Guest Poem by James Deahl

James Deahl was born in Pittsburgh during 1945 and grew up in that city as well as in and around the Laurel Highlands of the Appalachian Mountains. He moved to Canada in 1970. He is the author or editor of over thirty books (mostly poetry), his most recent title being Awareness, which he shares with Katherine L. Gordon. A cycle of his poems is the focus of a one-hour American television special, Under The Watchful Eye. As a literary critic, Deahl has written about Milton Acorn, Raymond Souster, and Bruce Meyer, as well as sixteen leading poets of the Confederation Period, and he has presented university lectures on Alden Nowlan, Robert Kroetsch, Canadian Postmodernism, and on the People’s Poetry tradition.

Scarlet Roses of October

for Norma

The sun near the harbour turns maple leaves
into stained glass windows. Sailboats head out
to celebrate this Indian Summer day
before autumn’s storms set in. Norma and
I watch a freighter pass the harbour’s head
on her way to Europe. All is quiet.

Sitting on a bench like the young lovers
we feel we are, we have nothing pressing,
just this late October day to savour.
A few full-blown roses light up the garden.
We feel no guilt at our apparent
lassitude, for these flowers bloom only
for us. We’ll embrace them as our emblem.