other wing insufficient,
useless on its own
and trembling without pause --
see only danger – and rage perhaps
the flight of imagination lapsed but
if we’ll but give it time, a work of art
grows from coals we thought long dead
fanned with each peek and pause
to note the silver sky beyond
the barn’s slick red roof
or linger over the scent of apples beneath
the bitter caress of wood smoke
or the tangle of branch and root with elements
outlasting even the most cherished miseries
no matter how empty-hearted the world
‘can rap and knock and enter in our souls’
take hold of something old and enduring
the way seeds know how to grow
to push and creep through crevices
guzzle mere smidgens of dew
force leaf and flower and fruit
unfurling into the world no matter how unyielding
a word, a line, one clear note
can smote the recesses of our despair
fill our choking lungs with fragrant air
and re-align us – all our molecules –
a shriveled mouth opens in toothless elation
hearing one line, from one known poem
“There are strange things done in the midnight sun”*
a life unfolds and she is young
old bones no matter how cold hold the seeds
the beginnings, the heat, the long cool nights
face afire, blood thrumming in response
a child will clap, colour, sing and skip
the world creates all we need to fill us up
to make us whole again
*The Cremation of Sam McGee" by Robert Service
BECOMING
the blood
the rending
unending bracing
my daughter's pain
inescapable
three times
she's given birth
her foot on my thigh
for the final few pushes
the pushing and holding
nurses and doctors discussing
problems I can do nothing
to resolve
holding strong
because this is all we have
this breath and the next
each child delivered
safe and perfect into
our arms, clarifying
this is all that matters,
these infants new to the world,
these beginnings without blemishes
we cocoon for a short while
then release into the world
again, holding our breaths,
hoping for blessedness
knowing all the while
our powerlessness
to give any more than we can:
our love, gratitude, hope,
ever rushing cascades of hope