Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Seven envies. Seven regrets. Seven praises.” by Maureen Hynes.

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Seven envies. Seven regrets. Seven praises.

By Maureen Hynes

Envy for those who pick up languages as easily

as a dropped hankey. For those who can repair

any electronic thing, re-route any glitchy process

to its proper destination. Envying those whose cheerfulness

never fails, and also never aggravates. Those whose

memory never shorts out like a jammed circuit despite

their overfull daybooks, and for those who rarely

lose faith in their own powers. Envy for flight—

that is, those nesting and chirping and foraging

for their young, as well as those boarding airplanes

to arrive into the beauty of foreign cities. Deep

envy for those who never sing off-key.

Of course regret for my many harsh & snarly

words, but also regret for not having spoken up loudly

approximately a thousand times, including at my father’s

deathbed. Regret for half-losing so many memories.

For trying to amend that by holding onto so many photos,

so much paper. Huge regret for not caring more

for my body. For not becoming a Yoga devotee.

For losing my nerve for driving. For my daily

procrastinations, so unnecessary and consequential.

Bountiful praises for the hellebores opening early

in the spring, that is, today! For my free-

flowing fountain pen & almost all the poets

in the world, whether they use slates or

typewriters or tablets or cell phones. Especially

high praises for Ruth, who fills my days and nights

with lightness, encouragement, care—and music!

For nurses and doctors whose compassion comes first.

And for anyone whose laughter is a frequent

gift-bearing visitor.

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Copyright © Maureen Hynes

Maureen Hynes’s most recent collection is Take the Compass (McGill-Queens University Press). Her first collection, Rough Skin (Wolsak & Wynn), won the League of Canadian Poets’ Gerald Lampert Award. Subsequent collections are Harm’s Way; Marrow, Willow; The Poison Colour; Sotto Voce. She won the Petra Kenney Poetry Prize (London, England), and her poems have appeared in Best Canadian Poems in English and were twice longlisted for the CBC Canada Reads poetry contest.

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