Five Poems by Wendy Freborg

 

SCHOOL FOR THE GODS

Creation I

 

The adolescent deities took their seats with jostling,

showing off their blooming strength, 

trying out the thundering voices

that sometimes cracked instead of roared.

 The teaching goddess shook her head.

“Accepting godlings, graduating gods,”

was written on the school’s celestial gates.

What a long way these young ones were from majesty!

First lectures on the stuff of stars, then projects:

plans on paper, presentations to the class.

Divine spittle and wads of paper sailed across the room.

Order was restored and they were sent to Lab.

“A fine job, Yahweh.

The blue waters, now separated from the land,

Make your Earth shine like a sapphire in the sky.

Have a good vacation.”

Creation II

“Gods and goddesses, please take your seats!

We have important work this term.

You are the chosen few. 

The gods who failed Creation now will work for you.”

Yahweh created swarms of living creatures, 

some for the land, some for the sea, some for the air.

And the teacher said that it was good.

Creation III

Elective: creating creatures who talk back.

(Many fledgling gods omit this part.

Who would blame them?

Plants flourish and then perish,

beasts run gracefully across a world and die,

never troublesomely asking, ‘Why?’)

Yahweh sculpted models and discarded them,

then, vain beginner that he was,

he made a humankind that looked like him.

“Be fruitful and multiply,” he told them.

What a paradise Earth was!

The teacher said that it was good, 

and he has rested all vacation.

First published in the poetry workshop Verse Virtual, October 2014 (Vol 1 No2).

HOW LOVE ENDS

Love comes into your life like the Bolshoi Ballet,

with fanfare and whirling pirouettes.

When it goes, it slips out the back door

at a time when you aren’t even looking.

It’s the same moment as when evening turns to night.

FIRST WEEK MOTHER

She’s been drooled on,

spit up on, peed on, shat upon,

and her bed smells like the dairy case

in a low-rent corner store. 

The marinating has begun, 

she’ll be a seasoned parent soon.

ADVICE TO JIM

I like to say, "I love you,”

I like to see him smile.

I like to know that he knows that I do —

and that he still wants me to.

Movie men are strong and silent. 

Movie ladies play hard to get.

Their plots grow from the conflict 

that feeds on games and doubt. 

Their films fade out on happy endings

but love for life is one long denouement

and it's easy for couples to lose touch —

You can't say "I love you" too much.

IN SEARCH OF ELVES

Where is the light, the shine, the glow,

the silver bells that used to decorate the world?

Disintegrating, disappearing,

they have left behind a tinkling trail

that fades in the mist. 

It begs for me to follow it, 

but when I try, I’m lost.

Wendy Freborg is a retired social worker and former editor who writes poetry and humour. Her work first appeared in print in 1964 when the magazine Ingenue published one of her poems. More recently, her poems have appeared in Rat’s Ass Review, Right Hand Pointing, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Misfit, and WestWard Quarterly and her humour in Little Old Lady Comedy and Defenestration. Her life includes a small family, enough friends, too many doctors and not enough dogs. Her pleasures are her family, crossword puzzles, learning new things, and remembering old times.