catapult

it’s inside ribbed plastic bin 

    oma can I play with this now I’m five 

carry to the living room and open the world 

of medieval make believe with 

flying dragon 

    knights on horseback 

        castle pieces with turrets and towers 

            and small plastic boulders that fit in the spoon 

of the catapult

to be hurled across the room 

unleashed on the enemy 

behind the grey walls of the fortress 

and all disappears 

the chairs 

    the carpet 

           the tv 

                the windows 

until it’s time to find all the plastic balls 

and swords

    and helmets 

        and chains 

and put them back into the bin 

along with a piece of you 

catapulting through epochs of time

this cold

like large icicled 

fist holding strangled white world

weary with winter

pine tree in the wind (for Bob B.)

snowy ground underneath circled with 

needles     cones detritus 

solid trunk rises sixty feet 

green branches oscilating with 

the gusts of February fanning fists 

but the tree withstands endures

it was made for this with 

roots reaching deep beneath the snow 

into frozen ground 

    into Manitoba clay 

        into the tangle of pedigrees from other trees oh 

to be a pine tree 

needles facing wind with 

sharp confidence

rising from a circle of love

COVID birthday boy

he’s now five years old and

we stand on the snow in the front yard 

outside to be safe and follow pandemic guidelines 

snow underfoot crunching in 

twenty-five below we all wear winter togs 

and he stands smiling with his new gifts wrestled open 

on the stoop blue cupcake in 

mitten sparklers did not light in the icy wind 

but he eats the cold icing sweet under cloud of warm breath 

and we heartily sing the birthday 

song for all the neighbourhood to hear and

soft blushed cheeks tell the sweet story five years in the making