“Over-against”

It seems one can’t be Creenglish till one has tried both sides on
It’s only then one gets the feel for what is right and wrong
Within each culture in pure form, as near as one can go
Before one finds oneself outside both cultures – then one knows.

It is a rude awakening to find one does not fit,
Three years ago this month is when I felt the sting of it.
Baptism of that fire was bitter-sweet for me to taste
Relief to find my homeland – Echoland – was there with haste.

It came at once the moment when I saw I did not fit
Within the UC culture, then their group, then on from it
To when I asked with wonder – what for me a place alive?
The answer fast – ’twas Echoland – of books I’d written five.

I chose to wait three years, till now, before I acted much
Upon this information lest I make an awkward fuss
It takes a while for me to quiet from unsettling news
Especially when it call for big adjustments to my views.

I bought some clay the other day to help with edit task
A trick I learned – art therapy – let feelings outward pass
I ‘knew’ the people in my books each quite from inside out
But how to differentiate is what the clay’s about.

As each one rose from out the clay, or part at least of each,
Amazed I was, what then I saw, not similar the least –
It’s said that a percentage – thirty of each fiction guy
Emerges from experience the rest floats from the sky.

That’s good and bad – for hard it is to see each one apart
When high percentage of each one emerged from out my heart
But as I also let each one find form in front of me
Objectively they’d separate, e’en though of me I see.

I then picked up some drawing books to see what artists view
As they convey the detail which they see in me and you;
Amazed at what they see and how they put it on a page
The tell-tale signs of each of us regardless of our age.

I’m starting to see more in people as I walk around –
They way they hold their heads up high or look towards the ground,
The folds of skin around the eyes, the way our ears hook on,
How many ‘heads high’ are the models, skinny, lank and brawn.

It’s not I capture that on film then paste it on my folks,
It’s more I ‘know’ what each looks like – can’t tell which option ‘works’
They are already separate in my mind, just hard to say,
Which interferes with editing, for words must point the way.

The readers cannot read my mind, so clearer I must be,
At least give them enough to build a person they can see;
Yes, add some depth of character but not destroy their view –
As I work on each character, it’s as a gift for you.

I’m glad I waited these three years before I edit made,
For each one in the books I wrote a culture must be laid;
Much easier, at least I know, where I as author stand,
So I can let each person out in words, or clay in hand.

I hope that now as I return to editing these books
I’ll have the distance that I need to see how each one looks;
I hope that writing poetry improved my writing style;
I hope that research I must do makes all this work worthwhile.

It’s been a real good holiday, a welcome break for me
From all those trips to Winnipeg for health, and mom to see.
I’m looking forward to return of structure to my time,
Refreshed, I come back to my task, the break’s been quite sublime.

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