POEMS BY
JANICE NOTLAND
CONTENTS IN PRAISE OF
2 3 4 5 7 9
Swirl Of Finches Alive Artisan Cedar Tree Daily Breath Diminishing Light
THE WILD WITHIN
14 Cherry Tree 15 Constellations 16 Dreams Laid Down 17 The Gift 18 Stars 19 Something 20 Longing
LOVE AND BEYOND
24 An Ocean 25 Change 26 Ember 27 Love Grows 28 Love Is Funky 29 Linda’s Song 31 Exhale 32 What’s With The Onions? 34 Your Own Creation 36 Endless Night
TROUBLES
40 A Sharing 42 Abuse 43 Angel 45 Child Of Mine 46 Help 48 I Miss Those Days 49 Penetrable 50 The Best Of Days 54 We All Fall Down 55 Giving Hope
A BIT OF WHIMSY
58 Fuchsia 59 If Nothing Else 60 Tongue In … 61 Silhouette 63 Tangled Wood 64 Waiting 65 Wind Musician 66 Ode To Unseen Sunrises
NATURE’S REFLECTION
70 Creek 73 The Look Of Cold 74 Between Seasons 75 Dazzle 76 Bones
77 Water Diamonds 79 A Forest Full 82 An Awakening 83 Finding Focus 84 Ghosts 85 Grove Of Birch Trees 86 How Much
EVERYTHING 90 Animal Friend 91 Black Cub 93 Robins 95 Crow 96 Village Home 97 Night Noise 99 Adorned 100 Beneath The Snow 102 Crow Politics 103 October Flight
SORROW
106 Another Life 107 Drum 108 He Was A Man 110 The Way It Went 111 A Dying 113 Through The Spaces 114 Letters Not Written 115 Never Totally Gone 116 Mountain Man 118 Phone Call 119 Wishing On A Feather 122 Sifting Winds
TRANSFORMATION
126 Many Roads 127 Grey 129 Gateway 130 May She Rest In Peace 132 The Forgetting 133 Not Drowning 134 Home 135 Streams Of Heaven 136 Visitation 138 Keep Looking
THE UNKNOWN
142 Meeting 144 If We Really Knew 145 Lost Tribe 146 Crying Good 147 Old Man 148 Parting 149 Joy
IN PRAISE OF
I
n these poems I experience such a sense of awe at the blessings bestowed upon us in the form of the living world. In seeking to engage with the greater sphere of my soul, words feel inadequate in the presence of such mystery.
Yet applying language provides a movement towards that which is constantly drawing my attention away from the mundane and ordinary, and for the moment at least, I am free from the distorted thought forms of my mind and am able to experience what is, directly. Those moments are liberating and are what keep me flowing even within the confines of my human body.
1
SWIRL OF FINCHES A swirl of finches roller coaster through thinning branches atop a cedar, blessing with a flourish as deft as a wand. Displacing handfuls of snow they fall needles like miniature loggers laying bare new seeds. Diving in tandem, folding back in unison, carving off snow heavy in March, fooled into thinking it was spring. Listen now over there another distant sound; a continuous buzz of a chainsaw, contrasting sharply the silence of snow sealing up the land. But oh these finches survive, know so much require so little, it renews my heart with awe and joy.
2
ALIVE I need these living forests to feel my outstretched limbs move majestically through air stacked softly in layers. Trees speak, though silently so. I need to hear the music of the forest for my voice to tune to the sweetness of the wind, for my inflatable heart to swim in an ocean of steady joy. Joy felt in hollows embedded deep inside a creek, breath of trees, lungs of the land, suspended in liquid forever, flowing fast to the welcoming sea.
3
ARTISAN Autumn frost is due this morning. Walking out my kitchen door on grass made spongy, the cold north wind blown in. Sky with pillowcases of clouds lay shadowy streaks upon crystal blades, erect in the cool awakening. Suspended at the tip of a green leaf a tiny ball of liquid hangs within the foliage of a lilac tree. It is as red and delicate as a blown glass apple forged in an artisan’s shop. In a blaze of sunlight scarlet spins in and out of view— standing one inch out either way I lose it. A miracle it was seen in the first place; I wonder what else I haven’t seen right in front of my eyes every day.
4
CEDAR TREE A cedar dripping with melt water stands in luminous mounds of pure white snow. Alone in an open field where fissured patterns line the snow, this cedar stops all who walk by. In stillness droplets glint in the sunlight. On the other side of the road snow falls in a light syncopation on outstretched limbs in a forest thirsty for runoff. Patches of exposed red dirt poke through a landscape that has almost forgotten bare earth.   Freely I walk these country roads highway of bear and moose, deer, bobcat and elk. Where today chickadees call brightly from the forest. But how I walk is nothing compared to this cedar, upholding the world one branch at a time. 5
Utterly present in its shouldering of spring’s falling deluge to the great deep below. Its steadfast roots, reaching to the bottom of the world.  
6
DAILY BREATH Again I awaken surrounded by trees, breath of boughs discernible even in stillness of form. Have I nothing to say to this grace, no inflection no tone of wonder of what is living in these hills? I see wind picking through leaves drying and sorting; as a mother tends and dotes. Mountain chickadees sound amidst distant chainsaws pushing upon the land, retooling rawness. Earth hidden in change, yet in all ways unchanging behind bold configurations. I hear music outside my window swimming in the creek. My lips dare not mimic — rather, find my mouth wide and gaping.
7
I try to catch the dew evaporating from sea to sky, transported back from the roof of the world. Falling as sacrament fitting into breath; a taste of life descending fresh and wholly new.
8
DIMINISHING LIGHT It happens just like that. A wind gathers unto itself a flame of yellow leaves, to fan nature’s turning into winter’s dark night. Leaves hang damp, sparse in late autumn; soon, a low melody will dream a new way into a blowing wind. Heat stretches across the sky still tracking the sun, clamouring after warmth, seeking the dying light. In late afternoon sun I shiver on my porch, hypnotized by a forest awash in deep purple. A rising globe of white breaches the ridge, then drops behind a rim of silver crusted trees. A door closes.
9
Something otherworldly pervades the last luminous glare. A halo glistens in my yard clothing pearl bark of birch. It happened just like that. Winter gathered unto itself a flame of yellow leaves.
10
About the Author
J
anice Notland pours a wealth of life experience into her poetry. Born in Calgary, Alberta, she has made her home in metropolitan centres like Montreal and Vancouver, and smaller towns on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast and in the Kootenays. A former community and mental health care worker, she has settled in Kelowna, BC. Janice shares a love of the classics with her husband, musician Alan Rinehart, and spends her leisure time taking in the beauty of the Okanagan Valley.
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