Betty Chabot Canadian Poet

Be still my heart and fret not what betides you:
The shout of joy, the song of love or sorrow’s wail.
Each one was made to reach for new tomorrows-,
To drink the cup of woe and strive to find
The holy grail.

There is no day so dark but what the morrow
Will bring new light and strength to lift the weary soul.
Shadows lengthen at beck’ning hands of sorrow
As faith and love and hope unite to make
The broken whole.

Be still my heart, and calm your troubled beatings;
Whispers of wind against the broken window sash.
Each spoken word in anger is like the waves
That rant and rave and vent their wrath in one
Wild seething crash.

Curb each embittered word. Stem flowing anger;
Search deep for where there’s froth you’ll find misgivings lie.
Sweet is the joy which comes with understanding,
For noontide comes to soon and even, in
Her haste slips by.

The night is here and life too short, is wasted.
Accomplishments are few and time has flown away.
Be still my heart; wait not for new tomorrows-,
Just live your best, in this your world, the hours
You have today.

– Circa 1940

November often marks a month
Of unloved days ‘ti true.
Bt look around and listen well
For sounds will call to you.
The tapping of a woodpecker;
The lisping of a wren
The chatting of a nutting squirrel;
The shouts of lumbermen.
Wan sunlight that sometimes glitters
Like silver where it’s dark.
Rain crooning soothing lullabies
On rocks within the park.
The slow buzz of the common fly
Before its winter sleep.
The smoldering flame of fallen leaves
That marks were each day weeps.
A yes! November may be dull
To some, but not to me
For it is full of vibrant sounds
And sights to hear and see.

– Circa 1950

Let me catch the quiver of a shaking poplar tree.
How a tiny whisper makes the branches start,
Till the sunlight startles a new leaf all a-quiver
As it glistens on its light green underpart.
Let me have a poplar forever near my window;
I would keep its beauty ever in my heart.

-Circa 1922

School Road, they call it now.
It reaches to the water’s edge.
Frothing foam, swirling tides reach out
To rip the rag weed and the sage.
School Road whose vision extends far
Beyond the span of years-,
Where children frolicked to the school
Or wept their childhood tears.
The building, old, forlorn, paint-stripped,
By whistling wind and cloud burst rain
Will never more send back the call
That shrieks of youth again.
School Road, they call it now;
How prim and proper too,
From once the florid, vibrant sound
Cat Alley when ’twas new!
Names tell a tale we oft would hide.
Cat Alley shrieks of sin;
But Old School Road somehow disdains
The scent of dirt within.
This little town with all its wealth
Of lurid takes long past,
Holds high its head because it knows
Cat Alley’s gone at last.

– Circa 1968

I was walking down the street of a little town one day
When I happened to look up to see you cross my way
Sunshine glinting on your hair, laughter in your eyes
Took me oh so unaware, caught me by surprise.
Flipped my heart up in the air; caused me to stand there and stare
As
I was walking down the street of a little town one day.

I was walking down the street of a little town one day
Never dreaming to look up to see you cross my way,
For my heart was filled with woe, since you said good bye
Not a word to let me know, cause or reason why.
Oh, my dear, I loved you so; more than you will ever know
As
I was walking down the street of a little town one day.

I was walking down the street of a little town one day
When I happened to look up to see you cross my way.
You were oh so very near, that I caught you hand,
Drew you close to me, my dear; hoped you’d understand.
Yes, we kissed each other there and our laughter filled the air
Now
We go walking down the street of that little town each day.

I was walking down the street of a little town one day
When I happened to look up to see you cross my way.
Oh, my heart was naked bare, filled with love for you
When I saw you smiling there, like a dream come true;
My heart was freed from care when we met each other there
AS
I was walking down the street of a little town one day.

– Circa 1928

The desert heat is dry, bone dry!
It parches all around.
The baked rock reflects the heat
Which holds the rain just out of reach
And turns it into nothingness
Above the wasted ground.

High o’er the desert, clear and bright, the sky, unruffled blue.
No hint that ere the noontide beat
Drips with relentless, drawing heat,
Like puffed up wool from lambs that bleat
The clouds come rolling through.

From out of no where, high they pile-,
Each seeking space to grow.
Ions collide and generate
In thunderous roars which now berate
The sun drenched land whose crackled heat
Erupts in lightening glow.

Like gunfire breaking up the clouds,
The flashes snare and dart.
Like nerves of tension wire they fling
‘Twixt Heaven and Earth a crackling ring,
The wind whips up a call to sing,
And plays its jolting part.

The clouds bombard the ridge tops now.
They rip themselves in twain.
They spill with one ear splitting roar,
Their bellies opened wide to pour
In one huge waterfall their store-,
Five minutes worth of rain.

The clouds move off with rumbling groan.
The golden light appears.
Cliff swallows swell the air with cries,
The scorching sun reflects and dries
The living earth whose tortured eyes
Are whetted with fresh tears.

The desert life is arid, dry.
It knows the song of toads.
Buried and sealed beneath the mud,
In silence each awaits the thud
Of one quick, short, sporadic flood
Of rain-, a living goad.

Rain pools in monolithic rock
At night swell to the yen
Of spade foot toads and nearest mates,
In croaking song each enervates
Its love of life before it waits
Beneath dried mud again.

The cotton wood, the tree of life,
Stands massive, tall and gaunt.
It caught and held a burst of rain.
When cool of night descends again
Its release might relieve the pain
Of someone’s questing want.

Short lived the storm, but blessed too
Where pinnacles rise high,
Where mule deer walk at eventide,
Where life, thirst, death, stay side by side-,
Where arsenic pools and fresh springs bide-,
The desert’s living cry.

(Circa 1932)

The children have their rabbits, their kitten and their dog.
Oftentimes you’ll see them with a wriggling pollywog;
With a rod swung o’er a shoulder, a can of worms for bait,
Go trudging down a dusty road before the morn is late.
Now father has his garden, his paper and his pipe,
His easy chair, his slippers, his club and all that tripe;
He cottons to the garden fence where he and neighbor John
Discuss the stocks, the weather and the page the “Sports” are on.
Grandmother has her rocker in which to cull her dreams,
Her thinning hair all silvered, her face a smile of seams.
All her years of living are patterned on her brow-,
The setting sun before her and the dawn so distant now.
But mother, patient mother, with her minutes stretched and tried,
I wonder how she finds the time to look so satisfied.
When Heaven’s gates are opened, there must surely be a place
That is hallowed and exalted for the Mothers of our race.

– Circa 1924

Dear little dandelion that skirts the wayside road
With yellow gold within the reach of all,
That fills the air with snow-white seedling down
Upon the first days of the harvest fall.
How oft I cried aloud in happy mirth,
Thy golden Eldorado wealth to see.
In childhood years a bloom more dear to me
Than all the gaudy flowers that deck the earth.

Oft with delight I saw thy sunny birth,
And ran to find thy gold along the way;
Or joyously I told the hour of day
When June-time changed thy locks to snowy white,
And breezes gaily bore them far away.
Now, in these later years within the night,
When I am lying wide-eyed and awake,
And loons are crying far across the lake,
I seem again those golden blooms to see;
The childhood’s wealth of gold I found and lost
When years had filled my mind with price and cost.
Then, oh, I know again that dearer still to me
Are those bright flowers of old.
More precious now than even mankind’s gold,
Those flowers I lost and found again, have grown to be.