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to remind us of eternity's slow measure: firey-leaved japanese star-maples, knarly-trunked wind-blown spruce, lacey white pine, miniature forests of mossy memories through which jutted iron-red rocks. You hosed cool the patio slates in sweltering August just before guests came to savour your famous ice-filled gin & tonics fragrant from fat fresh lime and to hear your hilarious stories, punch-lines impeccably timed. Later, when the gin wore off the comedian was eclipsed by your harsh German father who had little interest in you except when you were working, who sawed your antique cherry-wood hopechest table into two for firewood. The guests only met the man who threw back the rug and tapdanced beerily, red-faced w/ laughter, who skillfully played Christmas carols on the remaining 3 strings of the old violin, who gifted all with hand-made wreathes & table-pieces thick with marble-sized holly berries. So many years I wrestled with a cold king, grasping at that Crown, driving my dagger in dreams through his thigh, raging with adolecent oedipal rage at Victorian restrictions until the final flag was flung between us by the Viet Nam War and I found myself breathless, heart pounding in my rib-cage ,my axe now cutting down tree after tree deep in Canada's empty northern woods. |