Oh, my dear hearts and friends… I have been away from blogging a few days again. I haven’t felt cheerful enough to wander over the keyboard with my fat fingers. I haven’t felt like whining aloud. I haven’t felt like anything. I have numbed but uncomfortably. This being true, it is also true that the state I am in is not a total dead zone. There are some completed poems and a chapter plus in the editing process for my novel/short story collection. It will take a long while but I am working on those things, in the very least. No cheer, here, though. The days have been bleak.

Some of my friends are struggling and there is little I can do. The twists and turns on what is known as the road of life are so frustratingly unpredictable. I mean, really, God. I am struggling, too…as are we all even though good fortune does still smile at the odd time. For example: Myself and some 7 billion other humans survived the night, whichever 12 hour span we are in. That is good. I woke, stumbling about, groggy but with all limbs attached and in operational order. That is good. I had something to eat (for which I am grateful, it is not taken for granted). That is good. I had a long chat with a close friend. That is good. Yesterday, I was able to help someone and offer companionship. That is good. All of those things are good…but…there is more yet. I found a reason to cheer again. Do you want to know what it is that makes me feel better? There is a new barista at Starbucks and boy, whew, he is a hottie!

So my cheer level has been down a bit. With politics and the earth ablaze there is also my advancing age, my decline. These facts alone mean not much can be done about the lack of cheer. I am not unique. I feel the down-cheer with a whole crowd of folks. I’ve got lots of company, here in the chorus. But. The new Mr. Dark Eyes at Starbucks will help with that situation. I can tell you that, truthfully. A glance in his direction reminds me that there are moments when I am so happy to be a homosexual, sigh. I can see the beauty another might not notice. It’s funny. Checking this fellow out makes me think of how the church seems fixed on the idea of ‘gay’ being a choice. Well, in this one case, I CAN understand how a person could choose to be gay. Haha. There isn’t a soul among humans who would not wonder what a night of romance would be like with this guy…even his dog probably thinks about it.

So.
God (I am assuming God, with personal opinion difference and caveats it seems the most reasonable explanation. I plan to get into this in a book that is underway) has gifted the beast and the blossom with ability to adapt. We can change. We can lift our heads, when the sword comes down and notice a cute little sweetie in the crowd. Bliss. We can step back from the accident scene, review the time-line, notice our fellow passengers are alert and without more than a scratch or two, count our limbs, feel for any loose blood, find nothing broken and laugh about how the car we were riding in flew up into the air. “Oh, my gosh!” Then, we can go to Starbucks for a coffee and chill. We can surreptitiously observe Mr. Dark Eyes. We can do that anytime we need cheering. We can do that if we are old. I am doing that at this moment. Tres delicaux!

August 25, 2021

“She’s not a girl, who misses much…” dedelededede..is running through my head. My lovely imaginary friend John Lennon sang that, long ago. It was recorded, then reproduced a thousand million times or more. I must have heard it through an equal number of plays. The song still exists, de facto, the hour it was recorded preserved in time. The preserved sound is now sold as little discs or streamed across the internet. The man who lived and sang does not exist beyond recordings, now. The days when recordings of him were first made and I dashed to the shop for the timely purchase of a copy do not exist, now. Those hours have been used up, drained of time. They were not preserved. Those days did decay. The days were consumed. I think the days consume themselves.

There are days to live through and to pass by, all the while ‘Happiness Is A Warm Gun’ plays away. If you keep playing the song, time gets lost. The imaginary world’s ether exists for each play of the tune at 2 minutes/45 seconds. Other time exists but you don’t see it moving. You are in art’s world, it is talking to you and you are listening. Outside, the days are moving and, to paraphrase Carl Sandberg, they slip away on tiny cat’s feet. The song ends, you look up and the singer is no more, the studio painted a different colour, someone quite young-looking at the front desk. They don’t know you.

After the days a recording is made and replayed, somewhere in time, there are days finally to rest. To rest as a pussycat tired from his journey between water and food dish. There are days to rest and clean ourselves and reflect. Those are the latter days. Those days are the days this old pussycat has found. I sit in the window sill, mildly curious but separate from the world outside. The dying sun creates long shadows and shapes for me to imagine as monsters or to remember as heroes. I am aloof, there is a glass of distance/time between my awareness and the new shadows across lawns.

I reflect on and I miss the belonging sensation produced by following a rock and roll group and rising with each of their financial/artistic successes, awaiting their every move with breath bated. My soul heroes. I reflect on and miss the belonging sensation produced by reading a new exotic book by some obscure-no-longer poet or writer. I reflect on and miss wandering museums and puzzling on the pieces stored there. Recordings. Paintings. Messages to the future. Reminders of the past. One soul saying, “hello,” to another. A place to be. I miss that of living.

At the deaths of each hero, the besmirchment of their character, the disappearance of names from the tongues of officials, the shift to a new popular art form or artist name, I deflate a small amount. We are, I am, farther and farther and farther away from the loveliness of youth. That time has consumed itself by being rootless as a tumbleweed and using up one minute, then the next. Some of the past lies face down in Brian Jones’ swimming pool. Some sits on library shelves, lonely for the wild noise of acclaim and criticism. Some gets puffy from plenty, rattles around a big ol’ house somewhere in Connecticut, it’s last tune cranked out and a hell of a lot of money gone.

There is no more excitement of spring, only recordings of it. I can sometimes hear that spring but the recordings are getting pretty scratchy. I have autumn in the yard, whose colour distracts from any replayed warmth of rockandroll guns. Green days may return, in our immediate awareness, but spring is not eternal and each time the green returns, it is a different shade. The only thing eternal is eternity. Ha. Time changes without much warning, the sunshine modified by a tipping and winking of Earth. Spring, which fed on itself, grew into it’s mature summer and will fade. We are finite. The moon is finite. The sun will burn out and turn cold. Do we come around again, in some other form? Perhaps not. “She’s well acquainted with the touch of a velvet hand, like a lizard on the windowpane — the man in the crowd with the multi-coloured mirrors on his hobnail boots — lying with his eyes while his hands are busy working overtime…” (Once more around, for a bowl-scrape of the sweetness.)

Innocence.

I made a mistake and left the freezer unplugged. This meant I had to throw a few pounds of food away. I am deeply distressed by my error and the resulting waste of a precious thing. The food was placed in the freezer to save it for a time of need. I am judging myself harshly, imposing a sentence of penitent reflection. My small error sits on the counter, mocking me. How loud it mocks and for how long is a thing I control. How much remorse should a human being feel when he or she has committed a habit-thought-crime? There comes a point to realize that remorse, guilt, penury, sorrow solve no problem. In order to continue living and to continue living well, I must shut the mocking up. I must close the mouth of discontent and shutter the eyes of judgement. It was a small error and we are an error-prone species. I must rescue my soul by learning and making attempts to do better in future.

A small error. On a trip to Mars or the Moon, small errors are crucial ones. “Ooops, I forgot to factor this equation and the 1/1000th of a black, small, curly hair difference is going to mean that we like, totally miss the target and die in space!” Tossing out three pounds of ghastly liquid tomatoes and one ear of corn will not cause us irreconcilable death, today. It may make a difference, some still distant tomorrow…it is regrettable, but what price is true enough to pay? What value does dwelling on the error offer the world at this moment on this day? Some folk would not be too upset by this, some folk would not even think about it. Maybe those folk are the ones who smoke cigarettes, drink beer, shout at others in the drug store or bank and drive wanton SUV’s toward the Wal-Mart of oblivion that awaits modern civility. Well.

Fortunately, I believe that those same ‘some folk’ are fewer and fewer as time goes forward. That is a good thing, to a point. We are, most of us, concerned that our home is changing and by our own hand. There is less food, less air, less water, less cool temperature, less civil discourse, more unreliable systems…it does seem that we are very likely in the end days. My cousin says, in his ‘church’ mode, that: “These are the end days, Brothers and Sisters! The end days began in 1948, when Israel became a state!” The end days? Israel? 1948? Wow! Is that an oversimplified assessment of complex situations? Yeah.

We can point and blame in a lot of different directions. We can start with ourselves, in the myriad ways we committ error. We get cross with a recalcitrant child, a balky faucet, a dimming computer screen, a mildly de-tuned radio, a broken finger nail… and, an almost insignificant, carelessly caused, loss of food. I am cross with myself. I can be cross with others, too. I am one of the we who say silly things that hurt others. We comment in italics or all-caps on Facebook as an ill-conceived attempt at adamant conversation. Those are mistakes. We unplug the freezer and forget to plug it back in. We make mistakes. I made a mistake that cost the universe a small amount of sustenance, that sent particles and bits back into the ether as a different form. Now, the precious saved food becomes a living place for bacteria, in turn a small amount of loose nitrogen, minerals and offers a bit of methane gas to waft upwards into the atmosphere. Said methane possibly contributes to a general, global warming of earth. Mea culpa.

Mea culpa, I have guilt. I am not innocent. I am responsible. I have, or my ancestors have, eaten of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In my case, it were no laughing, present serpent who shone bright eyes in my direction as I erred. I was not blinded and thus led astray…I was human and forgot to plug the freezer back in. It is the same crime, though. I bear weight of my crime as I bear the guilt of being human, of being a part of the mess. I am guilty-by-proxy of lots. For one example: the colonialism that destroyed so many cultures and systems on our beautiful earth. For another: The continued use of fossil fuels that clouds our bright blue sky with deadly vapour. Yah. I am guilty-by-proxy, I am guilty by fact. Mea culpa.

I am guilty and I am innocent. I am learning from my mistakes. It is a painful process, learning. You could say that putting a hand in the fire teaches you that fire is hot. You were innocent of self-harming behaviour when you put a hand in the fire, but you did do that. Now, is the time for learning. I learned that I should not be careless about plugging the freezer back in. We learn that fire is hot, we learn that colonialism is a bad thing, we learn that hate destroys ourselves more than it does our victim, we learn…we are learning. It is a changing world, because we learn. It is a slow turning world and the learning is a slow process. Forward movement, future seem impossible, with the number of mistakes made, the number of people erring, the amount of food wasted.

Step back and look again at what seems impossible, insurmountable. I threw out a bit of food, but was successful at the necessary cleaning of the freezer. There is war enough and gloomy outlooks, but the wars are subsiding a bit, in fact. There is disease enough and dying innocents, but medicine improves, daily. The earth is heating up and drying out, the storms severe, but we are still alive. We are learning, growing, guilty, innocent. We are all things. All things are possible. I have plugged the freezer back in and will re-fill it…on we go.

There was no brutal
puff and gone.
Awareness played at tag along
and woke up in this healing bed,
bright lighted physicians
buzzing overhead.
“Wow! You almost bought it,”
an unseen someone said.

I gasped at the thought, “Not quite bought?”
..discovering I’ve a mortgage still
and my small space under the low hill
waits, yet.
With free movement tied by tubes and wires,
I can see,
leaving the last world harmed me
dearly
and It’s apparent, when you ‘buy the farm’,
that means ‘successful …nearly’.
“Hey!”
to The Doctor I say,
“Your alarm beeps don’t warn folks, clearly.”

That I’ve more future proves, perhaps,
how life by nature, does relapse,
as on the wheeled mandela charts,
this world ending
where another one starts.
How nice!

What once was theory,
wrapped in dream and mystery,
to cool chaotic hearts,

restarts!

I am curious about men and their choices of spouse or ‘pal’. Why is a man drawn to a certain other person? I am of the old school and still believe that a fella follows his penis toward another person. The sniffing occurs, then the courtship and partnering. Doesn’t it? I am at Starbucks, examining my surroundings and the people who populate those surroundings. What I am doing, as far as I can tell, is profiling. I am making an assumption about someone based on their appearance, that most illusory of protective surfaces. It is a thing we all do whether we like that idea or not. Yes. One glance at another human and we start making judgements. “Is this person a whatzit, a whozit?” “Am I taking a risk with my life of peace and prosperity?” I am drilling into my memory banks, sorting through the note cards now to make comparisons and draw conclusions. There is a couple here at the office who intrigue me. Based on their look alone, I have certain questions and observations, certain imaginations about male ‘romantic’ partnering.

She is wearing make-up that is obvious, so I am guessing it is maybe misapplied? There is too much? It is possible that she is on break from the theatre. She is in a production of Bride of Frankenstein or maybe she is just the weather girl. The garish look is something she must do for balance? I am certain the tv camera and lights would blend her visage well, the bright lights emptying the shadows she has created. (maybe her mom or her make-up assistant did it)The eyebrows and cheekbones are highlighted to an almost clown-like degree. Her cheeks appear sunken and the whole effect is of a very tall, thin face. Perhaps, she is not on tv and is only going for a certain look? That could be. She is succeeding at it. She looks rail-thin and a very tightly wound person. The clothing is plastic sexy, the way an actress like Jennifer Anniston would look. A tall, overemotioned, exotic face helps complete the effect. Maybe she is a Karen-esque difficult person?

The fella looks pretty ordinary. He is ‘just a guy’ having a coffee with his girl. He is not fit but not fat in that sort of middle ground way I find attractive. He is just clunky enough to be able to crush you by accident in bed. By demeanor, he is that guy who is a bit clumsy, a bit common but sincere. His clothes are just jeans and a polo-style knit shirt. He looks okay, kinda sexy to me. Just a usual-ish guy. That he is partnered (I assume by body language) with Ms. Franken-Stein is a curious thing. What drew him to the table? How was the web baited?

The make-up, the make-up…it draws the eye, most definitely. If that was the intent, then kudos…well done. Why is the fella/has the fella been drawn in? What is it he sees there? Interesting. Myself, I would run screaming away in fear of a future with a tightly-wound bitch. Even worse, if that is her idea of ‘decor’, then what would the house look like? A mobile home from the sixties? Why does this fella lean in close for a lil’ sniff?

In truth, I don’t know that heterosexual men are terribly discriminating in the area of ‘possible sex partner’. If a lady will cook and pick up the underwear after submitting, then she is in. I do know that gay men aren’t very discriminating. A hand on a thigh is more than enough to draw one of those in. I don’t know that looks matter as much as it might seem. I am not that certain a male human notices what a potential sex partner really looks like. Could he pick that person out of a line-up? “There, it’s number 3. I would recognize that garish make-up anywhere..watch out for her, she has a completed marriage license application in her purse. mmm”. When it comes to the basics, I think ‘opportunity for a sex experience’ trumps just about anything.

I shouldn’t make such a sweeping statement, though. I am sure that some men are ‘attracted to her/his mind’ but…how many? and why? I know myself. I sniff first. That’s how I got in trouble a couple of times.

I must return to Facebook for the time pendant. I need the connection to readers and I haven’t been actively persuing an actual career in any other sense, it has been years since I have sent anything off to a publisher or tried writing columns and ‘letters to the Editor’. The value of my letters that were published is a great bone for my two sorts of psyche to contend over. I am almost never sure that what I write is ‘chosen’. Since the Windsor Star is more than a little like a ‘dog bites man’ newspaper, my letters were always published – there was plenty of room. I always questioned the real value of what I had written. Sigh. In my Facebook world, I found a core group of readers who actually seemed to value my work. That was interesting. The sense of accomplishment I had in reaching out is missing in the new day, my attempted day away from servitude to a marketing strategy. It must be possible to work around Mr. Zuckerberg’s traps successfully. To do so will take a great deal of personal strength…I shall try. I will turn this whole science around and make it work for me.

Tally-ho!

The book is shaping differently than what I had hoped. “Nearly Every Dish in the House” appears to be more a memoir? That said, I will have to be very careful in the writing of it in order that no one gathers enough material for a law-suit. Ha. (Hey! Interesting story — Motorcycle Man is back inside, getting a coffee. I think he was having an affair with that woman. The affair is now a thing of the past and he is meeting no one today. His pants are very tight and it is difficult to tell whether he is overweight or not. I think not, he is just round. Hmmmm, new haircut….) Back to the book.

‘Nearly’ might end up as a blend of the rough drafted ‘Buster’ and a couple of other essay-like pieces. I am having a daydream that it would be appropriate to do so. Taking it as a whole, then I will have finished a book of poetry and a full memoir. I will have proven to myself that I can do it. Wish me luck.

Over time, it becomes less and less important that I write the masterpiece. What is important is that I write for enjoyment, not that I make an indelible mark. I have proven that I can complete a 70,000 words plus bit of writing that makes sense and has a couple of good, useful things to say. That will have to be enough. That I can get a letter published in the paper will have to be enough. That I can get a poem published in a regional poetry broadside will have to be enough. There is not enough time to complete the training and develop the skill to be a truly great writer. Random House is never going to call me. I don’t think that folks like Barbara Striesand will respect what I do but that is less and less important. The rest of the world is someone else’s thing. Mine is to do and be for myself, a lesson I am still working on at age 70.

I have spent most of my life now in a prison of my own making and the breakout started when I succeeded at four-year college classes of various types. I even took Algebra/calculus classes and passed them with a 3.9 average? Who would have guessed? Now, I am: a writer, a singer, a guitar player, a pianist… None of those things are peak efforts but they are real. I can write a poem that sounds ok. I can sing fairly well, if given lots of rehearsal. I can play a song or two or three on the guitar and piano. Am I Justin Timberlake, Ella Fitzgerald, Pablo Neruda, Charles Bukowski, Dylan? Um…no. The absolute, utter truth is that I don’t need to be. There are enough of them and they are doing just fine. I can read good writing any time I wish, I can hear great music any time I wish. I can also write and make music, any time I wish.

I miss the connection to folks so I am returning to the Facebook platform that I might send my messages off on the next train in.

Have a pleasant day, that is all there is.

July 23, 2021

A new start.

Every day is a new start…duh… Yeah, well, this is a thing all creatures know by observation. Some of us know it by experimentation. Some of us know it because we are really good mathemeticians and scientists and astronomers. Some of us know each day is new because we repair clocks and have a notion that time can be measured, which gives us wacky ideas about the ever-changing nature of the present. Some of us have read about each day being new and didn’t bother to question the author’s veracity. Some of us know our truth by belief? Some of us think God planned it that way and some of us use that ‘new day’ ism as a motivating or inspiring factor. A reason to keep on a-goin’. Some of us just ignore that every day is a new day and pick up in the morning where we left off in what was our night.

Sometimes, I am an ignoring fool and just pick up a day where I left off the previous one. While clinging to the concerns of the previous workday, I often don’t notice the sun coming up and that it might be a new day. Not today. Here I am again, in the throes of change, bouncing in the wake of my past life, hopeful for something new, eager for change. Sigh. I am trying to find my daily writing routine again. Now that I can sit for hours in Starbucks, as before, I am excited that my ‘flow’ return. I have my ‘daily assessment reports’ to make. I have things to say. I have things to notice. My tooth is hurting vaguely. Ooops, I used an adverb. So naughty. The skinny young feller who stares at me a bit is actually pretty well built for a barista. or…no! that is Simon, the built guy! One of this morning’s other notes is that a younger than me customer fella is wearing gay-looking sandals. They are open back and white leather with a thin sole. Very feminine. Hmm. Interesting.

Today, I woke to a similar sun but I feel different. Perhaps, it is the same sun from yesterday and perhaps not – I don’t have proof of my own and must trust the general knowledge on that. Suppose it were not the same sun? This is nearly a moot question, there being what they call ’empirical’ evidence that it is, indeed, the same sun as yesterday. But, suppose it were a new sun? From some other galaxy. It crept in during the night while the last one slipped out of sight. The government’s tests and measurements and calculations were incorrect? Nobody noticed anything while on the International Space Station? Perhaps a scientist turned his back at just the right moment, allowing the newsun to slip into place without fanfare. It is not impossible for each scientist to look away at exactly the same time, as a group. There may be a certain, to date undetected, element of space and time that allows for all eyes that are in space at the same moment to be diverted for a brief second. This, I submit, has happened on each of the occasions astronauts have been above the atmosphere and able to observe the sun at every moment.

This is possible. The sun could have slipped a ringer in if you consider the great speed at which such things as suns are clocked. Perhaps the ringer is in sync with the sun of the previous day, just behind it and invisible to the naked telescope. At just the right instant, the previous sun, the one we saw yesterday, slips away or maybe just backs up, fading ghost-like through and letting the new cloud of burning gas take the primary position. Maybe it’s just the two suns, back and forth? In order to be open to such a whack idea, it is necessary to suspend some belief and accept other belief or proof to imagine that this day shows us another sun, not the same one we watched turn colour and slide down yesterday evening.

So. There are at least two suns, one in front of the other and, being clouds of gas, they pass through each other at some point during the day. It is unnoticed. This is a new fact and has negative consequences when you accept it. One down side to accepting this new revelation is that there will be social grief. You will be denied in church, shunned on the street, laughed at in the grocery… asked to leave Starbucks when you can’t stop laughing at your own suggestions?

July 2, 2021

The shadow of autumn is in the air today. It is one of the rare days, where season is indeterminate. Here, it is currently delicious. That isn’t true for everyone, everywhere in Canada. The western part of the country is frying under a blister-dome and we relax with cool breeze and angled sunlight that suggests winter is approaching. Or maybe, it is the end of April and a brilliant, early, warm spring of green still has an eye for the recent past of blustery chill from the north? In any case, this sort of weather is my favourite. It’s close to perfect. The wind is cool, the sunlight warm, the trees bent and swirling in brisk motion. All things seem possible. Anything could happen. I am excited as the green and flexible things are. Anticipation is the scene I witness and the emotion I feel. It could be warmer? It could be cooler? It could be better and it could not.

For me, good fortune smiles yet and I browse on cherry pie, the cherries being ones frozen last year in anticipation of such a day as this. I still don’t have the knack of a decent pie-crust but it is coming along, I am learning, I am improving. The crust? matters to none save me, since I have consumed the pie and have somewhat lower standards than others might. I tend to accept what I have without expectation of anything better when I am by myself. When I am with others, I might feel shame that my pie-crust was not perfect. That has been true of my interaction with the outside world for as long as I can remember. Lately, that sort of bowed head submission to individuals of higher developed skills and what they might think has started to evaporate. It must be a natural thing, that as a person ages, gains experience, they begin to not sweat the small stuff, to tolerate imperfection and those who criticize it with a broadening yawn. The yawn acknowledges how unimportant squirming complaints and bad pie-crust really are. “Pie, is easy,” they say but it isn’t, so you eat what ya got and ya enjoys it.

I read something that made me think hard about myself, who I am. What I care about. What is important. What others think and how to evaluate that, what store to set by another’s opinion. I read that we are several persons. We exist in another’s view in ways that we cannot imagine. My dog sees me how? My neighbour sees me how? My friends see me how? In each pair of ‘other’ eyes, I am someone I do not know and likely wouldn’t recognize. Isn’t that interesting? Inside, here on the couch, watching TV is a guy that I talk to or whom talks to me, tells me what he thinks of the stupid movie or the wrong-headed thing I have done.

My tail-wagging, slurpy lipped, eager dog sees and communicates with some totally different person than who I am. My friends, when they think of me, think of someone I could not imagine. Even my analyist doesn’t know the me I know. In peculiar fact, I don’t know me either. Isn’t that interesting? I know the person I imagine myself to be, depending on mood. Am I cheerful, good looking, depressive, boring, fat? Depends on the hormones and the time of day. My dog sees comfort, protection, sustenance of all kinds. My dog sees a true pal, my friends see just whatever they see. These ones probably don’t mind me too much. It is hard to say. Inside, there is yet the person I don’t want to know or see who exists but is behind some kind of curtain. Of all these creatures, which am I?

An indefinite and honest answer to “who am I”, is: I am all of the above, you are all of the above. We have traits, we are unique but we are also what the kaliedoscope shows. I am what the dog sees, I am what the cat bit, I am the fellow helping an old lady cross the street, I am the bedeviled substance abuser, I am that asshole who shows up to the party empty-handed, I am that really smart friend who figures things out, I am funny, I can sing and I cannot. I am fat and I am thinner. I am just right and way too intense. I am a clear sky day that suddenly rains. I chase and comfort the birds at the same time. I am shelter and I am riot. I am spring and summer and fall, all of them in the few minutes it takes a cloud to pass. I am the light changing from hopeful to overbright and back again.

Some things can be pointed to with unanimity. The crowd witnesses the crime and points to where it happened, the police go to make the arrest. There is a moderate agreement on the facts at times. For example, I like to write stuff and sing stuff and try to play stuff. I see that. I think others see me in that way as well. The dog sees me typing, the pussycats hear me singing and bashing at guitar. My neighbours saw me carrying in the box of printed books, they see me go off in my tuxedo, with a smile on my face. They have attended concerts and seen me in the back row with an ear-to-ear on my face. The general opinion is that I can be defined, described as a creative person, involved with the arts. Even the little doggies and pussycats know that much.

Being creative is my innocent charm. The charm that harms none. We all have that, each of us. We had it from the git-go. We have a born light, a true light and it doesn’t disturb. Not a baby thing on earth provokes more than a smile. (unless you are a hungry predator and enjoy freshness) Yeah, each of us, animal, mineral or vegetable has a thing, a self, a real. Perhaps, you were born to stare at stamps from far-off places or knit fantastic things or cook… Maybe you aren’t that good at it but hey…only a few can be, you are still a knitter, a cook, a stamp collector. You are imperfect or not. It doesn’t matter a damn.

Nothing is perfect or will ever be other than life. Nothing is perfect other than the right now day. Nothing is perfect beyond the time that is blowing in or blowing out. Today is blowing in as unique, as a surprise. Mmmmm, delicious! This is not perfect weather but it’s damn close. Actually, I think nothing is perfect because nothing has to be. We already have enough perfect to go around. Check it out. Whooops! There goes a bird about a hundred clicks. He is flying! Wow! the trees are dancing like crazy! OOOh! There goes a boat, out into the bright sky horizon lake! Mmmmm! I am gonna go write all this down, just because.

More Ghosts

It is the last day of June and the sky threatens a thunderstorm, as though to say goodbye to June. Well, goodbye, then. Goodbye June, goodbye, goodbye. I am not ready to say hello to whatever is next. I am stuck here, in the moment, at the kitchen table with my fingers on the keys, my thoughts approaching from the shadow. I am getting myself ready for the latest summer storm and talking about it.

I have witnessed storm before and know that winds come, darkness comes, the drowning and healing splash of water comes: all of these things come, then go. All that is seems in danger of ending up blown away, everything. At times the wake of a storm is chaos, bent trees, blown away things, lost pets, a smashed past. There is also, always a fresh sky, a different temperature, a greater contrast from the lily against the field. The storm comes, it goes and we go on into new light. The light is a different colour? Maybe the shoes are missing afterward but, on we go. At the moment, it’s getting dark and my eyes hurt. I am in rough conditions. Trying to type under gloom lighting and with unreliable glasses on is a chore.

Brought to us 24/7 now and for another week or so, maybe more are the ghosts of residential schools. The drumbeat of modern media pumps adrenaline urgency into our veins. Ghosts! Shock! Horror! More at Five o’lock! See our webpage for the brutal details! Back to you, Fred! The ghosts themselves, however, wisp about the broad and unmarked fields of Canada as they ever did. The ghosts care nothing about Tik-Tok video or media interviews. They jangle nothing, move nothing, they shout solely with a stilled voice. For their care and keeping, is nothing to do save quiet ourselves a moment, respectfully. There is nothing to do save realize and note the facts. There is nothing to do save take a knee on an otherwise unremarkable summer day. The knee does not dismiss Canada. Putting out the candles for a moment does not dismiss the flavour of the birthday cake. In an offer of respect, an act of comfort, is nothing done away by any Algebra of ‘correctness’.

From across the limitless golden fields of plenty, a pitched-battle thunderstorm is approaching. I fear the brash, green, unfinished things that promise tomorrow may bend badly. The possibility of grievous damage exists. True, tomorrow is a tender green of untested mettle under perilous skies that beg our full concern but the boiling clouds are not eternal. We need not worry long, gray moves quickly and will pass, leaving it’s judgement. That said, for the moment, there is proof plenty that at the edges of all things can be found shadow.

A summer day is not forever spoiled by storm. Wildness releases emotion, freshens what is dry, reaffirms our grip on the railings. The storm roars in but leaves, in it’s time. The ghosts awakened don’t roar, we still have to listen for them. If we take a knee, take a day to hear, we can brace against the clouds/wind/rain. If we lean an ear for the quiet, we offer respect and may, possibly, learn. A single day off from nationalism is a good thing. In taking a knee to glory, to anthems, to conditioned view of what is, we are saying goodbye to innocence of all kinds. Goodbye to innocent belief in the smiling Mountie, the happy beaver, the snow-capped peaks. Those things exist yet in essence but were never really anyone’s to hold forever. When the storm passes, with luck we will find the loose things blown away and other, more durable things in their place.

It occurs to me that each
of us knows exactly
What Jesus Would Probably Do.

He would build a coupla bookshelves,
buy some hammers and stuff,
read a little bit,
eat some bread and some fish
(if there was any
or go to the market
if there wasn’t any
or send someone else
if he was busy and
someone else was available).

Jesus might drink a little wine or
go for a ride on a donkey or
walk around wearing the footgear of the day or
not.

That’s what he would probably do,
I don’t know for certain.
Actually, he might leave the old ways
behind and get
a car.
Would he need a driving license?
Maybe he is a scofflaw
and thinks,
“Well, what are they gonna do?
crucify me?”
or
maybe that sort of
thing is just taken care of,
the way it is for Queen Elizabeth?
I don’t think Her Royal Highness
has a driving
license and she drives.
If there is a problem
and a car rolls over
the Queen just says,
“What are ya gonna do?
report me to the Queen or
something?”

So,
Jesus might drive.

I hope he would drive carefully
because I have driven
on the sidewalk myself
and the people running
and screaming
means it isn’t that much
fun
in my opinion.

Jesus would offer his opinion,
I am certain of that.
Some pretty reliable folks wrote down
his more adamant opinions.
The writing down
was done a long time ago
and people have been
arguing about it
since then.

It’s a bit like
art and poetry critics,
how they talk about what it means
and whether or not
the words are in the right place
or if the guy writing the
stuff down
knew enough to come in out of the rain.