Along the sidewalks of Somerset Street
People pass upon purposeful feet
Rice and noodles up for all
We each hear the call
Come! There is much here to eat.

From the western end we embark
Just near where we usually park
On the street's sunny side
Past diverse shops we stride
Windows hung with ducks roasted dark.

To the place we were aiming to get
A table with chopsticks is set
There we eat such a meal
That it fills us with zeal
A lunch that we won't soon forget.

We are just back from an autumnal walk.
Gold, red, and yellow lead green by a nose
And the sharper neighbourhood edges are softened
With leaf piles that fill the dips and voids.

We are just in from a loop around the 'hood.
The unseasonable warmth has even coerced
Teenagers onto patches of parkland to play ball
While their digital assault rifles go unused.

We have returned from exposure to the environs.
A long summer of incremental house adjustments
Pauses for the interim, so neighbours can await
The soon-to-be revised ostentation index.

We are inside again at the end of an autumn day.
Dying rays of sunlight filter through windows and half-bare trees.
Free warmth leaves us to rely upon the furnace
And savour anonymity among the bricks, stucco and vinyl.

Go toward the bright sun's glare upon the snow,
Test the crust underfoot and trek to the west.
There are no footprints here, we are like the air,
That rattles leaves and hammers the tundra flat.

Call to the ghosts of the now forgotten fall,
Sinter white coals in the furnace of winter
Gneiss, feldspar, mica and granite all of ice
Frost like barbed wire, icy borders to be crossed.

Wend through the trees, with the thawing wind I send,
Found now, the sun's heat arrives without a sound,
Among grassy fields laid bare, a song is sung.
Free of ice and wind, that brings you here to me.

A little poem to celebrate!
Alice Munro is so literate!
Accolades? There's no debate!
A Nobel Prize is commensurate!

Euphoria! Climb, energetic and prostrate yourself!
Walking each graffiti hajj
Bleak signal from an indigo mountaintop.
Iraq memoir remains constant.
You, Pavlov knew,
Coax solitary jazz.

She always knew of my old problems,
Still I managed, always finding a way onward.
From empty conversation about silly, obvious subjects
Or turning our conversation always back upon her.

Even now, I find it hard upon reflecting,
A challenge, it remains out beyond a grasp.
Our words unspoken will always haunt us.
Though our bonds offer strength and years of promise.

I, on the cold, clear days,
Found that the best hours arrive after dark,
And in the cool night
Even those that avoid people
Would find the cold makes them reach
Toward warming embraces offered humanely
Carefully, selflessly, typically
Without malice, scorn, tear nor sigh.