The mother of Barrabas wept When her prodigal returned. “My son, my only son,” she cried, And he, with sidelong look and brow Downcast at her unravelled state, Felt only shame to be called so. Thus Joy and Sorrow, by one door, Received whom all had cast aside, Save him, who being a faithful Son, set free, with chains, the faithless And robbed Death of his victory.
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.
It is bath time for the city. We take to it like a sullen boy (Caked in grime, pockets tucked And crammed with silt and rocks) Who hears the long voice of his mother While he delights in his forest And dreads the foamy warmth ahead.
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.
Tributaries unannounced emerge from hidden closets of the earth While spangled oft-by-child-tangled grasses shiver and wake with stiff smiles The well-wrought and in-a-fraught-pile-rotting-compost breathes as it heaves In sight of the sun since-sour-but-ripening-wisely to a fair zenith A well-earned resurrection for the Son-of-Man making the dull day Ever the more shine in a restless-dark-won-at-last though scorched and scathed
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.
I will not now, being plain, nor ever, Though fancy or siren’s call rebeckon With familial fame and longings old, Myself deploy such oratic urgings As risk your patience and noble esteem, Hard won these many years by clear-eyed Truth, Who cleaves my heart more humbly than deserved And lodging there, has cleansed all artifice, Washed my wayward wit and stirred eloquence Unrefined though no less potent to stir With upright purpose all discerning hearts.
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 in the door still glancing back your eye You see fresh light demur upon the bed And hear the lonely wind knock at the pane Think then how small the room you leave behind How shrinks the colder passages of time But though this room to smaller eyes grows small And you cannot return and nestle in A wider world and strange must grip your heart So larger steps a larger hope can win
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.
What love could render It has done As on a flaming skillet Fat doth run Infusing broth or meat With flavour sweet To serve the tongue
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.
When I was sixteen, my brother fell down a disused well, Gone before my eyes without a shout, as dust and chaff plumed In the afternoon sun, ready to rise just as he set. I ran as much by fear of what my father would extract For my neglect as by concern for my brother, collapsed In the wilderness, hours from homeward field or sober help. What drink had done since my mother passed, had done to all; All shared its sharp relief; all shared its languid pressure: For him, to daze the day; for us, to pause on the road home. I cast into the well his name – light-in-darkness snuffed out – But for tumbling stones and loose gravel, it rendered back silence. “Lucas! Lucas! Lucas!” I sent down the name; it echoed Back the same with no suggestion that its owner heeded. I hesitated as I had done some years ago at night, When wolves caught my brother’s leg beyond our fevered camp light, Dislatched at last not by my frantic pleas but wild charge And rage of my father, hairy arms and bludgeoning hands Applying blow upon drunken blow – tears and blows flowing Together and mingling with heated fur and snarl and teeth. Beyond that day he limped his life, wary of wolf and kin, And we two were tethered between beast at home or abroad, Coiled at the margin of our lives, taut with attention. I ran. The land between well and farmhouse tendered no grace; Earth tugged at boot and knee, stretched my hot lungs with hotter miles. Sunk on the porch, ire neatly corked and cradled, my father Roused with disdain. “What?” Poised to repeat, he saw my broken face. Words sheared off at their harsh exit from a frowning mouth, As hammer-tapped casings cleave and leave with rifle blast. “Where?” he fired, and stunned I stood, astonished and afraid. “An old well in the back forty. Dad, he fell; he fell hard.” “Get the truck,” he growled and rounded the house to the barn. I circled to it as he hauled hempen rope, dark with age, And I saw years shed away and him at sea grasping tight Lowering lines for ammo boxes while Guadalcanal Burned – day and night lowering while shellfire lit hot the sky. To the far fields; then on foot, my hands empty and him surging To the spot and not a word between us but all was said. He knew the well. He dug it. I could hear it as he called For his fallen son, in the low way men weep as they shout: Guilt pouring out like interlocking machine-gun fire. Then in went the rope, and he turned sharp to me and I swear My father had never pleaded for anything before And all his pleading I received in one fatal, panicked glance, As though mates locked forever beneath Ironbottom Sound Might be pulled up if only we had courage to descend. I took my grip and closed my eyes and felt the cloistered air, Down, down with the musty rope and musty well and fieldstone barbed Until I felt, slumped in frigid water, my brother’s body, Wedged by some miracle against the rotten boards that fell. “He’s alive!” I roared up the shaft, and back came, “Hold my lad! If ever you loved your father, hold. If ever you loved Your brother and sweet mother, tie the rope and hold fast!” My arms shook with cold and my hands fumbled in the dark As I wrapped the frail boy’s limbs around my own, face to face. “Hold, lad – hold fast and I won’t let you go, but hold I say!” So I held, and as we rose from that wat’ry grave, I heard Steady as the rising, my father’s voice call out apace: “Hold sweet child. Hold. Forgive me lads and hold. Hold fast my boys.”
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.
She led my storms beyond the door While I sat broken by the news. Rising from the tear-stained floor, She led my storms beyond the door, As neighbours mused at all she bore And tracked through snow her every bruise; She led my storms beyond the door, While I sat broken by the news.
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 