Todd Anderson (Stuff of the Rind, Sand and Sail, The Reluctant Prophet) writes the newsletter Mirth to share a behind-the-scenes look at his writing process as well as to offer readers the first fruits of his poetry and reflections. He grew up in the forests of small-town Ontario, contending against nature in all its beauty and harshness. His training as a literary scholar of Latin and English literature inflects his love of poignant turns of phrase, but it is the influence of his family and their myriad adventures together that infuses his story-telling and poetry with its substance and power. Todd lives and writes in Ottawa with his wife and six children. If you are interested in supporting Todd’s work, please follow the links below to donate or buy his books.
Todd Anderson (Stuff of the Rind, Sand and Sail, The Reluctant Prophet) writes the newsletter Mirth to share a behind-the-scenes look at his writing process as well as to offer readers the first fruits of his poetry and reflections. He grew up in the forests of small-town Ontario, contending against nature in all its beauty and harshness. His training as a literary scholar of Latin and English literature inflects his love of poignant turns of phrase, but it is the influence of his family and their myriad adventures together that infuses his story-telling and poetry with its substance and power. Todd lives and writes in Ottawa with his wife and six children. If you are interested in supporting Todd’s work, please follow the links below to donate or buy his books.
Unsought miles of land roll down from mountainside As children nestle ‘round their grinning father And strive to show their lineage to all. A skad of Saskatoons await the dawn, Entangling Poplar, Spruce, or barbed fence posts. I see the dark stain of purple berries Upon my daughter’s hands. She has feasted On each small wonder in this restful place, While I, without a care, wander midst mulch, Axe in hand swinging lazy at my side. Below the chief of mountains, a river Curls and bends, chortling among mud and stone, While far above, children fly down dirt roads, Laughing as they steer toward adventure. My wife, cozy in the kitchen, opens Heart and mind to scripture, finding there as here A refuge brimming full of heav’nly peace.
photo by Hannah Anderson
Todd Anderson (Stuff of the Rind, Sand and Sail, The Reluctant Prophet) writes the newsletter Mirth to share a behind-the-scenes look at his writing process as well as to offer readers the first fruits of his poetry and reflections. He grew up in the forests of small-town Ontario, contending against nature in all its beauty and harshness. His training as a literary scholar of Latin and English literature inflects his love of poignant turns of phrase, but it is the influence of his family and their myriad adventures together that infuses his story-telling and poetry with its substance and power. Todd lives and writes in Ottawa with his wife and six children. If you are interested in supporting Todd’s work, please follow the links below to donate or buy his books.
Cedar grimace in cold summer showers While lonely pools drown out the undergrowth, Exposing ragged roots to somber air. The storm has passed but its wild mark remains. Birch and Hawthorne, skewered by tongues of fire, Lay spent in the mud, never more to rise. Rain obscures our memory, washing out Years of triumph or trouble with urgent Summons to attend the trials of today. All manner of griefs crowd in together, Not sorrow of friends forever parted, But menial tasks unfulfilled, holding Hostage the nobler part of us that yearns For purpose unfettered by the mundane. And worse, these small tyrannies numb our hearts At the parting hour, as expectations Of a free and undiscovered country Displace our care for loved ones still at hand. But now, in looking back at those who wave Even as they weep, I cannot find my tears. Alas! These trees weep; these friends also weep. What can I say? These words, these tears, are for you.
Todd Anderson (Stuff of the Rind, Sand and Sail, The Reluctant Prophet) writes the newsletter Mirth to share a behind-the-scenes look at his writing process as well as to offer readers the first fruits of his poetry and reflections. He grew up in the forests of small-town Ontario, contending against nature in all its beauty and harshness. His training as a literary scholar of Latin and English literature inflects his love of poignant turns of phrase, but it is the influence of his family and their myriad adventures together that infuses his story-telling and poetry with its substance and power. Todd lives and writes in Ottawa with his wife and six children. If you are interested in supporting Todd’s work, please follow the links below to donate or buy his books.
The window stood open The window which lay forever closed Now stood open to the twilight And the child pressed against her cheek Spoke no sound nor cried out Nor would she move Bright cheek against a pale cheek Neither moving but all quiet Her hair golden shining in candle light Against her mother’s cheek just so And nothing to be done While on rolled twilight While the window lay ghastly open Symbol to the future of that child Exposed by each and every twilight hence And still she held cheek to cheek And still she lay still in fear While the doctors watched their reputations And the watches raced their hands around their faces Raced and raced the quicker And then the quivering “Mama!” Trembled the eyelids of her mother With a shadow’s shadow of a smile Then twilight ebbed and all was calm
Todd Anderson (Stuff of the Rind, Sand and Sail, The Reluctant Prophet) writes the newsletter Mirth to share a behind-the-scenes look at his writing process as well as to offer readers the first fruits of his poetry and reflections. He grew up in the forests of small-town Ontario, contending against nature in all its beauty and harshness. His training as a literary scholar of Latin and English literature inflects his love of poignant turns of phrase, but it is the influence of his family and their myriad adventures together that infuses his story-telling and poetry with its substance and power. Todd lives and writes in Ottawa with his wife and six children. If you are interested in supporting Todd’s work, please follow the links below to donate or buy his books.
Our door is hardly knocked now. It opens and closes to laughter: “Come in” shouted from living rooms. There is a thought. A room alive! And what makes it so, but living souls Lounging half-aware in splendid daze? Or rapt to some performance keen, Waiting for our part: head-back-blast Of air and joy mingling as one. Living rooms may be sent to Earth’s end Or come to mind years from now, Reviving the old memories (Who sat where or words of power). Though nourishing for a time, Memories soothe with greater pangs And most wound where they would heal. The wind is moving and the door Swings wide upon its hinges. Yet, we clutch a shared memory Of still wider doors flung wide And longings for that home to come Satisfied at last by His “come in.”
Todd Anderson (Stuff of the Rind, Sand and Sail, The Reluctant Prophet) writes the newsletter Mirth to share a behind-the-scenes look at his writing process as well as to offer readers the first fruits of his poetry and reflections. He grew up in the forests of small-town Ontario, contending against nature in all its beauty and harshness. His training as a literary scholar of Latin and English literature inflects his love of poignant turns of phrase, but it is the influence of his family and their myriad adventures together that infuses his story-telling and poetry with its substance and power. Todd lives and writes in Ottawa with his wife and six children. If you are interested in supporting Todd’s work, please follow the links below to donate or buy his books.
The funny thing about beauty She never turns herself off Oh she may turn a corner Or dance with sweeping grace Beyond a fair horizon But you never catch her becoming She has no seat by the mirror Needs no foundation or coffee But to the ear or eye or at a touch Suddenly she strikes the waiting soul
Todd Anderson (Stuff of the Rind, Sand and Sail, The Reluctant Prophet) writes the newsletter Mirth to share a behind-the-scenes look at his writing process as well as to offer readers the first fruits of his poetry and reflections. He grew up in the forests of small-town Ontario, contending against nature in all its beauty and harshness. His training as a literary scholar of Latin and English literature inflects his love of poignant turns of phrase, but it is the influence of his family and their myriad adventures together that infuses his story-telling and poetry with its substance and power. Todd lives and writes in Ottawa with his wife and six children. If you are interested in supporting Todd’s work, please follow the links below to donate or buy his books.
The sky behind the clouds Was baby blue and the clouds Were peach and stately canvas for the sun And the sun was marching Away from palette and brush And the palette was drying out But the brush was still full of oil And the oil mixed in the bristles And mixed on the canvas But the bristles could not know The magic they delivered to me that evening – A magic undisturbed by streets And shadows and dim lights That paint shadows from above the street – A magic trailing off to west And the peach clouds followed As sheep relaxed and pure Wander to the stable and find rest.
Todd Anderson (Stuff of the Rind, Sand and Sail, The Reluctant Prophet) writes the newsletter Mirth to share a behind-the-scenes look at his writing process as well as to offer readers the first fruits of his poetry and reflections. He grew up in the forests of small-town Ontario, contending against nature in all its beauty and harshness. His training as a literary scholar of Latin and English literature inflects his love of poignant turns of phrase, but it is the influence of his family and their myriad adventures together that infuses his story-telling and poetry with its substance and power. Todd lives and writes in Ottawa with his wife and six children. If you are interested in supporting Todd’s work, please follow the links below to donate or buy his books.
When women came at evening to draw, The foreigner stilled his thirsty camels. Clay jar in hand, Bethuel’s daughter Descended to the spring, as ev’ry virgin Descended, rising rich in water. Had he lingered while she passed, Shouldering her burden back to town, Another might have heard the cry, “I thirst” And felt a golden ring pierce her sweet nose. What lass could know the camels were a sign, Hard panting with a naked sun behind? Not nature, but her heart taught best to serve Where chores were thick and family most thin.
Todd Anderson (Stuff of the Rind, Sand and Sail, The Reluctant Prophet) writes the newsletter Mirth to share a behind-the-scenes look at his writing process as well as to offer readers the first fruits of his poetry and reflections. He grew up in the forests of small-town Ontario, contending against nature in all its beauty and harshness. His training as a literary scholar of Latin and English literature inflects his love of poignant turns of phrase, but it is the influence of his family and their myriad adventures together that infuses his story-telling and poetry with its substance and power. Todd lives and writes in Ottawa with his wife and six children. If you are interested in supporting Todd’s work, please follow the links below to donate or buy his books.
This week’s analysis concerns a piece from my Collected Poems in which a scene of Springtime gives rise to reflections on parting.
Sparrow I know her by her soft wings When she visits in springtime. Now gone among the lilacs at lakeside, My girl is gone from me. On the ridge a hedgerow hides a nest. Soft matins offered there When I pass early in the morn Offered no more. In mind’s eye, I see far off her low arc curl and cape. Flit and flit from branch to fledgling branch Dear one. You are not lost, Though all your yearnings yet remain. Where can we dwell If not in the heart of others?
Since the poem lacks a formal metrical structure and rhyme scheme, the lion’s share of the work is performed by syntax and alliteration. There are eight sentences in total; let’s unpack each.
I know her by her soft wings When she visits in springtime.
“When” is a relative pronoun that generates a temporal hypotactic clause. You do not need a technical description to feel this grammatical reality as you read, but it helps us articulate the poetic effect of the sentence. The first clause, “I know her by her soft wings”, since it arrives first in our minds, is experienced as a complete scene. Because it is in the present tense, we imagine the speaker’s knowledge of the “soft-winged” thing to be an on-going, existential one. We assume he sees this bird often, perhaps even on a daily-basis. “When”, in line two, arrests this blissful statement and rearranges it in light of another reality: time. It’s not merely that the speaker “knows” the sparrow when he sees it. Now his sight of the creature is constrained by discrete moments and seasons. The “when” binds the sentence – forcing a relationship between two clauses that might have stood on their own: “I know her by her soft wings. She visits in springtime”. This forced relationship between clauses is hypotaxis (hypo – “over” or “governed by” and taxis – “arrange” or “order”) and like other tools in a writer’s toolkit (metaphor, simile, rhyme, meter), establishes a pattern to be managed and accounted for.
Now gone among the lilacs at lakeside, My girl is gone from me.
This portion introduces two interpretive steps withheld by the first sentence. “Now gone” moves us from an ambivalent or hopeful reading of the first lines, in which the speaker was poised to tell us all about the wonderful visitation of his favourite bird just returned at the cusp of Spring. The reader associates this departure with the bird hinted at in the title and line one, but the second half of the second sentence forces another interpretive step. All this time, the bird was a metaphor for a girl, which causes the reader to reevaluate their reception of earlier lines, not by discarding the image of the bird, but by learning to see double – to carry forward bird and girl together. With this new pattern in place, phrases like lilacs at lakeside, which stand out due to the alliteration, are a fresh opportunity to imagine meaning in either direction. On the one hand, it is easy to envision a sparrow resting on lilac branches with their beautiful violet blossoms. On the other, “lilacs at lakeside“ becomes a symbol for affection between the speaker and the girl – perhaps a nostalgic scene of profession (if a romantic interpretation is in view) or familial wonder (if we imagine a mother or father watching their little girl pick flowers by the shore).
On the ridge a hedgerow hides a nest.
This sentence releases the emotional pressure of the previous two by steering our attention away from reflections on loss and away from bird and girl to an adjacent interest. Alliteration helps to loosen the heavy grip of nostalgia; “ridge a hedgerow hides” offers a playful auditory interlude – it is fun to say aloud (like a minor tongue-twister) and delivers a new subject not entirely detached from the lake or the lilacs, since it is nestled within them, but like all good nests, becomes a momentary reprieve from the danger of longing. Notice the interlocking pattern of sounds: r – dg – h – dg – r – h – d.
Soft matins offered there When I pass early in the morn Offered no more.
The nostalgic eye returns to devour this new object by repeating the temporal hypotaxis above, including the brief trick of a hopeful opening clause (“I know her by her soft wings”). Here we get, “soft matins offered there”, connecting the innocence of a hopeful morning song to a nest tucked away in the brush. The “when” in the second line both constrains and leaves unfulfilled the pressure of “offered there” because it is an incomplete thought, forcing the reader to incorporate “offered no more”, which sours the brief sweetness of the speaker’s regular habit. In other words, the hypotaxis forces the reader to experience the same sourness at the level of grammar, since we don’t want to move beyond the idyllic morning music of birds roused to rejoicing by spring sunrise.
In mind’s eye, I see far off her low arc curl and cape.
This sourness is extended by abstraction. The temporal hypotaxis deployed above, which allowed the speaker to relive the moment of the sparrow’s return and sweet morning walks hearing its song from a hidden nest, gives way to memory alone – removed from tangible encounters to a remote, intellectual apprehension. Hence the prepositional phrase that governs a new kind of inner sight and presses home the distance between speaker and bird. Again, alliteration steps in to bear the reader: f – r – f – l – r – c – c – r – l – c.
Flit and flit from branch to fledgling branch Dear one.
Finally, the speaker addresses the bird directly in the form of a command. The oldest forms of the verb “to “flit” meant, “to convey or carry”; this developed into the meanings “to flow, run,” and finally into our modern idea “to go swiftly, lightly or to dart.” All three etymological meanings are in view in the speaker’s imperative. He is saying to the bird or girl: “carry forward my love – bring it with you on your way”; “flow, float along, run untouched by sorrow and free from cares of this world”; “like a butterfly or the sparrow, embrace with joy and agility life’s opportunities, ready to pivot and turn.” The bird and girl are united in the substantive adjective “dear one”.
You are not lost, Though all your yearnings yet remain.
Here hypotaxis does opposite work to the temporal versions above. Instead of constraining our hope, the concession “though” reinforces it. “You are not lost” is proclaimed despite the presence of yearnings, which would be received in a fundamentally different spirit if it were structured, “You are not lost, but all your yearnings yet remain”. The yearnings are made subordinate – they are significant and impactful, but cannot overcome the reality of the girl’s identity and belonging. Charting a new course, beginning a fresh adventure, carries with it fears of the unknown, and especially the fear that a fledgling belongs neither to the nest it has left, nor to some new home it is searching out. “Although you may feel lost”, advises the speaker to this bird or girl, “this is part of the process by which you discover you are not lost”.
Where can we dwell If not in the heart of others?
The final turn in the poem, a rhetorical question governed by another hypotactic sentence, sharpens the theme of nostalgia to a point before driving it home. The condition “if” recapitulates the search for home (“where can we dwell”) by pointing out that what we are searching for (the bird on its fledgling journey and the speaker in his reminiscences) is not merely the presence of the beloved, which would render belonging and rest, but a new conception of home. To be at home is to be in the heart and mind of the other – for others to carry us in their hearts, to think of us, imagine our retorts and remonstrances. This transcends the pangs of physical distance. Moreover, we may dwell in the heart of many simultaneously. The poem concludes by reminding us that this spiritual dwelling is in fact the only true one – that we derive pleasure from our physical interactions and long for them precisely because we are already at home in the heart of others.
This piece was inspired by my eldest daughter’s departure for school in the Fall of 2025, but on re-reading it this week, I was struck by poetry’s readiness to be adapted to new circumstances. We are currently enjoying the presence of this sparrow, back from her adventures for a time, cognizant that she will depart once more, but confident that she is no less home.
Todd Anderson (Stuff of the Rind, Sand and Sail, The Reluctant Prophet) writes the newsletter Mirth to share a behind-the-scenes look at his writing process as well as to offer readers the first fruits of his poetry and reflections. He grew up in the forests of small-town Ontario, contending against nature in all its beauty and harshness. His training as a literary scholar of Latin and English literature inflects his love of poignant turns of phrase, but it is the influence of his family and their myriad adventures together that infuses his story-telling and poetry with its substance and power. Todd lives and writes in Ottawa with his wife and six children. If you are interested in supporting Todd’s work, please follow the links below to donate or buy his books.
Todd Edward Anderson 