tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62699903387951100562024-02-07T14:20:30.602-05:00The Well Versed HeartHome for musings and poetry.Jerry Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054428435443042500noreply@blogger.comBlogger86125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269990338795110056.post-77443270869651400112022-09-09T15:28:00.005-05:002022-09-09T15:45:00.013-05:00September 8 2020 My Majesty Died<p> </p><p align="center" style="break-before: page; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; page-break-before: always;"><br /></p>
<p align="center" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p align="center" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="break-before: page; page-break-before: always; text-align: center;"><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Her
majesty the Queen, Elizabeth the Second of my entire life</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em></p><p style="orphans: 2; text-align: center; widows: 2;"><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">reigned
over me like a bow until a quarry forklift operator </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em></p><p style="orphans: 2; text-align: center; widows: 2;"><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span> </span>told
Kenny Jackson and Me "they're saying the Queen die."</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em></p><p style="orphans: 2; text-align: center; widows: 2;"><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">She
was my majesty, now she is Saint Elizabeth of Balmoral,</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em></p></blockquote>
<p align="center" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">heiress
to the Anglo Saxon monarchs and Saints found </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em>
</p>
<p align="center" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">in
the histories of Bede’s English Speaking people:, </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em>
</p>
<p align="center" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">kings
and queens with all their miracles,</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em></p>
<p align="center" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">created
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">by
he or not</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">the
pantheon of his pen, </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em></p>
<p align="center" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">in
whose company Elizabeth of Balmoral has now entered. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em>
</p>
<p align="center" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The
miracles of her rule </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">were</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
simple goodness, </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">the
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">wonders
of </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em></p>
<p align="center" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">her
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">dedicated service
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">were
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">heroic
example</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">s</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
of grace under pressure</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em></p>
<p align="center" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">duties
faithfully </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">to
her own </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">ascension
promise; she was a young</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em></p>
<p align="center" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">mother
who became grandmotherly </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">a
rock for nearly </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em>
</p>
<p align="center" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">half
our nation’s existence:</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"> </span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">for
one third of </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">all</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
international </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">peoples</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em></p><p align="center" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
in</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">the
British Commonwealth, </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">whatever
their politics and views of</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em></p>
<p align="center" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">monarchy
many are </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">bowing
heads </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">to
honour her passing, conscious</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em></p>
<p align="center" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">of</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
her strength of character, her essential goodness </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">in
hard places</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">;</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em></p>
<p align="center" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">for
a woman to be, to be </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">the
woman to whom elephant matriarchs in</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em></p>
<p align="center" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Africa acknowledge</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">d</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
her</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"> </span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">just
before he father’s death, </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em>
</p>
<p align="center" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">trumpeters
of her ascension, </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">the
reason for her return to London,</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em></p>
<p align="center" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">my
fair lady-o</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em><em><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></em></p><br /><p></p>Jerry Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054428435443042500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269990338795110056.post-42499858240270182722021-07-20T15:40:00.004-05:002021-07-22T20:27:25.880-05:00July 20 1982<p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; page-break-before: always;"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif", serif;">Scuttling
up Yonge before dawn</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>the
morning of my twenty-seventh birthday,</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>my
accomplishments to date,</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>a
filing cabinet full of manuscripts</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>and
rejection notices.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>I
have driven hack and cleaned vomit</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>from
stifling halls while King Tut's death mask</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>looked
on with a smile,</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>I
have parachute-panted in Voodoo's</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>and
held court</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>beneath
spray-painted prophecies.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>I
have been laid in Anglicans woods</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>by
a woman I never met again,</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>I
have walked streets littered with roses</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>scattered
under after-hour crowds</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>on
my way to booze-can dance floors</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>overflowing
with musicians, dealers,</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>groupies,
strippers and sundry flotsam like me.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>But
now with the moon hours from predawn,</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>clearing
clouds in the tunnel of downtown</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>I
pass the archway of stone</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>that
stands inexplicably at the mouth of McGill,</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>the
women's club a few row houses in:</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>I'd
once been a guest inside with a Halloween Butterfly.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>North
of Wood Street, two jean-jacketed headbangers</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>from
Scarberia wade through junk strewn about Yonge – he</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>in
an <i>AC/DC</i> t-shirt and she in one claiming</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>'And
on the 8th Day God created <i>Led Zeppelin</i>'</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">– <span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">although
I can't help but doubt it.</span></span></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>A
copy of the <i>Plain Truth</i> magazine sprawls</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>with
an empty bottle of wine in a doorway.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>A
transvestite sits with a male, dwarf-punk prostitute</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>on
the steps of the <i>Country Style Donuts</i></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>eating
French crullers.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>In
the always-open <i>Super Duper Sub Shop</i></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>the
guy with the eternally greasy ponytail is working.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>"If
you like <i>Genesis </i>you'll love <i>Myth</i>"</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>claims
the poster outside the <i>Gasworks</i>;</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>'Save
Daily on Supermarket Specials'</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>answers
the ad on the <i>Star </i>box.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span><span><br />
</span>I
turn off Yonge preparing myself for the way</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>the
leaves on the trees will animate</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>the
final play of twilight,</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>instead
I come across two coupling cats in the gutter.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>Dawn
pales into rolling clouds piling up</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>on
the distinctly planetary horizon.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>My
door closes behind me with a click</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>that
no on hears but me, and Atlas,</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>stained
glassed into the mythos of window.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>Before
eventual sleep, there is a call from my brother</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>salvaging
the last vestiges of my optimism with small talk</span><span style="font-size: x-small;">.</span></span></p><br /><p></p>Jerry Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054428435443042500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269990338795110056.post-73202069392312283222021-06-27T07:46:00.002-05:002021-06-27T07:47:45.669-05:00The Cottage<p> <span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif", serif;">Ordering
my third beer an hour out of Union Station,</span></p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>I'm
intent on a woman I don't know across from me</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>who
is in turn intent on Ontario's north shore south: </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>a
child's drawing of lake and sky, </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>framed
in hair and nape and gaze. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> <span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>***
*** </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>I'm
on my way to a friend's birthday. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>Polly's
a painter, the mistress of a married man,</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>the
brother of the woman from the Shuffle Demon night. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>I
barely know either. I wish he'd go back to his wife. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> <span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>***
*** </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>I
drink too much, too quickly, </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>I
stopped for a year and a half; </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>then
started again with the usual excuses. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> <span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>***
*** </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>I'm
stumbling my way back to Golgotha, </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>not
sure where the Cross is anymore, </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>willing
only to maintain</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>I'd
seen Calvary last spring. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> <span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>***
*** </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>I
like trains, </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>they're
like being backstage in touring theatres: </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>nothing
is built for the view. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> <span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>***
***</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>Driving
in a taxi from the station, a colonial stone church</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>open
to reveal the Sunday-best of Brockville, I stop</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>in
a Becker's for a toothbrush – civilized as I remember</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>to
be at the last minute. Ten minutes down Highway 2 west</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>the
cab slows through wooded lanes and clearings,</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>shadowed
boughs cresting the rocks</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>as
we come to a stop on an outcrop of Canadian Shield. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>A
cottage perches above the St. Lawrence rolling seaward. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>I'm
the first here. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>The
keys are where they're supposed to be, hidden </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>beneath
the porch. I'll wait for dark or my hostess … </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>A
new moon sickles over Shield mounds </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>worn
on the landscape like a clasp. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> <span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>***
*** </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>The
river lays itself around rock islands like </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>my
hostess in my dreams, naked on blue sheets and pillows. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>Mosquitoes
disintegrate dusk and drive me off. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> <span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>***
*** </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>Night
falls Gothic outside the cottage, </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>the
others still to arrive. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>The
building creaks heat from its joints. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>The
wind stalks leaves. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>Motorboats
growl demonically.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>Mosquitoes
draw blood.</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>Night
swims like waters I've never been in. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>Rooms
from which there may be no escape </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>glare
down at me. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>I
remember this place now: </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>every
bolt-right awakening with which I once</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>wrenched
myself from sleep insists</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>that
this is that "Cottage", the one </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>where
the walls bled chill winds through</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>too
many nights. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> <span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>***
*** </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>Fumbling
with the key, intent on entering against reason, </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>I
push open the door: blackness fades blue, </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>a
wisp of must meets my hellos. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>Invited,
and yet trespassing, I stay on the stoop </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>as
wall shadows still through the kitchen, </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>a
silence of pantry and beyond. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>History
of which I know nothing surrounds me: </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>the
possible dead whose names I've never heard</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>rustle
in as the door closes. I leave the lights off. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>Tongue
and groove creak echoes the twenty-third psalm</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>over
a long banquet table and off broad, </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>barely
seen porch screens. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>A
hall turns right passed a room gaping</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>porcelain
dolls on dressers, white faces watch my back </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>as
I squeeze by a book-bordered room. </span></span></p><p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>Round-shouldered couches and
chairs brood under a mantle. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>A
second floor balustrades up. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>The
living room vanishes as I climb. Expectations </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>of
my ankle being grabbed from below greet each footfall. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>On
the top step, mid-hall, I dare not move a finger</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>either
side of the opening. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>Here
is where the walls gaped, </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>here
are the bedrooms where I slept cities away </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>and
awoke to see them vanish as they now won't. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>I
leave the stairs, and turn left, not even looking right, </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>letting
my back to fend for itself. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>There
are two rooms, half moonlit, sparsely furnished; </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>the
neat beds and chairs are shuttered in. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>Behind
me, a black closet bores into my spine,</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>The
arms of sleeves and the feet of slippers </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>hold
their breath in the dark, waiting</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>for
me to leave. Down the hall again;</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>past
the stairwell I find other rooms, </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>other
closets. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>I
come to a threshold </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>too
black to see beyond. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>I
feel stairs climb. Before me – though not in the attic</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>or
in the darkness itself; is a room in my memory where</span></span></p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>fear
like fever shudders and slowly subsides. </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> <span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>***
*** </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>Downstairs,
the cottage is serene under lamplight, </span></span>
</p>
<p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span>the
book-bordered room is sky blue: a painter's cottage, clouds drifting
across walls,</span></span></p><p lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span> all that's left of one summer in the 1920's. </span></span>
</p>Jerry Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054428435443042500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269990338795110056.post-49107301921470147322021-05-23T17:08:00.012-05:002021-06-03T14:31:24.734-05:00Thoughts on Leda and The Swan's<p></p><p lang="grc-GR" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">The Swan entered my awareness
rising from the inner harbour near Molly Brant’s land: the deep
thwup thwup thwup of its massive wings reverberating with the thrums
of car, truck and motorcycle tires across the iron-grating of <i>T</i><i>he
</i><i>S</i><i>inging </i><i>B</i><i>ridge</i> spanning the narrows
where Cataraqui currents cross to the limestone ridge of Olympian
Fort Henry where they enter the St. Lawrence River, a height from
which lightning bolts once entered Leda, giving life to her offspring
with Zeus, the jolt of imbalanced power romanticized by painters as
love and as rape by others: forty or more such swans now on the inner
harbour: some of passing for human, some passing for swans, some
mixedup confusionists, others balanced between clarities of
transcendent conception and the consequences of inescapable
attraction, thunder storm scales of aftermath awareness becoming
stillness.</span></p><p lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">The
Trumpeters are now the life of the Inner Harbour party: they, the
beaver, the muskrat and the sunning turtles that climb out of shallow
island-worlds, are warmed into equations seemingly solved by the
young, Great Blue Heron stalking frogs and fish along the shoreline
to an audience of human observers.</span></p><p lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Further
out, a single Caspian Tern dives, head down, bright-beaked, folded
wings framing it, shallow-fork tail-feather shifts altering the angle
of split-second plunge. Successful or not, it gathers wind to climb
back out of the water, rising then gliding, scanning for subsurface
meals, wind and chance defining its hunt.</span></p><p lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">The
reviving watercourse is Molly Brant’s dream coming to life as a
vision of the planet’s atmosphere powered by ions mutating eons out
of our breathing space-rock to heart beats of <i>spiritu</i><i>s</i><i>
</i><i>sapiens</i>. The niche of our species is the niche of our
divinity, a niche of an aspirational Earth breathing its own
existence.</span></p><p lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Mo
and I first arrived last fall, moved into Kingston: walked Belle Park
as finches flew about us among the vine-grappled oaks out by the
Barriefield narrows; happy to have us in the woods of their flight
through the vines pulling down mature trees, they flitted around us
and limbs broken by wind-twist, landing on branches to dart off into
the fractured and staggered hardwoods, bursting into the sun and back
into shadows, turning us around while following their antics,
catching views of the channel beyond: quick as ripples, they trace
wind over water as a pair of Canada Geese slip back the way we came,
the sparkled waves flickering.</span></p><p lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">On
Belle Island last October, the upriver sailboat anchored the
foreground of the causeway beds for the structural steel and concrete
car-bridge spans-to-be, a gap reaching across the open channel from
either side.</span></p><p lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">The
work, re-started with spring, was that of ironworkers’ seen from
the sandy shore. We studied the collapsed boathouse wharves across
the nearer way, their rustic integrity fallen inward, sunken; mostly
whole, supporting the view of certain-death by redevelopment, by the
vines of power drawn like decision-making in warm sand with a naked
foot washed by a wave: the weight of our bodies indenting heels,
arches, pads and toes, a construction-free afternoon considering a
quiet drift into the evening of our species. Waves and airs linger,
serene: effervescence heals as we walk poplar stands through inland
meadows, swans in coves either side of the widening point. The
sussurations of long grasses stirring river breeze before our
subsequent breaths.</span></p><p lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Making
for the marsh corner path, our route parallels the beaver ponds
alongside the chain-link fence up the rising ground to where the
creek ridge limestone banks fall towards us from the culvert at the
closed road to Rideau St. The curtain-spread of cut links drape off
pipe rails opening into old tannery paths now in the care of the
Earth, the woods beyond filled with garbage dumped by those incapable
of sorting the costs of bags emptied during walk-throughs among the
abandoned campsites of the winter dispersed homeless; heaps strewn
among the concrete-jutting, twisted iron-rods of the old foundations
and red clay ruins of the tannin bath; dumps among grape vine tangles
enroute through the blackened remains of trees set fire-to by mental
health poor squatters with drug and alcohol problems, living on lousy
food, fending for themselves for and against one another on land in
need of its own healing, their only witnesses the beaver, squirrels,
chipmunks and the wary deer long since fled.</span></p><p lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Human
paces have been slowed by variants-of-planetary-interest in whether
to keep our species, or kill us off along with everything else in our
niche; replace us with new symbiotic creatures, in our case, with
ones possessing more genuine powers of common purpose than our own.</span></p><p lang="en-CA" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">The
twisting similarities and dissimilarities between what people create
and what exists, play out of these toxic places: the turtles, now
resting from caring for the chemical stew of the floor of the Inner
Harbour, commune with the sun on the ribs and centre beams of the
rusting hull of the disintegrated boat off the Cotton Mill; slip with
dusk back into the mud of their mysteries: the offspring of
divinities in constant metamorphosis. </span></p><p></p>Jerry Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054428435443042500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269990338795110056.post-70224875980300810182021-01-11T14:45:00.013-05:002021-01-14T10:16:33.260-05:00As treason next door<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
As treason next door unfurls the flags and symbols of fallen enemies;</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">recycled history plays itself out
in halls swimming in the blood of historic agenda decay rates.</p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">Back when business-was-usual, seeds were sown around
the world to assist homegrown tyranny, </p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">a global mercenary takeover in process, gangster capitalists, the Grifter King and his court of</p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">arms dealers and money lenders now floundering in daylight.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">Nothing, from the first tweet to the last challenged ballot to the insurrection was unexpected, </p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">an end inevitable since the President first began to lie in the Oval Office without shame, </p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">allowed to continue as the republican media fed fantasies to their goats, </p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">Trump goading them to trample the sheeple in their demonic parody of Christianity.<br /><br /></p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">Rupert Murdoch's ill-spirited print and broadcast agenda made all this inevitable,</p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">sins of omission and commission aired and published like bait to which Donald's Jesusadis </p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">rose to his dark trumpeting, to his nihilist cynicism, entrancing them, ensuring they were</p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">unable to see or feel the surrender of their doubts while entering his alternate reality,</p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">denying every collision with all that is actual.</p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">Many will deny him before the end: witnesses and enablers</p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">of the vanities of the Grifter King, the greatest con in American history, a man</p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">without conscience. If nothing else, his place secured as the great manipulator,</p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">will contain him in a madness far worse than that of old King George.</p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">The fey enchanter of followers who believe him to be Jesus the Second come,</p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">a Grifter King-sized Anti-Christ for all able to discern his true character in a glance, his disciples</p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">lost in the litany of lies fed to them by forgers of treason, by the adherents of slavery, </p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">by wannabe warriors of cultural and actual genocide, by underwriters </p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">of indentured
servitude trade systems, overblown </p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">in the love of their manifest platitudes, and dismembered beatitudes.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">As treason next door
unfolds in competing strains of high noted spewtrails of breadcrumb news </p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">half-baked by sociopaths, the underbelly of
the governed cannot help but slouch towards bedlam,</p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">tracing the increments of classical republican decay, with orchestratrations by </p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">a cohort of well-heeled, swamp
creatures with red ties to the underbelly of gangster capitalists.</p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">We have reached the endgame of The Republic's Platonic prophecy where</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">the degenerate
pursuit of private property and profit gives rise</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">to popular tyranny, committed to the goal of suppresing the chaos of democratic neo-liberal </p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">boutique identity politics, a tyranny already unravelling more coinspiracies</p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">while the warrior philosophers take the stage, desiring neither profit nor property </p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">for restoring the handwritten page that first constituted the Democratic Republic,</p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">servers of sworn truths, not held by the Grifter King or his enablers.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">The bewildered, the
befuddled, the delusional and the defiant have now had their received
reality
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">shoved back in their faces by shield wielding defenders of capitol, which is when their prayers of </p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">deliverance unraveled into the conspiracy of corrupt
cops bent on opening chaos, getting </p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">one of their own killed by the
brute force of gate crashers and one fire extinguisher wielding man </p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">gone mad, because reality wasn't yielding the way it should have been, given the promises made</p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">by treasonous congressmen, truths they had been told turning into lies; the entire world watching </p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">the internal compasses of republicans run amok among the haywires.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">Lost now in the triumph
of the defeat that forever unites them, the insurrectionists </p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">celebrate their small victories while law enforcement tracks down the self-produced evidence</p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">of their joy of breaking
and entering, their selfies of smashing, of smearing their nation’s </p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">sacred spaces with feces during their ecstatic victories of delusion, laying bare their
crimes,</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">petty and otherwise,
even as the human instinct for turning on others to save ourselves</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">continues to betray
them, each to each disloyal to self-evident truths discarded,</p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">each having chosen but not yet ready to face having acted, some never will,</p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">the parchments of their nation's sacred declarations, like words never written, replcaed by</p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">QANON's Babbling Tower of breadcrumbs caving in around their homes and jobs,</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">losing their podiums platform after
platform along with those of their traitor-in-chief, </p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">collapsing suits playing out the charade
of their intentions; their prayers unanswered, </p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">the end not far off, betrayed by reality, by what they chose to disbelieve about what was actual; </p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">their love of the grifter who would be king, leading to the death
spiral of their hopes </p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">on the wrong side of history; the gyre of a despair some may never
understand,</p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">holding them forever in place, forever unable to see how
they seperated themselves </p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">from the sheeple they despise following the goatherd to hell.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">The sands of the time for repentance and confession</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">are already shifting
beneath the proud boys and girls of inglorious intent </p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">during the still unfolding days before the inauguration of their worst nightmares, </p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">the plot still unfolding as they go into withdrawal from the daily loss of the QAnon junk </p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">they shot into the veins of their movement, the hells of sobriety now theirs to endure</p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">in the cold light of futures lost.</p>Jerry Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054428435443042500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269990338795110056.post-45000357140057984942020-10-24T04:46:00.001-05:002020-10-24T04:46:10.554-05:00Wave Poem<p> </p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The channel sky broken into long, rolling waves of white-capping
peaks collapse into troughs of ever more facets of sky and sun; fold
inward as liquid dimples of blue reflecting scud clouds glare light
over erosion-resistant rocks streaming sub-surfaces of the shoreline<b>
</b><span style="font-weight: normal;">through</span><b> </b><span style="font-weight: normal;">tumbl</span><span style="font-weight: normal;">ing</span><b>
</b>moult, a fluid, green shade of countless effervescences erupting
as spray back onto the land, slipping out to collect the next row of
incoming tumble, spattered gray rocks darkening with drying splash in
the autumn rays of this endless cessation while the call of gulls and
the murmurs of humans over coffee discussing cultural economics in
the seats of the Juniper Cafe accompany the distant ferry as it
stretches time towards Wolfe Island and back while I sip my own cup,
staining this page with the ink of my own momentum observed.</p>Jerry Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054428435443042500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269990338795110056.post-4924091378742922072020-05-13T15:13:00.003-05:002020-05-13T15:13:31.082-05:00Prologue from the Pandemic 1. It Began To Go Wrong<br />
<div align="center" lang="en-CA" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span lang="en-CA">It</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span lang="en-CA">
began </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span lang="en-CA">to
go wrong when</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span lang="en-CA">
doubts </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span lang="en-CA">were
nursed into</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span lang="en-CA">
distrust</span></span></span></div>
<div align="center" lang="en-CA" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">in
all streams of information flow, media, fake facts, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">spin
out of control</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">,
</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">whirling</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">the
corruption of </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">politics
business</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">
</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">o</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">f</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">
greed </span></span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" lang="en-CA" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">decimating
public good with ammoral sledges.</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">It
</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">began
with </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">local
news destroyed by conglomerate agendas</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">of
laissez-faire </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">power</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">s</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">
to distort truth</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">,</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">
bury facts, </span></span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">murder
journalists, </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">all
of it financed by</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">a
</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">coin
in the money laundry</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">,
</span></span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">when
</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">the
losers of the second world war</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="center" lang="en-CA" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">won
the peace in 1984’s electioneering coup:</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">anyone
with a </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">working</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">
sense of distrust</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="center" lang="en-CA" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">doubts
every word that spreads from the mouths of most powers.</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">I</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">n
that spirit, the appearance of a new virus on a planet battered</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">by
pillaging and indifference to the largest and smallest forms of life,
</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">ensured
the </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">news
of a </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">rapidly
spreading disease</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">
</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">was
met with theories</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="center" lang="en-CA" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">of
conspiracies unfolded by the world’s various, competing, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">military-industrial
complexes and their </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">Officed</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">
servants </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">and
financiers</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">: by </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">a
planetary coup of gangster capitalists,</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">by a</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span lang="en-CA"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span lang="en-CA">China run by </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span lang="en-CA">billionaires pretending</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span lang="en-CA">
t</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span lang="en-CA">o
be communists; </span></span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span lang="en-CA">by an America run by billionaires pretending to believe in democracy
through their Grifter King</span></span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">who’s
con </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">agenda </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">at
odds with </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">the</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">
personal</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">
health </span></span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">o</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">f
everyone on the planet, skews news to lie and facts</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">with</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">
no trace of common human or planetary good </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">defende</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">rs
in their circle</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">of</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">
bots and shills and gospel spoilers alert to opportunities to distort</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">truth
across </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">a
wide </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">array</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">
of </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">bought
and paid for</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">
</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">sources,</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">which
is how</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">
the emerging pandemic </span></span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">made
us all </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">victim</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">s</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">
of </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">our
own false</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">
doubts </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">fed
to us</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">from
</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">fake
news </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">broadcast
</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">from
</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">all</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">
</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">sides</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">,
</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">street
level</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">competing</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">
opportunism</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">s</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">,
</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">from
those </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">with
</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">criminal
intent,</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">insisting
on the return to work of</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;"> the </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">already
</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">abused
</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">and
de</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">valued,
essential workers, </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">who
have </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">forever</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">proved
that </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">they</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">,
not capital, are the means of production</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">the front line between humane humanity and capitalists.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">T</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">he
succubi rich </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">continue
to feed off the host</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="center" lang="en-CA" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">from
the safety of their places in the shadows</span></span></div>
<div align="center" lang="en-CA" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">while
the virus unleashes unexpected depths of community</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">where
ever it spreads, turning p</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">rovincial
p</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">rivateers
into agents of common good</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;"> washing clean the contempt of old ways on TV</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">,
</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-CA"><span style="font-style: normal;">or
not, we'll see.</span></span></span></span></div>
<br />Jerry Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054428435443042500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269990338795110056.post-59011972107258985322020-05-11T16:20:00.001-05:002020-05-11T16:20:42.700-05:00Emergency Room Visit<br />
<div style="break-before: page; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif", serif;">A
new layer of pandemic precaution greets me inside the sliding doors
of the Fergus hospital. </span></div>
<div style="break-before: page; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif", serif;">I have come because my right hand is inflamed
with infection, leaving it hypersensitive from old, </span></div>
<div style="break-before: page; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif", serif;">caustic, masonry
burns compromised by cellular memories reacting to dust allergies
disturbed during our slow, </span></div>
<div style="break-before: page; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif", serif;">week by week move by car from our Elora
apartment to our Owen Sound flat, my hands compromised</span></div>
<div style="break-before: page; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif", serif;"> by my initial
over-zealous application of disinfectant in both homes</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">have
left me now displaying the red, raw skin of my right hand to Health
Alliance nurses </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">probing my reasons for entering the hospital.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">After
freshly sanitizing as per their instructions, they wince in empathy
as my stinging wounds </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">are offered to them; the lava-like reds of
flesh and dissolving skin-rock islands of molten mess </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">vouchsafe my
presence, but I also promise them that I have not traveled abroad or </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">knowingly embraced anyone recently returned from elsewhere; </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">I
admit my nose is runny but only when going out into the cold </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">as I
just did from my car to them and I have no fever, or dry cough, </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">what
I have are burning hands now yellow with pus from the workings </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">of a
previously applied off-the-shelf anti-bacterial cream responding too
slowly</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"> to stop the catastrophic spread to every nerve in my body so
the guardian nurses </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">allow me down the hall to Emergency, adorned in
my new, accordion-fold mask, </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">which I wear like an entry prize.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">I
expect to find the room full, but it’s almost empty, too many
patients </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">staying away from hospital hallways as vectors of death, but
</span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">I
know from the radio that emergency rooms are among the safest places
to be, </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">nonetheless, none of the usual suspects are here: no cuts,
bruises, breaks, gashes, </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">slashed bits or internal ruptures have come;
they must exist still in equal numbers, </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">since they’re always here,
but I take one of the many empty seats, as always by a window, </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif", serif;">half
of all</span> <span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif", serif;">the
seats in the room taped-off as not-to-be-sat-in; a social distancing
measure</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif", serif;"> against happenstance and misadventure, while an older man,
stickered-defined as a Visitor, </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif", serif;"> gingerly pumps his own wrapped hand,
gazing out the window into internal, displacing realities.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">I
am quickly registered and not long after taken by a nurse to inner
sanctums of triage care, </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">where I find myself once more trying to
articulate who I am from the self-isolated depths </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">of my own befuddled
solitude, until I am diagnosed, outfitted with a prescription and </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">sent on my way all the while aware that my last visit here was last
summer after</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">I found blood in my urine while returning home from </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">my
mother’s last cancer treatment in Barrie. </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">The
all-clears for both my mum and me were given separately last year, </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"> but two and a half months ago, three weeks after her late-January
birthday, </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif", serif;">her 88<sup>t</sup><sup>h</sup>, she died of a recurrence
that swept like</span> <span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif", serif;">a
crawl understood only afterwards </span><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif", serif;">as quick </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif", serif;">back when Covid was still
no more than news of Canadians trapped on a cruise ship </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif", serif;">just as the
World Health Organization was declaring a pandemic.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">In
the aftermath of her death, international economies collapsed onto
essential workers </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">routinely under-valued though not in her eyes or
mine; events now flow in dazed weeks </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif", serif;">while hopes for salvaging</span> <span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif", serif;">the
living Earth through humane intercessions keep</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif", serif;">hoving into and out of
sight, nation after nation’s bipolar best and worst gathering
momentum </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif", serif;">and she not here to cheer or decry any of it with me</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">in
the days before my first Mother’s Day without her.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">I
leave the Fergus hospital distracted from the crawl of my
subcutaneous itch by </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif", serif;">thoughts of mum gone, not there to phone</span> <span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif", serif;">while
the next patient registering is an older woman, </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif", serif;">calling out questions
to her daughter as my sister once answered our mother, </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif", serif;">knowing I will
never know their outcome.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="left" lang="en-CA" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">Human
frailty shares itself: alienates complacency; existential kindness </span></span></div>
<div align="left" lang="en-CA" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">is
offered and taken in glances, strangers greet in passing, often aware </span></span></div>
<div align="left" lang="en-CA" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">that our common causes are now redefining the possible, to the point </span></span></div>
<div align="left" lang="en-CA" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;">that we can even imagine how the natural world might one day recover
from us. </span></span>
</div>
<br />Jerry Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054428435443042500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269990338795110056.post-7957310797168924252020-03-30T10:28:00.003-05:002020-05-13T15:07:41.642-05:00I Herded by the Virus LIne<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Psalmists and prophets celebrate in verse;</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
use all mediums to assume a shepherd's voice.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Protective, warning, directive,</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
we stand and deliver where we are.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Poet's remove narratives, images, thoughts, and feelings</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
from people's hearts and minds and breath, </div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
transfuse us all with new ones by turning a phrase.<br />
<div>
<br />
<div>
A dialogue of love in an age of pandemic and climate change </div>
<div>
broadcasts itself<br />
<div>
throughout all isolated dominions of light; </div>
<div>
deep into the rockier ranges of lockdown fevers</div>
<div>
where darkness swallows us alone, </div>
<div>
and where routine </div>
<div>
strains all relationships inside four walls multiplied </div>
<div>
by however many rooms we have, </div>
<div>
dividing us by rooms we have not,</div>
<div>
penned as we already are with or without wine, </div>
<div>
or more than another for company,</div>
<div>
food already at hand, or not,</div>
<div>
eating together shareable in virtual communion,</div>
<div>
help needs discovered and dealt with by performatives.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
For poets to silence, </div>
<div>
the page is left with only what's been written,</div>
<div>
living voice reduced to what's been said.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Not using all mediums to say what needs to be said now</div>
<div>
leaves time unsung for others to have noted, or heeded.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The reverberations of words are resonance chambers for emanating hope and defiance.</div>
<div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Without access to this now's living Wurd; </div>
<div>
without some medium of exchange from voice to ear,</div>
</div>
<div>
from pen to page, from type to print, </div>
<div>
or from ions received by our electronics across interwebs,</div>
<div>
we cannot entrain our words to hear and eyes to see or</div>
<div>
wills to find common livable futures.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Our ability to endure together the particular adversities that we</div>
<div>
are each dealing with alone in all our nuanced and myriad ways, is what</div>
<div>
ensures we can continue to develop the collective patterns of utterance and reception </div>
<div>
in which we will otherwise be lost to one another.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Jerry Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054428435443042500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269990338795110056.post-6539185037957127722020-03-25T14:50:00.000-05:002020-03-25T14:50:08.040-05:00To Susan on the West Coast<span class="fontstyle2">Raped at gun point by a marine on leave, a rope around your neck,<br />led into a field, and let go... it was me you trusted...<br />as dysfunctional as I was, you came to see me in New Orleans<br />before we camped on Pensacola Beach out of season,<br />then went to Disney World and Daytona<br />and on to The Grand Ole Opry during your nation's 200th year.<br />I have no idea why me, why you thought I could help,<br />but you did, you who taught me to paddle, and got thrown out of camp<br />for sleeping with me on Treasure Island the summer after our travels,<br />before you moved out west, before you started over,<br />when you needed me most, even if I am writing about it now,<br />even as I also wrote about it in the sections of my novel that you<br />approved, sent me online to find the trial information to use, but there<br />is still some of us unsaid, between the prose descriptions of spring<br />fragrances, scents that words can never bring to mind the way a single<br />magnolia or azalea can do on a spring day, the way that forty years of<br />wilderness can be crossed in a wafting breeze, carrying with it the key<br />of how little I did for you back then, beyond finding you<br />a safe place to be in New Orleans, the Mississippi<br />rolling all your sorrows to the delta of your dreams<br />while I held your hand and took you for cafe au lait and beignets,<br />walked us home through the Garden District under live oak<br />draped with Spanish moss while you healed yourself<br />because the only gift I ever had was hope.</span>
<br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />Jerry Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054428435443042500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269990338795110056.post-28628615706952501562020-03-25T14:24:00.002-05:002020-03-25T14:24:19.228-05:00The First Warm Day of Spring<span class="fontstyle2">Wet as it was<br />from the afternoon rains<br />the soft light of moonset,<br />lustrous through shadows<br />enveloped the evening<br />we savoured in whispers.</span>
<br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />Jerry Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054428435443042500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269990338795110056.post-28241310513692712602020-03-24T10:17:00.002-05:002020-03-24T10:18:22.969-05:00Elora Borealis<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; page-break-before: always;">
<i style="font-family: "Liberation Serif", serif; font-size: 10pt;">1.
Interlude of Quiet</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; page-break-before: always;">
<span style="font-family: "liberation serif" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">The
cool air of the floor of the gorge rises from the river</span></div>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">to
the warm heights of the plateau in the light, rain-damp afternoon,</span><br />
<div align="left" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">the
early spring sun lost behind cloud for days, disturbing only </span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="left" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">the
equilibrium of mist drifting through the railing balusters </span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="left" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">of
the David Street Bridge to swirl the span, caress the trees </span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="left" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">rooted
to limestone cliff edges before the updraft </span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="left" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">dissipates
the remaining haze into the gray skies</span></span></span></div>
<div align="left" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">above
and beyond the view from our kitchen window.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="left" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">There
is a tenderness in the mist, an uplift to yet another</span></span></span></div>
<div align="left" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">gloomy
April forecast, to the chill that refuses to surrender the season</span></span></span></div>
<div align="left" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">of
harsh winter, otherwise gone but for warmth delayed.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="left" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Even
now, the cold-battered willows,</span></span></span></div>
<div align="left" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">maples
and ash, seem to heal in the soft, stray breezes,</span></span></span></div>
<div align="left" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">the
scars of the December ice-storm still everywhere to be seen:</span></span></span></div>
<div align="left" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">lost
limbs, branches; split trunks and denuded boles</span></span></span></div>
<div align="left" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">seem
glad of the palliative day and the care of restorative drizzle.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="left" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">The
human animal carries the idea of spring postponed in our bones, </span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">while</span></span></span></span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">
the trees linger at their own pace, nurtured by soil and water </span></span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="left" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">and
the many lives in their roots</span></span></span></div>
<div align="left" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">while
they await the sun of their quickening.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="left" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">I
wait with them, glad of nuanced mercies, at peace, </span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="left" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">because
they have so far survived the changing climate,</span></span></span></div>
<div align="left" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">as
have I, whether doomed or not, the outcome in the balance, </span></span></span>
</div>
<div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div align="left" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">trouble
enough for another day, for another interlude of quiet.</span></span></span></div>
<br />Jerry Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054428435443042500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269990338795110056.post-79544253669732365322020-03-18T15:57:00.003-05:002020-03-20T16:44:17.224-05:00When humanity comes of age<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="8q03p" data-offset-key="aiq4b-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="aiq4b-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="78bgc-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Hunkering down </span><span data-offset-key="78bgc-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">before </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">the golden hour ends as </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">they say </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">on radiowaves Canada: </span><span data-offset-key="bit3-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">the need for the young and all to stay home, for the young to keep </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">their grandparent's safe before </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">shelter-where-you-are</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> is declared</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> after the golden hour ends. More will live the more the young and all </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">stay </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">home </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">sooner.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="8q03p" data-offset-key="f7mkd-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="f7mkd-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="cmctq-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Survive together no virus in the home,</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> memories to celebrate </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">when pandemic death passes and the peoples of this land </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">see how many of us survived; s</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">ee how golden we were in the Games of Pandemic.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="8q03p" data-offset-key="btaq8-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="btaq8-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I am optimistic Canada, </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">my love for our old Dominion, my growing distrust of Canadian values now at the crossroads, </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">our place in all this,</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">with our wobbly charter of rights and freedoms </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">facing the fact that the Earth itself just changed itself in our faces; </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">got our attention because we and especially the young and their young </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">have worked to do when this passes, when</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> all is just beginning to be said and done anew, they will emerge to create what is coming, c</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">hains of events will break effervescent on beachheads </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">as </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">common sense and </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">best practices, </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">carve a new </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">epoch on the lathe of earth's turnings,shaping the epoch of humanity's coming of age as a mutually beneficial lifeform and giving it to the Earth as a token of finally understanding.</span></div>
</div>
Jerry Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054428435443042500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269990338795110056.post-63640247279751123892020-03-17T15:39:00.001-05:002020-03-20T17:00:56.920-05:00You who work the tills and stock the shelves<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
You who work the tills and stock the shelves in streams and waves of grocery shopping crowds,<br />
you who show up each day of longer weeks,, you who<br />
work a viral wrench in the guts of the tectonic shifts now playing out on planetary scales:<br />
you who live all this for minimum wage<br />
do so in the company of nurses and orderlies, </div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
you have become first responders to the homelife realities of those<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;"><br />in need of certainties beyond yours to place in our palms like change</span></div>
<div class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
<div style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 6px;">
To you, who <span style="font-family: inherit;">bag the comfort of common togetherness food</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">to you who </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">did not sign up for this when you took the job,</span><br />
to you who play hero to the anxious crowd on your modest stages:</div>
<div style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 6px;">
to you I say we appreciate the ordinary efficiencies<br />
of your one customer at a time service<br />
your small mercies to us in our turn.</div>
<div style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
We convey ourselves into and out of your lives, we pass you in aisles breaking down boxes, <br />
we <span style="font-family: inherit;">recognize some of you from times before. We leave you to the uneasy crowd. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
So to stockers who keep stocking, and to you whose tills ring on; time blends<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">a balm placed in passing for our open wound being nursed</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">all the long shifts of your working.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For now, let those who shop agree to stay away until near normal need returns us</span><br />
to you workplaces, until then, we will<span style="font-family: inherit;"> isolate ourselves </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">with your daily courage,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">and say that we will back your wage demands when new normal comes</span>.</span></div>
</div>
Jerry Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054428435443042500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269990338795110056.post-54155251734013457892019-04-26T09:31:00.001-05:002019-07-01T19:19:58.501-05:00I am resonant with lyric... <div align="center" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div align="center" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am resonant with lyric,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
resounding with chorus and verse.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Oratorios of innocence modulating memories;</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am still being raised
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
in the shadows of my mother’s anguish, long</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
returned from the asylum of 9-99 Queen, post-partum,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
she was – and remains – a gentle soul under siege:
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
my childhood <span style="font-style: normal;">among</span> the
uncertainties</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
of her pharmaceutically-induced fugue states,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
was attuned to the ranges of her smile,
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
to her fierce, subdued musings,
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
to her instrumental jazz records
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
played across decades.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am trust-wounds
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
trapped in echo-chambers of blame;</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
grown within discords of love and desire</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
as taught to my father as a boy; he then to me.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Never daring questions, not then,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
only later learning that his young aunts
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
were the erotic mentors</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
of the confusions that consumed us.
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Who them?
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
A generational tale shaping the context
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
of his eventual, AA-amends.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I still hear the steel ring of a sword
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
pulled from the stone of my skull,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
a clang of defiance casting</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
spells chanted from lower bunk dreams</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
unlocking inchoate moans
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
while seeking family grails
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
before the machinations of darkness
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
were vanquished.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am litanies of self-nurtured injuries, an aging boy</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
crowding the intimacy of others,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
not to be trusted crooning truth to flowers.
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am madrigal perspectives of flattened hopes.
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am symphonies of loons between lakes,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
a mourner of sinking Titanics and crying Kumbayas;</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
alert to embers of decades-before welfare camps,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
sparks of fireburst followed starward in smoke waft.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am catwalks through marshes,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
spikes nailed through cedar onto boles
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
rough decking wetland paths through woods;</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
in love with that time, that place and that task.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I remain embarrassment
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
easing over Tuck Shop poverty;
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
surviving kindnesses in Woodgreen memories.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am the harmonies of Peter, Paul and Mary
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
crossing railway tracks beyond East Lyn Park;</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
backyard fences spilling raked-leaf decades
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
over the shoulders of Small’s Creek, onto</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
household-dumps landlocked between streets;</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
rivulets vanishing into culverts under Coxwell.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Supervised by the chuckings of chipmunks and squirrels,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am the corps of us travelling urban ravine banks,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
hopping down mud-embedded tires,
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
footwork on stones above ripples of ooze and freshets:
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am soakers in missteps making for the Lake
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
back in the days
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
of smelt die-offs beached on wave-wash,
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
wading deeper into rollers
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
breaking free of dead smelts
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
effervescent</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
as my brother, sister and I swim beyond the dead-line</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
on forays from Balmy to the Scarborough Bluffs.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I teeny-bopped my way through the late-Sixties,
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
May Festival choir boy transposing Beatlemania</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
onto Ed Sullivan Sundays.
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am the 33 and 1/3 spins
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
of Tommy Machem reciting O’Driscoll’s dream
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
of pipers scattering cards and out of it</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
still waking to wild ducks and drakes;</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
to the drifting smoke of old men,
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
to the drift of Yeats across a drear Hart Lake
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
longing for Brigid and her long, dim hair ever since.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am inhalations of smog-yellowed airs
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
over-baked by summers in hot cities;
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I remain breaths of harbour crossings
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
on the upper deck of the <i>Sam McBride</i></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
enroute to Ward's Island;</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am exhalations from canoes whispering white pine scents</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
over Canadian Shield waters.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am self-exiled from hearth and home in the Seventies,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
hitch-hiking a land of snow and Acadian driftwood.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am survival sustained by the insights of folkloric giants</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
transforming heart depths and headlands around me:</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
walking soundscapes of borderless beauty,
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
wind-whistling melodies of wave-forming dunes.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am an escapee from – and to – small town gulps of time,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
lungs filled for my way back to a city of horns,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
to <span style="font-style: normal;">rendezvous</span> with
streetcar-wheels curving tracks to squeal</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
while midnight drunks tinkle urination scales onto piano boxes.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Mangled couplets are howled by Moloch
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
above the first underground PATH to elevator-muzak.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am he who has seen
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
the stone Phoenician heads and walkways
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
on the roof of the old Imperial Bank of Commerce</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
from a still higher window, gazing down over King</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
onto those merging histories of passing empires.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am a seeker of warehouse eyes and radiant wilds.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
overtaken by visions on roads to nowhere;</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
struck by sterile thunder roiling across wastelands:</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Da Datta, Da Datta, Da Datta in my gut:</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
a rainless co-existence,
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am the taste of dust-devils on parched lips.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
A walker of university quads,
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am a semi-professional actor
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
in a sesquicentennial production,
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
listening to the peal of chapel bells rounding
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
the Freemasonic cupola of Hart House.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
There, I am a student of Gothic stone arches and carved faces of</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
sacrificial legends, stories of falls from the towers of Hiram.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
One of many Ne’er Do Well Thespians
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
in the IATSE theatre below,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I perform the stations of daily-bread life
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
in James Reaney’s <i>The Dismissal</i><i>:</i></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
while the Ancient of Days listens to the wind;</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
listens for strains of <i>The Green Man</i> of Taddle Creek
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
conducting euphonic willows performed by Robertson Davies.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am a country that remains a cathedral</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
because a True North is not a nation but a living land;</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
a place, not a gas station; my Canada</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
is a ruling class forever business as usual, my province</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
is a middle class too busy consuming values
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I don’t share, my township</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
is a proletariat planning a tail gate party while the planet burns.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Peace</i> they told Jeremiah, "there will be <i>no</i>
peace,"</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
the spear of God replied, throwing down prophecy.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am wails of shattered conscience</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
leading to baptismal immersions in the Gulf of Mexico;</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am fastings atop Smoky Mountains:
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
distant crucifixes dotting all ridges south</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
like threats from Klansmen.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am broken childhood become
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
the scriptural re-phrasing of a wounded heart,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
an inheritance-chest opened during <span style="font-style: normal;">theological
surge</span><span style="font-style: normal;">ry</span>.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am at home questing,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
the still, small voice within</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
my only companion:</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am variations of self-knowing;</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
armed with an imaginary sling.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Stone-coins slung down metaphorical jukeboxes,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am the beneficiary of a dreamscape-Bethsheba
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
bathing on a Chelsea Hotel rooftop; a vision</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
of ever-after strolls on the parapets together;</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
we are talking blues, sandalled in our walking shoes,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
she, the mother of my once and future son,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
she, solemn with wisdom, or so my stand-in story goes:</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
the mark of the assignment I gave myself</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
while attending the school of Davidic excess.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Graduate of the new heart,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I rise from dust and ashes after mourning</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
through liturgies of plain song,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
cleansing myself with hyssop as I go.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am gospel depths, pits of despair;</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
proclaiming revival.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am agnostic decades of living vines,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
improvising history on big fat lyres.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am solos for I and Thou, duets on faith and doubt;</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am a personal niche of drum-circled ecstasies;</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
preparing for the day the Fat Lady swings the curtain fall.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I chant the hard and fast rebirths</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
of new hymnals;</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I let go; get doing, walk time until here and now erupts</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
into flame-throwing cathedrals and mosques,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
exploding temples and synagogues.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I walk the sacred earth of naked groves undying.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am a hop, skip and a jump,
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
who fathered a roundelay,
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
after marrying a torch song, and yet,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
when the wheels fell off,
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
it wasn't all my fault.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am the interplay of violins and attenuated cornets:</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Einsteinian glimpses of klezmer regrets bowed by mercy,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am Teliko-freedoms blown over Cities of the Dead
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
from across Elysian Fields.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am he who transcribes clogged, arterial tales
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
told with layers of ink and whiteout; digital erasures;</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I still drink fluid measures of booze-cans under biker eyes</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
before tight-walking my way home that night</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
to rented rooms off Trinity-Bellwoods.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Swathed in desire: beauty everywhere,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I remain loneliness cued to danger and threat.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am dance lessons transported to blues and punk clubs,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
New Romantic touch-move touch-take yearnings</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
edged and skirted in parachute pants on Voodoo evenings,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
afraid of where my choices might lead in the 1980s;</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
mother nature on the run among regulars dancing:</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
love always where I am, aching as it does towards next steps,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
gyrations of instinct homing for cusps of day break;</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
hungering for the license to act upon
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
what I keep from myself,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
everything on the tip of my tongue, refrains unsung,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
a communion of last glances unspoken as I go,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Black Day for a White Wedding</i> playing me home in my head.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am a beach party before daybreak, right after the music
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
silences, bird voices gathering, multitudes declaring,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
‘I am here, I am here’, as you are here to read or hear.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Intonations of paeans to sunrise,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am barefoot in sand
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
being heated by incandescent morning among flocks lifting
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
out of bedewed grass evapourating waves into</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
shore-mists of distilled woodbines.
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am a crisis of confidence crooning my taste for maybes;</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
a balladeer tearing pages of penned percussives into crescendos;</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
a loser of everything in a world of nooks and crannies,
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
wells of friendships misplaced, a brother lost and gone.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am the doh re me of yet another she,
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
one possessed of durable forgiveness,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
one who grants the kohl dark light
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
of her evergreening gaze, creates hope
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
while two sons compose themselves as our family,
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
forming home around us;</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
sounded by towering songwriters
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
ionizing out of their own death notices.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I became one of those blue-eyed sons</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
who finally learned his song well enough to sing it:</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I have seen those <i>dozen dead oceans </i>
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
from those <i>six crooked highways</i></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
and know that sublimated sorrows
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
are subterranean cures for the despairs</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
ailing us all: weaknesses
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
that may yet cause our survival,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
nearing the nadir of all ecological cohesion.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am, as we each are, offspring of lyric fragments,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
riven with broken everythings; known by our bent notes,
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
by our inertia and ecstatic caesuras, by our attempts</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
to tumble off the tipping point. Selah.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am not alone in crying havoc from the watchtowers,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
our house is aflame, and the children are rising.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The sensible anger of the howling mad,</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am stirring the valley of bones with spoken words.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
O Son of Man, O Daughter of Eve, arise!</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am silence now, reverberating inside us.</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Jerry Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054428435443042500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269990338795110056.post-11911980390050937702018-06-09T14:26:00.004-05:002018-06-09T14:29:12.093-05:00The Tipping PointIt's there on the tipping point of our tongues<br />
requiring only breath to voice the hopes that form<br />
the cusp of clarity,<br />
<br />
articulating the dropped coin;<br />
the falling into place of change<br />
speaking itself into being.<br />
<br />
Words are the currency<br />
of the realms between<br />
thought and action;<br />
<br />
the seeds of fruition<br />
grown in the humus<br />
of possibility.<br />
<br />
We are now in the provincial aftermath<br />
of neo-liberalism swept<br />
aside by emboldened ideologues<br />
whose sequence of theories<br />
are an underlay of corruption<br />
sandwiched under populism<br />
in a spread of kleptocracy<br />
feeding the pillagers of the commons<br />
in the name of austerity;<br />
<br />
a fat cat diet of machinations<br />
nurture an endless rapacity.<br />
<br />
The tipping point is already in motion,<br />
neo-liberalism shoved beyond retrieval<br />
by demagogues dancing on the tipping edge;<br />
<br />
but a majority do not even need to cross the axle line;<br />
just enough of us,<br />
<br />
to use the weight of their own corruption<br />
to upset the applecart for good.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Jerry Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054428435443042500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269990338795110056.post-21140984440694271002017-11-09T15:27:00.003-05:002017-11-10T16:26:34.076-05:00A Year Later<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The news made it
darker,</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
a fall that led to
death</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
a loss</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
that still sounds</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
depths</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
to many,</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
in whom words found
homes</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
and melody eroded</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
everything</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
to bedrock</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
to make peace</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
with bones</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
after the wonders</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
of flesh.</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The anniversary of loss:</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
one day and a year
now</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
a death, and Trump's
Presidency,</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
an unsilenced voice in song</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
prophesying</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
the iconic failure of democracy</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
on a dying planet.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Ironic</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Davidic,</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
sentenced to pages</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
to the turntable</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
to the radio</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
to Youtube and
Vimeo clips</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
to old CBC
interviews</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
in a lucid,
gravel-rumbling baritone</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
as gentle as
mourning.</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
His caustic</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
distillations of darkness and fire</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
flicker obsidian
light<br />
through clefts in bass and treble,</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
spattering serenity</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
with the evocative
clarity</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
of Old Testament
sentience.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
His was the wisdom
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
of a Lurianic
messenger:<br />
there will be
no peace in a shattered creation</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
because the creator broke us all<br />
entering the Beloved.</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Leonard's fall</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
to cancer
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
ate all hope but death's<br />
lack of dominion.</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
His longings emptied
into</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
family around him;</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
into friends, into one time
lovers</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
into collaborators in
song<br />
into books in hand:</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
into us</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
who heard
ourselves</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
in his griefs, shames,<br />
and righteous indignations;<br />
we, who still fill his notations of yearning<br />
into our own experiences.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
He seared beauty;</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
traced scars of hope</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
across shared lifelines:</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
his understandings,</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
chambered by his
klezmer voice</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
and ecclesiastical passions,</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
were made one with indulgence,<br />
with whimsy, united by ecstatic yearnings</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
convicted<br />
by common failings<br />
and by soaring needs,<br />
argent for transcendance.</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
His bleak vision</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
metastasized our extraordinary,</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
estranged existence;</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
bled emanations of transposed light<br />
to offer up one last possible fragment</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
of victory in
surrender,<br />
the blazing glory<br />
of the bonfire set<br />
in the wreckage<br />
of ever getting it right, the<br />
sacred impermanence<br />
of the burning heart.</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
Jerry Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054428435443042500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269990338795110056.post-38087557001546413782017-08-05T21:33:00.002-05:002017-08-05T21:34:12.733-05:00 Emancipation Week Creative Non-Fiction: 2. The Long Road Home<div style="text-align: center;">
Prologue: </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Sengbe Pieh</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
From 1839 to '41 they called me a murderer, called me a pirate, called us property, </div>
each of the 52 of us held by the American Courts because Ruiz and Montez<br />
lied about where we were from, when their ship, the Amistad,<br />
which we had seized between the Havana slave market and the plantation<br />
where they were taking us - was stopped by the coast guard off of Long Island,<br />
which is where Ruiz had sailed it, instead of taking us back to Sierra Leone where we<br />
were born, where they'd enslaved us, where we had told them to return us.<br />
<br />
The Americans arrested us, but Ruiz and Montez demanded us back as their slaves,<br />
insisted they be allowed to return to Cuba, where they said we were all born,<br />
except the coast guard claimed us as salvage; so the case went to court,<br />
but then Spain wanted us; wanted Ruiz and Montez because slave trading<br />
was against their laws; so President Van Buren though we should all be sent to Spain,<br />
because of a 1795 treaty, only the Anti-Slavery Society of America said<br />
we should be set free because slavery had been abolished in Connecticut<br />
where we had landed and because it had been illegal to import slaves<br />
into America since 1807. They weren't all Mende like me, but most were,<br />
and they had risen with me when we took the ship, so some Americans thought<br />
we should be tried for murder. We, who were all born in Africa, wanted to go home.<br />
<br />
The anti-slavery society hired a lawyer to prove that since none of us<br />
could speak Spanish, then none of could have been born in Cuba,<br />
they proved Ruiz and Montez were lying, except no one knew what language<br />
we did speak until a lawyer named Baldwin went down to the docks; shouted words<br />
in our language until a man named James Covey answered him:<br />
Covey had been to Sierra Leone, he spoke Mende, so Covey talked with us,<br />
told the courts I was a landowner who grew rice near the Boom Kittam River.<br />
<br />
After that, Mr. Baldwin and the anti-slavery society fought three trials for us,<br />
in the last one, John Quincy Adams, the former president, joined our defence.<br />
While all that happened, we were not free, but our friends got us teachers,<br />
Reverend William Raymond and his wife, Eliza, who taught us English:<br />
how to speak it, and how to write it. They taught us from the Bible, taught us<br />
Christianity. We were animists. Each time a trial came we got better at saying who we<br />
were and where we were from and why we should be allowed to go home.<br />
<br />
In the end, the Supreme Court said it was sad that we had killed the crew,<br />
but also said we had a right to free ourselves from those who had taken us,<br />
so the judges set us free. Some Americans were angry and wanted to kill us,<br />
but we were protected.<br />
Mr. Lewis Tappan, of the Anti-Slavery Society, raised money<br />
to send us home, then got us three more teachers like the Raymonds, and<br />
put us on a ship for Sierra Leone. Reverend James Steel, “Mr. Steel, sir”,<br />
we had to call him, was in charge of creating a Christian mission once we got<br />
back to Sierra Leone; a couple from Barbados, Henry and Tamar Wilson,<br />
and the Raymonds who had a baby girl, Jane, all came with us when we sailed for<br />
Freetown. Once we got there though, we left “Mr. Steel, sir”<br />
and the missionaries: we were free people in our own country,<br />
but he hated us for leaving.<br />
<br />
I hope to never see “Mr. Steel, Sir” again, though he has gone upriver to buy land.<br />
<br />
The Wilsons are afraid to leave Freetown and won't go to my country because<br />
there is slave war in our land and they now know from the English that the mission<br />
can't protect them from being stolen by the Temne, the enemies of my people.<br />
Mrs. Raymond lost Jane, their baby, as soon as we arrived but she and Reverend William<br />
say they will go upriver when “Mr. Steele, sir” comes back: they think words<br />
can save them, as words saved us in America, but the Temne care nothing for words<br />
but the orders they give those they enslave, things will not go well for their mission.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
Part 2</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Reverend Steel</div>
<br />
Freetown they call it, Sodom is more like it: every form of depravity and debauchery<br />
of which humans partake, is partaken of here in daylight and in darkness:<br />
every appetite, every carnal impulse, every crime against decency flourishes,<br />
and does so, because of the most debased creed of them all: the slave trade,<br />
forbidden under British law, the trade in human souls permeates West Africa.<br />
<br />
Here on the coast, the English hold the worst at bay,<br />
but it is the daily bread of life upriver, from whence I have just come,<br />
having secured land for our mission from Chief Tucker, a man so thick with the thieves<br />
of human trafficking that I felt defiled shaking his hand to seal the deal for the mission.<br />
<br />
As soon as I returned to the coast, I discovered the rot had set in among us:<br />
Tamar Wilson had already seen the truth of her own situation, having once been<br />
a slave in Barbados, she knows that upriver she will be just one more black woman<br />
for the slavers to gather up, and the thought of that, has undone her: I pity her,<br />
the dread of the fate she escaped through Emancipation by the British,<br />
has lain in wait for her these nine years since, and now she has made herself<br />
unfit to serve as wife or missionary, and being unfit,<br />
can no longer be compelled or encouraged to go upriver.<br />
<br />
And Henry is no better, for he too knows what awaits him upriver, and worse,<br />
for a man in love with his wife as much as he is, he knows what he has lost:<br />
Because Freetown, for Henry Wilson, is a prison of grief and fear:<br />
I hope I have convinced him that Tamar has abandoned him,<br />
and that she is as lost to him as she now is to the mission;<br />
as the mission itself is lost to all of us, as I suspect I was lost to the mission<br />
through that handshake.<br />
<br />
The Sengbe Pieh and the Mende have vanished, they have played us for fools,<br />
took all the gifts we gave them;striped them from their backs as they did their shirts<br />
the moment my prayer of thanksgiving for our safe arrival ended and they raced to shore<br />
and groveled in their re-embracing the soil of Africa;<br />
the half naked display of their tribal tattoos was a repudiation of civilization and sanity<br />
since their enemies among the Tameni knew them for Mende immediately,<br />
they were marked for re-enslavement before we were five minutes on the continent.<br />
<br />
It is my intention to return to America with Henry Wilson,<br />
to let Lewis Tappan and Reverend Pennington and the Anti-Slavery Society<br />
know that this mission was doomed from the start, underfunded<br />
and ill-equipped to face the dangers and madness of trying to teach<br />
reading and writing or even Christianity in the heart of such incessant evil.<br />
<br />
I cannot however, move the Raymonds to abandon their convictions,<br />
even with Eliza grieving the daughter she lost, she still insists on<br />
finding the Mende girls who vanished soon after our arrival,<br />
she likewise feels compelled to stand by William and their believe in the sign<br />
he was given from God in the Queen's Bush settlement:<br />
together they burn like white fire and are bound to one another<br />
in ways I could only hope to one day know in marriage or faith, and yet,<br />
they are fragile and inconsequential to the dark powers at work upriver,<br />
powers that will quench their holy ardour and devour their naivete.<br />
<br />
I can't return with them, can't tell William let alone Eliza<br />
that the three Mende girls, even if found, will be gathered up by the old women<br />
of the tribe, forced to undergo the ritual cutting of their sexual parts,<br />
and even then, the Tameni could still sweep the village for slaves<br />
and every one of the Mende the Raymonds spent the last two years teaching<br />
could end up back on ship headed for Cuba...<br />
<br />
If nothing else good comes of me, or the rest of my life, let me at least return<br />
to fight against the resettlement of escaped American slaves anywhere in West Africa.<br />
<br />
It would be better they died in poverty in the wilds of Upper Canada<br />
where the Raymonds first worked together then be led back to this place of horror,<br />
where not even the strongest is strong enough to defend<br />
the next strongest among them, let alone defend the weak.<br />
Sengbe Pieh is the exemplar of that,<br />
strong enough to lead the slave rising uprising on the Amistad,<br />
strong enough to lead his people through the American court system,<br />
strong enough to learn our language and our religion, but it took no more<br />
than the first Tameni to glance at his naked torso, to see his Mende tattoos,<br />
for Sengbe to shrink, and so they will they all wither,<br />
one way or another, they will all vanish, as I myself will diminish<br />
because I fled this cup of poison placed before me.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
Part 3</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Henry Wilson</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
I speak with Tamar earlier today, finding her on the shore, beyond the blockhouse<br />
above the harbour into Freetown, though to say I speak with her,<br />
says there was talking, when in truth she says nothing this morning:<br />
looks at me when I call her name, then turns back to the sea,<br />
the whole of my time standing in the grasses<br />
breezing under the sun of Sierra Leone.<br />
<br />
Her dress is torn, snagged, not ripped, and the fine stitch on the collar, fraying.<br />
And if this be the shop in Connecticut, I am sewing the repairs but it is not<br />
and she stands in the stirring of her soiled print saying nothing<br />
but the look of her saying all her life's despair since coming here.<br />
Not that she meets my eyes, or that I force my gaze into hers, she is far off and away<br />
with her look, losing herself in the crossing home or in the mid space between<br />
knowing and not knowing. Following her gaze, I lose myself there as well, lose myself<br />
in the silence of not knowing what to say, thinking of Barbados and she but a girl<br />
verging first womanhood all the rolling, quiet waves of yesterday,<br />
and I, a boy on the edge of manhood, noticing first the beauty of her face and then<br />
the eyes of her stolen childhood.<br />
<br />
I am remembering today the slave girl she is back then<br />
and myself born to the island, son of a white man, my mother kidnapped<br />
as a child, a half son of the plantation, but that is all the home of then,<br />
unlike the here of today, the here, where my wife loses herself<br />
looking for the America we chose the year of our freedom:<br />
only she can't find home in an ocean across which we have lost everything.<br />
<br />
She knows I am here; knows the way I am seeing her, remembering her,<br />
knows I am seeing the lipstick and the lustful bruise of a man's hand on her neck,<br />
she knows I can see the woman beneath the clothes who is my wife and giver<br />
of her flesh, and like me, she knows neither of us understands how she<br />
came to this, how I came today to say I am leaving her to Freetown, leaving<br />
with Reverend Steel, broken by her and this place,<br />
Sierra Leone, with its humidity and langour, with the heat burning carnal<br />
into the senses, the why of how she is here today,<br />
tasting the salt of the Ocean's caress, while sweat trickles the skin<br />
of her breasts like a lover's kiss, or like thrusts inside thighs<br />
only I knew.<br />
<br />
She is alive with it all, but all we were is no more within her,<br />
no more a sacred joy rumbling dry thunder over jungle, there is now<br />
only the lurid madness and the urgency of standing here on the bluff of Freetown<br />
taking leave of her memory as I am taking leave of her,<br />
while the mid-distance stretches time across eight months now inside this moment:<br />
inside which we live our happiness, live our marriage and separation and then it is over,<br />
and I am leaving, telling her I am going, hoping she will rouse herself from her stupour<br />
and follow me - follow her memory out of this place, because I plead with her,<br />
'come home Tamar', but leave, knowing she will not follow nor walk with me.<br />
<br />
I feel her with my back, remaining, every step ripping my shame through my back for<br />
going, for taking all her memories, for leaving her, having been leaving since I boarded<br />
this ship, since the anchor is cast, since I look to the place<br />
where I still see her following a man into Freetown, where I leave her<br />
as empty as I am now full of our memories.<br />
<br />
Our vows tatter and vanish in the sailing wind.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
Part 4</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Tamar Wilson</div>
<br />
Henry does not know me anymore, though he knew me at first glance<br />
the day we met in Barbados, newly arrived on the slave ship,<br />
a terrified, lonely girl and he a child of the owner, born half-chained,<br />
Henry could see my fear of dying in chains like my sister on the crossing.<br />
He was desperate for life and learned whatever anyone would teach him.<br />
Teaching him taught me to teach, he was my first pupil,<br />
I taught him stories of my freedom in Africa; while he taught me<br />
the ways and means of surviving the plantation.<br />
<br />
When Emancipation came to the British colonies and we were freed,<br />
we married and left for Connecticut, became slaves for Christ instead,<br />
took the Living Word into ourselves and found a different kind of freedom<br />
in service to those in need.<br />
<br />
Henry took up the tailoring trade but I kept teaching,<br />
taught free-born children how to read and write their way<br />
through the chains of ignorance, how to escape the world<br />
of their untutored minds and see meanings in the shadows cast<br />
in hateful words from the mouths of neighbours.<br />
<br />
But then the Amistad captives were given over to court custody;<br />
the Raymonds were brought in to teach them enough language<br />
to defend themselves when the trial came, so Reverend Pennington<br />
took Henry and I to meet the Mende;<br />
that's how we came to work for the American Anti-Slavery Society,<br />
how we came to help Sengbe and the Mende once the courts said they were free.<br />
<br />
I was going home too, I thought, though not to the place of my birth: but at least,<br />
I was returning to Africa, but that too was a lie, for Africa taught me the truth<br />
of my blood just as it taught Henry he would never escape the divide in his own veins.<br />
<br />
Henry had was just enough memory of his own childhood to know<br />
that what Reverend “Mister Steel, sir” was trying to do would fail<br />
once we got to Africa: the Mende wouldn't stand for being half free,<br />
we both knew they would leave us as soon as they landed.<br />
<br />
That's why we parted with the Raymonds, or, more truthfully, that's why Henry parted<br />
with William and Eliza: for me, the divide between the others and I wasn't as great as<br />
that between my husband and I, because Henry had some African blood but had no<br />
desire to ever be African, while I was born African, and so<br />
had to find a way to become myself again, which put Henry and I at odds.<br />
<br />
<br />
When Reverend Steel come back from buying land for the upriver mission,<br />
he told us of the slave wars there, so I learned then my skin was still the wrong colour:<br />
if I went up there, I'd be enslaved again and no one could stop it, and thus our marriage<br />
broke: I can't leave Africa now that I am home and Henry cannot stay.<br />
I have lost the ability to speak to him, even standing as he still is<br />
knowing he loves me, and that I will always love him,<br />
but though I can't go upriver, I can never go back to America, so<br />
even though I am no longer welcome among what passes for polite society<br />
here in Freetown, I'll stay anyway.<br />
<br />
Henry needs to emancipate himself from me.<br />
<br />
He knows I was a girl raised in the wanton circumstances of his father;<br />
knows I became a woman who made a slave of her husband and trained him<br />
to her needs. I don't like what I did to Henry, I played on the guilt<br />
in the gulf in his blood: I don't like what I'm doing to him now:<br />
he's a kind man, but I broke him to free him.<br />
<br />
I have let an African merchant keep me, a coastal tribesman:<br />
part of the remnant that once controlled this bay before the inland tribes<br />
destroyed most of his people: he's a British subject now, though he's not a Christian<br />
or a Muslim or even an anamist, I don't know what he is, beyond being a good lover;<br />
though he has a wife and children and I have met them, most tribes are polygamous,<br />
so he has kept that much of their beliefs.<br />
<br />
But I won't be a wife again, he pays me to teach his children,<br />
so while Steel calls me a prostitute, I'm just a teacher with a polygamous lover.<br />
<br />
William and Eliza Raymond don't understand why I have done<br />
what I have done: but of the five of us, they alone are true slaves to God, they alone<br />
will be going upriver, and for what my prayers are now worth, my prayers<br />
go with them, and with the Mende girls, and with Henry, who I know is still watching<br />
the vanishing shore below the white sail I can almost no longer see.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
Part 5</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
William Raymond</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
There can be no last will from me now, for I possess nothing,<br />
not even access to a voice that others outside of me can hear:<br />
I am holed up inside myself, and beyond these last thoughts,<br />
yellow fever ravages my body and mind and will soon overrun<br />
this last stand of my awareness:<br />
the remainder of my life<br />
revolves around you my God, and how I came to be in this agony,<br />
so far from home, so far from Eliza, so near the graves of our children.<br />
<br />
To be fair to you Lord, I brought this upon myself: I asked to be of service,<br />
asked a God of sacrifice to use me to good purpose, especially that day<br />
with Thomas Vipond in the Queen's Bush settlement, Eliza and I<br />
already being used in the midst of our poverty to teach and serve the former slaves<br />
who had become our neighbours there a little more than a year before.<br />
<br />
I brought this upon myself the day after Lewis Tappan sent the letter asking us<br />
to return to the States and take up the cause of the Amistad Mende<br />
being held in court custody. I went to Vipond in the cabin he used<br />
for his home and services. And while we prayed for a sign from you,<br />
his dog became uneasy so Thomas let it out then returned to pray with me for a way<br />
to raise funds so Eliza and I could leave the settlement. But then his dog<br />
began to growl and bark, so Thomas opened the door and a wolf burst into his shanty,<br />
which I finally managed to club senseless with a broken chair leg and then kill it.<br />
<br />
I should have known how deadly that answered prayer was when I realized<br />
that the bounty on the wolf's hide would allow us to fund our trip out of the settlement<br />
as far as St. Catharines where our friends finances our way to Connecticut, allowing us<br />
to answer your call, the call that eventually brought Eliza and dear Jane, our<br />
later, doomed first child to Africa with the Mende. But you know all this Lord, I ramble<br />
to stay ahead of my delirium I suppose.<br />
<br />
She and I were two years married, eloped from her step mothers in Brantford,<br />
made lean and of one body and flesh in the hardships of the Queen's Bush,<br />
but none of that prepared us for what was ahead, after we befriended the beleaguered<br />
Africans and taught them English to defend themselves before the courts.<br />
<br />
The shape of the troubles ahead were there for those who had eyes to see, Lord,<br />
but we had eyes only for the task at hand. It was only when we got the Mende<br />
back to Sierra Leone, when we encountered the debauchery of Freetown and caught<br />
our first glimpses of the degradation of humanity of the upriver slave trade,<br />
that I thought again of the wolf, and pondered anew the meaning of its fate,<br />
within the glimpses of the horrors we discovered upriver.<br />
<br />
The death of Jane as soon as we arrived broke us, Eliza most of all,<br />
and then when the Mende vanished within days of arriving, desperate<br />
to get upriver to their loved ones without being recaptured<br />
by Temne slavers who prowl Freetown like chain gangs, all five of us<br />
in the Anti-Slavery Society's mission suddenly found ourselves facing<br />
a threat more dangerous than any wolf let loose in a shanty,<br />
because it was a moral threat, extending from human choice and it met us everywhere,<br />
and none of the gentility of British Freetown could conceal it for long.<br />
<br />
Even the Methodists looked on our plan with dread.<br />
And then Steel came back from finding us land and left with Henry Wilson,<br />
leaving Tamar to her fate, and leaving only Eliza and I and the three girls<br />
from the Amistad to go upriver not even knowing where Sengbe and the others were.<br />
<br />
We were broken in your name before leaving Freetown Lord,<br />
so that all that comes or does not come of the mission after I am gone,<br />
will be yours to claim, for no human, least of all me, can now lay claim<br />
to the survival of Kaw Mende. I am the last of mission, even Miss …<br />
I can't recall her name now Lord, even she, who came back with Eliza and I<br />
from America on our fundraising tour, even she died after Eliza lost<br />
our second child, after Eliza lost her hope, lost her sanity among the rats...<br />
<br />
how Eliza hated those rats... how many did I kill that one day,<br />
one hundred and sixty four, poor Eliza, so great in spirit, so broken in hope after<br />
the second baby died and the rats came and Sengbe Pieh returned to demand<br />
we allow him to take the young women to his tribe so the female elders<br />
could perform their ritual cliterectomies,<br />
it broke her hope so I sent her home to my parents to save her mind...<br />
<br />
How long have I been here without help, Lord, running the school,<br />
protecting the girls, providing medical supplies, how long have I been dying,<br />
how much longer can I retain this last remnant of my own mind?<br />
<br />
Kaw Mende is yours, yellow fever will soon break down this barrier,<br />
and my life and my works will be jettisoned in the black vomit.<br />
Someone is caring for me. One of the girls I suppose.<br />
They at least have been safe here.<br />
We have done that much good, we also<br />
bought several of the Amistad captives back from the slavers.<br />
We did that much, several times, over and over and over we bought them back.<br />
You answered my prayer with a wolf.<br />
And this time... it is I that am being bludgeoned to death by disease.<br />
<br />
Have mercy on Eliza, Lord,<br />
grant her your peace,<br />
grant her... grace...<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
Part 6</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Eliza Raymond</div>
<br />
They don't want me remembering, and they mean well, but if don't remember, I'll forget,<br />
and if I forget, I will lose myself, as I lost the children, as I lost William, as we lost<br />
some of those we had saved, as I lost my faith, my hope and some of my sanity;<br />
so I remember because I don't want to forget who I am, who they were were,<br />
what we set out to do, what we did, what we failed to do.<br />
<br />
I remember lest I become - as Sengbe once said - a dog without a home,<br />
lest I become a stray; lose my way, lose sight of all that is still true and holy and<br />
untouched by the darkness into which we were drawn, as wide-eyed and innocent as<br />
children who thought we knew what darkness was, but had never lived without lamps.<br />
Sengbe... 'Cinque' of whom I once knew nothing, of whom I learned too much,<br />
much that was good, much that was not, much that I never understood, much<br />
that I will never let myself forget. He was our friend and our enemy, he was God sent<br />
and Satan serving, he was humanity looking at itself in the mirror of slavery,<br />
he was a simple man in a situation so complex it broke us all.<br />
<br />
If I don't remember, I will lose myself to my hatred of Sengbe,<br />
and I cannot do that to William's memory, to William's love for me.<br />
<br />
They want me to remember his love, but not his loss,<br />
they who have never lived without lamps.<br />
<br />
They who are afraid of madness as if they might catch it<br />
as William caught yellow fever and perished in its black vomit<br />
when I wasn't there and couldn't tend him or die alongside him.<br />
<br />
Sierre Leone…Africa itself... it had always been with me, it was there<br />
when I was born in Nova Scotia, there among the abolitionists and blacks<br />
of my childhood who spoke of Granville and Freetown as if they were mythical realms,<br />
places of hope against hope, places where the great wrong could be made right,<br />
no matter how wrong the wrong was or continued to go wrong, it could be driven off<br />
with light, it would be as simple as darkness vanishing into light in a place where no<br />
light had been shone for centuries.<br />
<br />
Nova Scotia, how dear and safe and clear and bright it seems to me now, although,<br />
even its shadows hide crimes and wrongs against Africans, but Nova Scotia<br />
pales against the limitless glooms of West African slavery, against the succubus<br />
feeding on the skull of that continent, feeding on women and children and men,<br />
generation after generation after generation, century after century, an endless stream<br />
of degradation, chains within chains, horrors passed down through families of slavers<br />
and the enslaved, legacies of debauchery and transactions of despair.<br />
<br />
Perhaps I should have listened to my step-mother, listened when Sally warned me off<br />
William... Instead I eloped with him, married in St. Catherines and took up teaching<br />
former slaves in the Queen's Bush Settlement where we had nothing but one another,<br />
one another and the divine cause of giving from the bounty of education and faith<br />
with which we had been blessed.<br />
<br />
Those bleak winters were radiant with shared hardship,<br />
what a joy to serve those who had only known forced service and suffering at the hands<br />
of whites, what an honour to undo the burdens placed on them by others of our race,<br />
by helping them carry the burdens of their fear and ignorance, helping them plant new<br />
hopes, raise new generations.<br />
<br />
And then the call came to help the slaves captured on the Amistad.<br />
So we went to the States, and for the next two years we helped the captives<br />
during the trial over who owned them...<br />
<br />
They want me to forget: Sally would want me to remember. She remembered<br />
everything. Memory was sacred to her, raised as she was among her father's people<br />
on the Grand River, she listened to her Mohawk blood, and to the blood<br />
of her white grandfather, Sir William Johnson. She knew her place in time.<br />
I never forgot she wasn't my mother, but then she never asked me to...<br />
she only warned me of falling in love with William...<br />
<br />
I can almost remember my mother, Mary, Mary Best Ruggles. and what I remember<br />
is losing her. I was four. My father worshiped her, not like his god, but for the evidence<br />
of God she was in his life, and when she was gone, I was the evidence of what he'd lost,<br />
and what remained.<br />
Nova Scotia was... like living among her memories,<br />
everywhere we went in Kings County was touched with her presence,<br />
and her absence, for I was young when she died: and yet, for me, the colony was her,<br />
she was in the woods and by the stream, she was in the flowers; she protected me<br />
from within the clouds, made my world sacred, and when she was gone, she<br />
went into the land itself, and though I missed her, I found her everywhere.<br />
<br />
My father felt her loss everywhere, except in me.<br />
And so we left, and for me, she was left, except... she's still there.<br />
<br />
I need to go home, I need to go back to Nova Scotia, I don't belong here,<br />
I'll die in Massachusetts if I stay, I'll die with William's family.<br />
Except I know he wouldn't want me to die on them.<br />
<br />
His brother Charles brings me tea, and listens,<br />
he's not even a man yet, and yet he lets me talk, he listens...<br />
how very kind he is.<br />
<br />
The Raymonds all have such deep kindness in them,<br />
but they have always lived in a world with lamps,<br />
they don't want to know of the black vomit and how yellow fever kills,<br />
they don't want to know of the rats and how they came by the thousands to the mission,<br />
they don't want to know the horrors of life upriver, the old women who<br />
convinced Sengbe to lead the young women out; they don't want to know how the<br />
Amistad Mende were recaptured by slavers, and how we had to buy them back, again<br />
and again and again, they don't want to know how I endured after Jane, no more than a<br />
baby - their granddaughter died when we first arrived, and then their next heir too.<br />
<br />
They only know I broke;<br />
they want to remember William as a servant of God's<br />
but they don't want to know how dark the place was in which he served,<br />
and though they hate slavery, and accept that he died fighting against it<br />
only to be struck down by an act of God:<br />
they love their son, and cherish him still, but only Charles listens to my despair,<br />
only Charles hears, and Ari by letter because he lives among the Indians and<br />
black loyalists near Lake Simcoe and has since he was 18, but even Ari only knows<br />
what we knew in the Queen's Bush: because Ari has lived without food, without pay,<br />
so Ari understands, but even he never lived without light, even if he sometimes<br />
couldn't afford the fuel to feed his lamps and lives too close to the edge<br />
of want as we did in our service, but Charles listens because he loved William,<br />
he listens to my despair because of his love for his brother;<br />
because of his love for me.<br />
<br />
How grotesque that Amistad should mean friendship in Spanish,<br />
our friendship with the slaves of Amistad was the cross on which were broken,<br />
a ship that was named friendship in a demonic jest, a ship on which slaves found<br />
their freedom through murder, then made their defense in the courts of the world<br />
because John Quincy Adams argued that they, like all humanity, had a claim to<br />
the friendship of the free in the cause of liberty.<br />
<br />
And so they were freed, and we sailed<br />
with them back to Sierre Leone and Freetown with Henry and Tamar Wilson and<br />
James Steel, only Tamar never left Freetown, none of which I can tell the Raymonds,<br />
not even to Charles... I can only speak to Charles of the Boom Kittam River up which<br />
we went into horror upon horror in the name of friendship.<br />
<br />
There is always blood to be paid for blood, starting with our daughter,<br />
and then our second child, who was born and died within days at the mission.<br />
<br />
William vomited up his blood no longer red but black as death when I wasn't there.<br />
And for what? Who gave us the cup we drank in that hell, who poured it,<br />
what good did any of it do... in the end ?<br />
<br />
I want to die in Nova Scotia, not here,<br />
the Raymonds don't need my death to add to their sufferings.<br />
<br />
I want to go home, find my mother,<br />
pick her scent out from among the wildflowers of the Annapolis Valley,<br />
A scent of her I learned from an untouched dresser drawer<br />
left by my father, the scent of her all that remained.<br />
<br />
I want to go home and smell the clean, salt water decay of the Bay of Fundy.<br />
<br />
The apple orchards will be in bloom and I can pick a bouquet...<br />
<br />
This is not the way she would want me to die.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Epilogue: </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Sengbe Pieh</div>
<br />
It is a long road I have been on all these years,<br />
a long time since I've come to Kaw Mende,<br />
long since all those who helped us after the Amistad<br />
have gone home or died, like William Raymond, who<br />
died the way only whites die in west Africa, from the fever<br />
we don't get, for it is in born in our blood when we are born,<br />
and dies in our blood as we grow.<br />
<br />
Raymond did not like the man<br />
I came to be when I came home after America, though he knew how long<br />
I would suffer from being home, for my home was no longer home, my home<br />
was a village of ghosts, a place of the dead and the stolen, there was no wife<br />
no child no parent, no friend left. All that was left was my tribe.<br />
<br />
The old women told me to bring them the girls from the mission,<br />
Eliza stopped me: she was hard as iron, as soft as a mothers' tears,<br />
she moved like a panther, wild, and as deadly as holy beauty:<br />
she stood me down, stood down the old ones and their old ways,<br />
she thought I was a bad man for doing what the old women wanted,<br />
my people thought I was a bad man for not doing what the old women asked,<br />
so I had no home after that, I had no God and lived in fear of the Tamne obeah-men,<br />
I moved up and down the river like a boat, I took wives, I took my pleasure,<br />
I spread my seed in the womb of the river knowing it would be carried off.<br />
<br />
I sold my enemies into slavery, thought that would be revenge<br />
for what they'd done to me, I fucked the wife of one, but felt shame<br />
as she was carried into captivity. I killed another man's child in front of him,<br />
did unto others as had been done to me, so I was not even at home in my own skin,<br />
I was never the Christian the Americans wanted me to be, not the Muslim<br />
the old women wanted, not the man I was before I had been enslaved.<br />
<br />
William Raymond could see inside of me, saw the man I had become,<br />
saw the victim I had been, saw how I had become my own enemy,<br />
but then he died, and the titi girls grew up and they knew a man<br />
I had forgotten, they said to me “come home, Sengbe, come to Kaw Mende.”<br />
<br />
They tell me to loose my vex, tell me that “William and Eliza would want<br />
me to sabi that no matter how old, or how long it took,<br />
I would remember when I was a bobo and my mama and papa<br />
was still my living world, they tell me the Raymond's said<br />
that I would remember mercy, would remember my wakka with God,<br />
that I would be their brother again like I had been<br />
when I freed them from their chains in the hold of the Amistad;<br />
I would be the man they knew me as then, the hero man,<br />
that was the man the Raymonds said I would remember myself to be.<br />
<br />
I let them young woman sing their new song for me, unlock the water of my heart,<br />
I let them set me free, and I came again to Kaw Mende, now grown old,<br />
once again their padi, not ever again going up and down the river<br />
like a boat got no place to land, in fear of the poisons of the Tamne obeah men.<br />
<br />
I am terrible sometimes, got no hope for mercy, got no right for kindness,<br />
got nothing but forgiveness to ask of them I sent long gone into slavery.<br />
So I do the work of mercy, I help the new missionaries in the school,<br />
I sit in the sun and remember that once upon a time John Quincy Adams<br />
set me free by the power of his words, by the telling of story<br />
in the right place at the right time with the right words,<br />
words I was taught to write, words I was taught to speak,<br />
words that carry so much beauty sometimes<br />
I start to believe I might one day be forgiven.<br />
<br />
I don't expect much, but maybe I've enslaved myself<br />
to the drudgery of Kaw Mende<br />
to make amends,<br />
but if there is misery in that, it is my misery,<br />
my penance, my way of living in peace<br />
with the spirits of my people,<br />
both Mende, and Temne,<br />
for my enemy is no longer my enemy,<br />
and my hatred is no longer my hatred.<br />
<br />
My place in history needed a better ending,<br />
and for now, this will be the best I can do.<br />
<br />
Let them say I died making amends<br />
in the name of my lost wife and children,<br />
in the name of those I enslaved,<br />
the child I killed in front of his father,<br />
the man's wife I raped and then sold,<br />
for I was once a rice farmer,<br />
and worked the long days of my youth<br />
before they were stolen from me;<br />
I understand how a man reaps what he sows,<br />
so let me die here sowing good.<br />
<br />
Let me die here<br />
with titi girls now grown women who remember the hero I was,<br />
long ago, let me die with the friends I have.Jerry Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054428435443042500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269990338795110056.post-68728894563308759802017-08-05T14:42:00.000-05:002017-08-05T14:42:47.134-05:00Emancipation Week Creative Non-Fiction: 1. Echoes in the Timbers <div style="text-align: center;">
Part One</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
Margaret Buckingham </div>
<br />
I haven't been inside these walls since 1854;<br />
it was a real home then,<br />
one Charlotte Beaver<br />
was proud of ...<br />
good to me she was,<br />
always said my name the German way though:<br />
'Margrit'.<br />
My mama named me Margaret:<br />
the only name I had from birth<br />
til I married Mister Buckingham<br />
in Upper Canada in 1829,<br />
a year before our first child, Temperance,<br />
come to us.<br />
Buckingham was the only name<br />
my husband had from birth too, til coming here, 'cept,<br />
once here, he made it his last name,<br />
his 'past name' he called it, gave himself a new name,<br />
a first name, didn't seem to matter though,<br />
folks all called him Buckingham<br />
til the day he disappeared, 'cepting me, to me,<br />
he was MisterBuckingham,<br />
though I was always Maggie to him.<br />
Mister Buckingham come from a proud line,<br />
broken to the wheel of a cruel man,<br />
a field worker the whole of his chained life,<br />
his mother and sisters badly used, then sold off,<br />
never seen again,<br />
his father whipped dead for protesting their sale;<br />
his older brother murdered by patrolers after running off;<br />
his younger brothers the only ones left after he come away;<br />
an escape he never forgot or forgave himself for having made<br />
the longer he looked back on leaving them...<br />
When my husband first took me as his wife,<br />
he took the modesty I had been allowed to keep<br />
by the goodness of those who'd owned me,<br />
while I traced the whip scars from his neck<br />
to the backs of his thighs like some writing<br />
I might have read if my fingers<br />
had the knowledge of the language,<br />
a story for every lash,<br />
but there was no reading his wounds<br />
beyond what a wife might imagine;<br />
he never spoke of them neither:<br />
his was a different slavery,<br />
as my body knew none of those welts.<br />
Mister Buckingham could be fearful to me and the children,<br />
fearful to strangers,<br />
fearful to those who did good by him,<br />
and there was a lot of folks did good by him,<br />
especially once we come to Puslinch,<br />
but he was a repentant man, a tender man,<br />
a man who taught me the ways of myself, a man<br />
who thanked the local whites for being the kind of folk<br />
they were and for their forgiveness of him,<br />
folks who had hated slavery from the outside<br />
as much as he had hated it from inside...<br />
<br />
When I first come away from Maryland,<br />
I left my mother and sister,<br />
ran from a mistress who'd never laid a hand or a whip on me;<br />
left, because my mother, grandmother and sister<br />
knew nothing of the world beyond the laundry<br />
that was our life, we knew five streets in one neighbourhood<br />
of Baltimore; but nothing of what lay beyond those corners,<br />
didn't even have memories of where in Africa<br />
we'd come from, or when we'd been enslaved,<br />
more than a hundred years before was our guess;<br />
my great-grandmother having died giving birth<br />
to my grandmother<br />
who was sold as a girl to the family that owned us ever after.<br />
<br />
I wanted my own unborn children to know more than that,<br />
so I ran; ran from the laundry; ran from family,<br />
ran from the woman who'd owned me the thirty years<br />
I'd been in the world;<br />
ran to one of the free black churches in Baltimore;<br />
and folks there helped me run further,<br />
got me across Lake Ontario on a ship;<br />
got a job in Upper Canada doing the only thing I knew how,<br />
washing for white folk.<br />
<br />
The African Methodists<br />
had a church started in Toronto:<br />
most congregants was escaped slaves,<br />
which is where I met and married Mister Buckingham;<br />
had our daughters Temperance and Emera, then our son Adam<br />
before coming to Puslinch, where we moved onto land<br />
near John Wetherald's.<br />
<br />
John and a lot of whites<br />
like the Beavers in Puslinch<br />
was good to escaped slaves. 'though the township<br />
was too close to America for the comfort of most who'd come away.<br />
<br />
What struck me first about elsewhere,<br />
long before reaching freedom,<br />
was the smells:<br />
everything had been lye soaps and starch, scents<br />
of the drying line in the sun, wet wool and cottons,<br />
the burn of the coal heater and pipe tobacco,<br />
pipes we smoked on the porch behind the main house<br />
when the washing was folded<br />
and night was coming down on us,<br />
my family four generations deep in my sister's child,<br />
all of us in the starlight; casting shadows into<br />
the apple orchard beyond, the fragrance<br />
of the dark as rich as cider.<br />
<br />
Those days come to me in pieces,<br />
like a quilt falling apart at the stitches...<br />
I never seen nor heard from my mother, grandmother,<br />
sister or niece, since the day I come away,<br />
though Mr. Wetherald got me news,<br />
and mixed news it was after my old mistress died<br />
and her son's wife took over the house and sold off<br />
my mother and sister to some family in Delaware,<br />
there being too many mouths for them to feed<br />
on the money they had.<br />
<br />
I will say for him - for the son of my mistress - for<br />
my half brother, that I was the first of my family<br />
not to mother a child by one of them,<br />
even my niece was his, but it seems that having that girl<br />
done him some good, so he never took me, and I suppose<br />
his wife making him keep only<br />
my grandmother and niece<br />
was a mercy decided on between him and her<br />
over the sin within him and his coloured kin,<br />
least that was the comfort<br />
I took from the split of what was his family and mine.<br />
<br />
After Mister Buckingham was murdered in 1850,<br />
I moved in with my daughter Temperance<br />
and her husband Sam Bush:<br />
lived in a shanty owned by Nicholas and Charlotte,<br />
not this place, but a shack on the back lot of where these logs<br />
first stood, further south from here, close to Morriston.<br />
<br />
The Beavers was German with some French in them<br />
from somewheres called the Alsace:<br />
least ways Old Peter and his sons spoke three languages<br />
with their English too...<br />
They wasn't much better off than me or mine though.<br />
<br />
There was plenty of Germans in south Puslinch back then,<br />
religious too they was... Beavers used to be Lutheran<br />
before and after some war in Europe that lasted 30 years,<br />
though they was Quakers when I first knew them.<br />
<br />
Some preacher named Joseph Harlacher,<br />
who knew Mrs. Charlotte from Lewisburg, Pennsylvania<br />
got sent up to preach in Canada in 1841<br />
by something just started,<br />
calling itself the Evangelical Association,<br />
Harlacher come to Puslinch looking for Mrs. Charlotte;<br />
arrived around supper time...she got so excited<br />
she invited everyone to hear him preach...<br />
folks started showing up from all over the township;<br />
had themselves a high, holy time of it here,<br />
but the Beavers went back to Quaking after that,<br />
though they was Lutherans again by the time I died.<br />
<br />
I was Independent myself, told the census man<br />
as much in '51, kept my beliefs to myself since my mistress<br />
read Moses demanding Pharaoh let his “people go”<br />
while giving us religion one Sunday before I come away:<br />
that verse split the seam of belief in me for good ...<br />
<br />
I liked the Quakers: the Society of Friends<br />
they called themselves in full,<br />
some of who, locally, was Germans, like the Beavers,<br />
while others was Irish, Welsh and English;<br />
the oldest being my neighbour John Wetherald,<br />
who knew Old Hickory himself,<br />
Old Hickory being Elias Hicks,<br />
the man who caused what the Quakers called<br />
their Great Separation.<br />
<br />
Hicks lived in Wilmington, Delaware<br />
along with John's brother Thomas<br />
and father Joseph<br />
and between them they knew just about every anti-slaver<br />
there was to know, Quaker or not.<br />
<br />
Wetherald, the Beavers, Howitts and others were all friends<br />
to local coloureds and those passing through<br />
on their way to the Queen's Bush Settlement,<br />
a days walk northwest of Guelph.<br />
So many self-freed slaves come this way,<br />
by the late '40's so say there was more than a thousand<br />
squatting and clearing farms up there.<br />
<br />
The Queen's Bush was land no one could own<br />
by squatting though,<br />
it was meant to be sold for the good of the Church of England,<br />
the church of Upper Canada, but the Anglicans hated slavery,<br />
so they never complained about the squatters,<br />
though later, the land was divided<br />
and sold by the government; so<br />
most of the squatters left 'cause few could afford<br />
to buy what they'd worked.<br />
<br />
There only ever was a handful of blacks around here,<br />
here being Puslinch township, not the here<br />
in the Valley of the Grand<br />
where these rooms are now, but back then,<br />
here was also where<br />
parts of my life was lived, not long before I died,<br />
seeing as the Beavers had used me as their washwoman.<br />
<br />
My family was one of just seven coloured families<br />
living in Puslinch. Beyond us, near by Wetherald...<br />
where we first lived, was Old Jane Nelson and her line.<br />
Ben Bowlen, who died frozen to death beside his ox<br />
in the winter of '42 left kin;<br />
there was also a big family of Waldens<br />
who had their own share of sorrows,<br />
their Rachel being murdered over in Rockwood<br />
by a drunk named George Harris;<br />
Rach was no more than seventeen<br />
when she was found beaten to death.<br />
<br />
They hung poor George<br />
in Guelph, but proper, through the courts,<br />
once they judged him guilty on evidence,<br />
him going to the gallows reconciled to his Maker;<br />
repentant for the drunken ways that led to him killing the girl,<br />
them both living man and life for.<br />
<br />
There was also the Rames, Claude himself<br />
was a white man from Charleston<br />
who fled with his family of freed children,<br />
after his wife, Aurora, his former slave died.<br />
Other than them,<br />
there was a few other unmarried coloured folk around,<br />
like Sam Banks,<br />
who some called lazy, but<br />
he really just wanted the life of the lilies of the field,<br />
neither labouring nor toiling<br />
once he escaped his master's whip,<br />
and then there was Jeremiah Collins<br />
(who asked me to marry him<br />
the day before they found me dead.)<br />
<br />
There was some white folks in Puslinch that hated us, some<br />
that especially hated those of us who was able<br />
to pass for white, like my Em,<br />
but slavery was gone for good in the British Empire<br />
with the Emancipation Act of 1833,<br />
so that was a freedom's worth of difference<br />
to anyone born a slave like me,<br />
besides, those who hated us weren't much loved<br />
by anyone here, white or black.<br />
<br />
John Wetherald and other Puslinch folks was Quakers<br />
the first anniversary of Emancipation Day,<br />
I wasn't in the township then, but they say the Day<br />
was celebrated under this roof too, because it wasn't<br />
just Quakers celebrating here:<br />
it was Methodists and Presbyterians, Anglicans and<br />
Lutherans as well - there was lots of folks in Puslinch<br />
who saw to it that enslaved folks<br />
got as far away from their masters as made them feel safe.<br />
<br />
And it wasn't just Puslinch whites who helped: up in Guelph,<br />
there was a man named William Groat,<br />
part white,<br />
African and Indian; born free to loyalists<br />
down at the head of the Lake by Burlington Bay,<br />
related to Tuscarora on the Six Nations reserve,<br />
the ones who first took escaped slaves up the Grand River<br />
to the Queen's Bush before there was roads to walk there.<br />
Groat taught us freedom was finding your true self,<br />
but then the Groats was griots, had the old tales<br />
in their bones to keep themselves true.<br />
<br />
One of the men who caused the roads to be planked<br />
from Lake Ontario north<br />
was a Scot named Thomas Sandilands:<br />
he run a store out of a stone building<br />
on the market square in Guelph.<br />
<br />
Like the Beavers, Sandilands come to the County<br />
in 1832 but was part of George Brown's<br />
Anti-Slavery Society in the 1850's;<br />
in all that time between, he worked with John Wetherald,<br />
though we never called ourselves conductors<br />
or station masters or anything railroad,<br />
we was neighbours was all, helpful to strangers,<br />
and everything went good 'til 1850,<br />
when the Americans passed their second<br />
Fugitive Slave Act.<br />
<br />
Mister Buckingham got so wild<br />
about that change, there was no stopping him<br />
from going back to find his brothers …<br />
<br />
Wetherald's people say he was hung by patrolers,<br />
left on a tree where the Friends couldn't get him,<br />
so they never was sure it was him,<br />
but I knew he was dead,<br />
told the census taker the year after<br />
that I was a widow and no one said I wasn't.<br />
<br />
After that, I'd stay some nights with Temperance,<br />
and some with Emera and her David King,<br />
a grandmother to newborns...<br />
<br />
but without Mister Buckingham, I... lost my way,<br />
'til I turned up dead out back of Archie Little's Inn,<br />
six days before Christmas, the day after Jerry Collins<br />
asked me to marry him that early winter of '54.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Part Two</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Nicholas Beaver</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
I knew Margrit nearly 25 years when she was found dead...<br />
my brother Pete und me served on the jury that Doc Howitt<br />
empaneled to find the cause. Towards the end,<br />
Margrit had seemed haunted<br />
alone with her ghosts among the sheets und clothes,<br />
so maybe she'd died on purpose,<br />
but that was one of the things we needed to learn.<br />
Margrit used to have... 'rituals' she'd do while laundering,<br />
it was the way she had of remembering those she'd left<br />
when she 'come away' as she called it, but<br />
once Buckingham was gone,<br />
she was like a clothes line breaking;<br />
everything falling in the dirt<br />
und her not having the strength to wash it again.<br />
Buckingham had been her great comfort, but when he died,<br />
he left a hole too big for even their children's children to fill.<br />
<br />
After news was found by John Wetherald<br />
about her Maryland kin<br />
she started drinking, und though some folks<br />
thought she gave herself<br />
to some of the newly-freed men passing through Puslinch<br />
on their way north, I never believed such stories,<br />
even after her last days with Jerry Collins was told<br />
during the inquest:<br />
Collins himself never made such a claim,<br />
and he'd wanted to marry her,<br />
but I think no man but Buckingham<br />
knew the pleasures of her bed<br />
all the days of her life.<br />
John Wetherald taught us by example that we was one people,<br />
but what troubled most of the former slaves<br />
we knew back then was the fears und shames<br />
they was trained in by their old masters.<br />
<br />
John had a great patience for the newly freed<br />
und no one needed patience more than Buckingham,<br />
yet when the Fugitive Slave Act was re-enacted in the States,<br />
to see Buckingham's grief was hard for those who knew him,<br />
und no one doubted he would go back for his brothers<br />
but not return.<br />
<br />
That Slave Act killed John Wetherald too I believe,<br />
though he was already old in 1850.<br />
Turning America into a slave prison was too much<br />
for his good heart;<br />
und it broke him when he had to tell Margrit<br />
what he'd learned had happened to Buckingham,<br />
und then about the sale of her family.<br />
<br />
In the end, for those of us on the inquest jury,<br />
all we really had to worry over was whether Jerry Collins<br />
had killed Margrit Buckingham; whether she'd killed herself,<br />
or whether it might have been a tongue swallowing fit<br />
(since she was known to have those on nights<br />
when the moon was rising,<br />
which had been the case the last night of her life.)<br />
For all of us who knew her, on or off the jury,<br />
the day of her inquest was a trial we all faced,<br />
and a quiet Christmas it made for each of us<br />
when all was said and done.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
Part 3</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Margaret</div>
<br />
Jeremiah Collins was no man to equal Mister Buckingham,<br />
he lacked the burning righteousness that kept my husband<br />
true to his wounds.<br />
<br />
Jerry was toolike me, mixed-blood;<br />
too well treated by his father - his former master,<br />
too guilty for having fled and left family,<br />
too humbled by men like my husband,<br />
whose sufferings was crimes.<br />
<br />
Jerry, like me too, was a man of sorrows, not angers.<br />
We never hated them who owned us,<br />
just hated the idea of being owned by our flesh and blood;<br />
it's what he and I talked about most<br />
that last day: being owned by kin.<br />
<br />
I barely knew Jerry, only ever saw him five or six times...<br />
first met him after New Years 1854, then not again til that June<br />
when he turned up at my daughter Em's sick with fever...<br />
He knew Em and David, because Jerry,<br />
being a digger of wells,<br />
had dug one for them.<br />
I nursed him back to health,<br />
and when he was better<br />
Jerry said he'd buy me a dress for tending him.<br />
<br />
I didn't see him after that 'til the day before I died,<br />
which is when he proposed... he was a funny man,<br />
a sad man too, but a good man; and<br />
well digging ain't for the lazy neither,<br />
he'd been scarred by it,<br />
his sick fever dreams was full of digging terrors,<br />
some as old as his boyhood<br />
when he was first put to the task of digging for water,<br />
dangling down a hole,<br />
a rope round his waist,<br />
the only task he'd ever had,<br />
digging wells for other folk.<br />
<br />
Would I have married him?<br />
<br />
It's a fool's question now:<br />
maybe I had the heartache of being alone<br />
those three years since Mister Buckingham'd gone, but<br />
it was too many sheets, too many shrouds, too many ghosts,<br />
too much snow and the earth and woods white<br />
with the billowings of winter;<br />
it was me lost in tobacco smoke around the wood stove<br />
in the general store...<br />
the slow burn of whiskey heating up inside me...<br />
swirling in the knowledge of all the generations<br />
of the same two families inside me:<br />
it was the long drift of my aching thoughts;<br />
and then it was that fence,<br />
not knowing where Jerry was,<br />
lost in the cold out back of the Inn,<br />
talking to myself about who knows what,<br />
while I hiked my skirts to climb the rails...<br />
only that black cloud come down too hard for me<br />
to know whether I could have lived as his wife, or not...<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
Part Four</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Nicholas </div>
It was Doc Howitt examined Margrit's body<br />
after she'd been found<br />
by the fence with her skirts up next morning...<br />
<br />
The Doc's father, Quaker Howitt,<br />
first come to Upper Canada<br />
on the same ship as John Wetherald, he und John<br />
was good friends ever after, though the Howitts<br />
was Methodists,<br />
even had a church named after them.<br />
Which is to say, that Doc Howitt<br />
was not looking to bury a coloured woman<br />
without knowing the true cause of her dying,<br />
so we talked to anyone who knew anything<br />
that might have helped us.<br />
Und of course, we had to start with the earliest account<br />
we had of her last afternoon. On the stand,<br />
Margrit's son-in-law, Sam Bush,<br />
blamed himself for drinking and wrangling with Collins<br />
before Margrit come home from her washing work.<br />
<br />
Sam told us, that when she got to the shanty,<br />
Jerry said he would take her to the store and pay for things...<br />
so they left Sam as the sun was setting,<br />
saying if they didn't return they would go to<br />
David King's - her other son-in-law's...<br />
which was the last Sam saw of her.<br />
When asked by Doc Howitt, Sam said he thought<br />
there was nothing improper in her behaviour with Collins,<br />
but did think the two were on their way to buy whiskey.<br />
<br />
Peter Hoffman,<br />
who lived on my brother Peter's land,<br />
testified that he'd come home<br />
und found Margrit und Jerry at his place<br />
saying they was drying out<br />
from getting wet in the deep snow,<br />
und that both of them was merry with drink,<br />
though neither was drinking.<br />
Jerry told Hoffman that he und Margrit<br />
was going to marry, Hoffman said that she said<br />
next to nothing; but seemed in good spirits.<br />
By the time they left, it was almost dark.<br />
<br />
They walked to Morriston through the snow, arrived<br />
at McEdward's store around six...<br />
Jerry was hired to unload some sacks,<br />
so Margrit spent time talking to Mrs. McEdward's<br />
in the kitchen; to her, Margrit seemed sober<br />
und in good spirits, which was the same evidence all the folks<br />
who came und went from the store gave about what she did<br />
while waiting for Jerry to finish unloading. When he was done,<br />
Collins bought Margrit a small bottle<br />
of whiskey und said he wanted to take her home,<br />
only she didn't want to go...<br />
<br />
No one knew exactly when Jerry left the store<br />
but folks said he gave up trying to get her to leave<br />
after she'd borrowed a pipe und some tobacco<br />
und sat around the wood stove smoking by herself<br />
not talking much with the men, one of who was playing a<br />
fiddle, while she sat sipping her whiskey, though she did dance<br />
one dance with Jackson Dale, the blacksmith, a Morriston man<br />
who soon after left for home.<br />
<br />
Jerry by then had got himself a room at Little's Inn,<br />
then come back to look for her, couldn't find her,<br />
und so went to his room und stayed there, thinking<br />
Margrit had walked home without him.<br />
No one saw or heard Margrit after she'd left the store after 8,<br />
other than Annie McCrae, who worked for Little<br />
und maybe heard some whispering out by the shed<br />
between 8 und 9, but she didn't look to see who it was,<br />
und so no one saw Margrit alive again.<br />
<br />
Archie Little said he saw Collins go to bed,<br />
but Margrit never entered his tavern, perhaps on account<br />
of her having been cut off from drinking too much there<br />
the week before.<br />
<br />
After that, no one knew nothing<br />
'cept the two men who'd found her body in the snow out back<br />
of the Inn near the shed next morning,<br />
her skirts hiked up...<br />
so maybe she'd intended on sleeping the night<br />
in the shed, only left its shelter… for whatever reason,<br />
died falling from the fence on her way back to it.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
Part Five</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Margaret</div>
<br />
The truth is, Jerry Collins made me weak with needs<br />
I wasn't sure I wanted to have, though heaven knows<br />
I thought having them might save me.<br />
...the more I remember it,<br />
the more I see myself hunkered at the wood stove, smoking<br />
and thinking: trying to work it through, knowing I had a fit<br />
coming on - I could always feel them coming, there was a chill<br />
on my neck, a tingle of the hairs...<br />
they always came, warning signs, then my sight would get<br />
so it seemed like<br />
there was nothing but a lace sheet between me and the world,<br />
me and my past...<br />
me and my desires, like the desire for the son of my mistress<br />
and the real reason I come away<br />
because I knew he would never know me<br />
as freely as he wanted to know me, as freely as I wanted<br />
to know him, even knowing he was my white father's son by<br />
my mother, my half brother, the father of my sister's child.<br />
<br />
Not sure I remember dancing,<br />
not sure when I got up and left the store,<br />
not sure where I was going or why,<br />
looking for Jerry's my only guess...<br />
the rising moonlight was no more than sickle bright,<br />
casting shadows on the winter around me...<br />
asking Mister Buckingham's forgiveness<br />
the whispering I guess Annie heard<br />
...the rest was snow, softness...<br />
like falling into the laundry pile as a girl...<br />
I never felt the cold, or knew my dying<br />
as something that should've - or could've - been fought...<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
Part Six</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Nicholas</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
At home - here in this room - after the inquest,<br />
talking to Charlotte,<br />
we both knew the causes of Margrit's death:<br />
they was all the things slavery und escape<br />
had overwrought in a woman who'd lost too much<br />
for her to hang on to the few things she loved that was left:<br />
her family, friends, und neighbours.<br />
<br />
Old Jane Nelson who wasn't old, was a former slave<br />
living on John Wetherald's place before he died,<br />
she told Charlotte after Margrit's death,<br />
that when Margrit first come of age:<br />
the cycles of the moon<br />
und her own blood flow<br />
opened some door in her she couldn't close,<br />
und though Margrit lived among women<br />
who took a sensible view of their natural ways,<br />
as a child of the laundry, as Old Jane told it to my wife,<br />
the first time her flow come, Margrit fainted,<br />
afraid of what her mistress might say,<br />
afraid she'd be sent away, which was the one cruelty<br />
Margrit's mistress allowed herself,<br />
the threat of selling the family off,<br />
a threat that the old mistress never carried out;<br />
since they was all related to her,<br />
from Margrit's grandmother to Margrit herself.<br />
<br />
According to Old Jane, ever since,<br />
Margrit had been subject to fits<br />
on the rising of the new moon,<br />
she'd swallow her tongue;<br />
then need someone to keep her from choking on it.<br />
<br />
The only thing was, there no way of knowing<br />
if a fit had caused her to freeze to death that night,<br />
but Doc Howitt thought it the most likely cause,<br />
though he couldn't prove it,<br />
so we'd ruled her death the result of 'causes not known'...<br />
Margrit Buckingham was loved, und did a chore well<br />
that needed doing right, but slavery<br />
destroyed something inside her:<br />
escaping her family had destroyed most of the rest of her.<br />
<br />
Eleven years after her death, slavery was pulled down,<br />
but it didn't die, not then, not since.<br />
Not in my time, not in yours,<br />
slavery is more than hatred of another race,<br />
because, in every age, slavery is grown out of<br />
the root of all evil, the love of money<br />
is how Saint Paul put it: slavery gives some men<br />
an advantage over other men, und from that one fact<br />
grows a world that owes all its power, root und branch,<br />
to the misery of others.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
Epilogue</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Jerry Collins</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
I was given the name Jeremiah when I was born and since then<br />
almost no one's called me nothing but Jerry.<br />
The inquest into Margaret's death<br />
was one of the times when I was called Jeremiah.<br />
Margaret called me Jerry; I can still hear the way she said it.<br />
Collins was the name of my master,<br />
my father, the man I never wanted to be.<br />
<br />
As Peter Hoffman and Sam Bush told Doc Howitt and the jury,<br />
I wanted to marry Margaret, after that, everyone in three counties and<br />
sweet Jesus in heaven knew I wanted to marry her,<br />
but that's something I've no shame for wanting.<br />
What mattered most, was folks knew<br />
I'd done Margaret no harm,<br />
and that was a mercy:<br />
I'd grown up watching coloured men<br />
lynched for crimes they hadn't committed.<br />
I could've known all kinds of terrors from whites,<br />
but the whites in Puslinch was all Quakers and Methodists,<br />
Presbyterians and Lutherans:<br />
the only thing my neighbours wanted from the inquest,<br />
was that it ask questions that needed answering about how<br />
Margaret come to be dead... so the more questions they asked,<br />
and the longer the jury spent trying to find out what folks knew<br />
or didn't know, the further Margaret and I got<br />
from the world we was born to...<br />
her death mattered and so did my life.<br />
<br />
People wanted to know why she died, though she<br />
was just a coloured woman living on land cleared no more<br />
than twenty years before. I was never more thankful for those<br />
I called my neighbours than I was that day:<br />
Margaret got her due,<br />
and they gave me an honest hearing.<br />
<br />
I never left Puslinch like Sam and Temperance,<br />
or David and Em King done soon after.<br />
<br />
It ain't that Temperance or Em was ashamed of their mother:<br />
any more than Margaret's sons was,<br />
Temperance left because she lost both parents too soon apart.<br />
She and Sam and their children headed for Ohio,<br />
though we lost trace of them after the Civil War.<br />
<br />
Em and David moved away, no one knows where.<br />
If Margaret had gone back to the shanty with me that night<br />
who knows what would have changed, for her or me, she just<br />
didn't want to go is all...<br />
Margaret never left the store because she had the freedom<br />
to stay until closing... sitting by the wood stove was how she<br />
practiced her Independence that day; on another day, she might<br />
have chose different.<br />
<br />
She was what an Irishman at her funeral called<br />
a Deirdre of the Sorrows,<br />
a well of sorrow so deep and sweet,<br />
and me being a well digger,<br />
and having been in places so dark and hard on a man's fear,<br />
I understood the dreams that would come with her fits,<br />
and when they'd come, independence was nothing but an idea<br />
flying from her mind as fast as her past catching up to her.<br />
<br />
When we put her in the ground,<br />
Nicholas Beaver come up to me,<br />
which got me seeing that he had lost something too,<br />
and that's when I saw the long view of my life,<br />
from the time I was born the son of a master raised different<br />
from other slaves, to the man I'd become<br />
when Margaret nursed me back to life,<br />
born anew by water cloth and the heart of her kind care...<br />
<br />
I remembered her all the days of my life, the day I married,<br />
the day my son was born, the day I could no longer dig wells<br />
and worked for the township digging post holes,<br />
work that never after brought back the terrors<br />
that had begun when I was a boy<br />
dangled into a dry well that first time,<br />
sent to work the bottom til I found water,<br />
til I found the joy and fear of my life.<br />
<br />
Every thing I thought unchangeable in me,<br />
had changed forever because of Margaret,<br />
because of her freedom, because I'd done<br />
what Moses would've wanted: I let her go,<br />
left her smoking a pipe around McEdward's stove,<br />
talking small talk<br />
the way a free woman can,<br />
dancing because she felt like dancing,<br />
saying nothing more when she had nothing more to say,<br />
knowing as I did that the new moon was already rising,<br />
and the wild blood of her broken heart was stirring in her eyes<br />
like she was readying herself...<br />
least ways, that's the way I've come to remember leaving her<br />
that night in the store: I let her go, then she walked off<br />
and let herself go,<br />
died while I slept not far from where she fell over that fence,<br />
fell into dreams from which she never woke,<br />
freed from sorrow, bound for glory, and raised from the dead<br />
by the Son of Man who spoke to her bones,<br />
breathed new life into them,<br />
then sent her off with those she'd lost... newly found.<br />
<br />
Freedom always overthrows death;<br />
echoes down history like the voices in this place<br />
celebratin' Emancipation Day<br />
as free as they was in 1834<br />
on the anniversary of the passing of that Act of freedom;<br />
the day Margaret was reborn in the light of a new tomorrow.<br />
Freedom don't come from man, it comes from God,<br />
and death got no say in the matter neither.<br />
Freedom's got songs it sings to every generation,<br />
got refrains so old, nothing can stop them being heard.<br />
Freedom's got echoes that drive a flower into blooming;<br />
echoes that stir the mud into birth, echoes<br />
that walked me out the door of that store;<br />
echoes that let her let go.<br />
Freedom is an echo of the beginning,<br />
like the life of the trees<br />
still sounding in the timbers of these walls.<br />
Hear that?Jerry Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054428435443042500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269990338795110056.post-90401912170505030582017-05-20T18:27:00.003-05:002017-05-20T18:27:43.326-05:00excerpt from Those Who Return<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">My novel 'hero' fancies himself a poet, and so does his Cajun-Creole 'heroine',</span><br />
<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
here's one he wrote for her in Those Who Return: May to August 1977, the third book of Evolution's Children 1965-2035</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
Eucalyptus Leaves</div>
<div class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
<div style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 6px;">
Eucalyptus leaves quiver,<br />whisper over the cicada rhythms of the heat<br />to the unheard thrum of her Panama's brim,<br />shading her face with shimmer.<br />Kohl-drawn lines<br />frame her green eyes,<br />shape the intensity<br />with which she reads a book<br />held by an elegant hand.<br />The naked lines of her arms and legs,<br />folded in the chair, expose the fragile power<br />of her resting form, poised on a finished paragraph,<br />her eyes diverting to mid-distance, to thought,<br />following some theory to her own conclusions;<br />the delicate modesty of her bikini,<br />top and bottom, conceal just enough<br />for memory to find its fond way<br />into the sun-bathed nuances<br />of her blazing glory.</div>
</div>
<div align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">She
came over to the chair where he was sitting, straddled his legs and
took his face into her hands, sighed, moved hair out of his eyes, and
asked, “How did you know that I'd come to my own conclusions about
a theory in that book?”</span></span></div>
Jerry Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054428435443042500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269990338795110056.post-69772179948644028092017-04-25T09:02:00.001-05:002017-04-25T09:02:26.230-05:00Echoes in the Timbers Published<a href="https://elorapoetrycentre.ca/category/works-for-sale/">Seven monologues</a> on the 1854 death of a former fugitive slave in Puslinch Ontario.Jerry Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054428435443042500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269990338795110056.post-42438620255622579622016-09-26T13:30:00.000-05:002018-04-03T09:17:42.500-05:00Howling Algiers<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif", serif; font-size: 14pt;">The
children of forgotten Lou'sian,</span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">in
a warehouse called Haven</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">black,
white and brown, high yellow and Asian, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Choctaw,
Creek and Houmas, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">salvaged
from a derelict time,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">refuse
of the atomic age, escapees</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">from
the implosion of nuclear families,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">abused,
berated, shattered and bereft</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">led
out of New Awlins over the snaking Mississippi</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">by
their own daemon genius for flight,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">cities
draining youth from their catchments.</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Some
never made it back, some did;</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">some
went down to the water's edge and</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">what
became of them</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">after
that brief shining time when they lived as one,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">that
long Summer of Love ago,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">back
when they made their way through broken windows </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">past
unwound clocks and calendars of other days:</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">dragging
tables chairs beds and blankets through the night,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">creating
a kitchen in candlelight</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">that
no street ever saw; shadows within shadows</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">within
darkness defying despair?</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What
became of them </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">hunting
dumpsters for food and reusables,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">making
meals in big pots, always enough for all,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">trying
not to steal so the law wouldn't care:</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">theft
the only unforgivable crime in America?</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Boys
almost men sold themselves to uptown Cadillacs</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">for
cum-blown rides in quiet corners, buggered in rooms,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">torn
out of childhood, shames still buried, shames buried with them:</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">girls,
escaped from ponytails and barbie dolls, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">selling
themselves, taken in every hole by hard, or lonely men,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">returning
with food and medicines and sundries: scars</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">and
secrets no one ever learned; a city </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">that
had no idea they were beating time together</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">in
a place they called Haven, Havre, <span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Bìfēnggǎng,
Rifugio and Attuko.</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That
life became Jimmy Little Rat, for whom no crack was too small</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
stealth of shadows, the diffidence of cats, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">vanished
into a sewer and never came back. </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Became
Linda the Red, and Billy the Knife, who took one another</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">as
husband and wife then rode the junk train in their veins</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">til
they had to be carried away, left </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">where
others would find them, untraceable, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">no
one but those who carried them caring, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">until
newsmen dug up their families in Slaughter</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">set
the flames of addiction burning </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">for
treatments that came too late </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">for
Billy Roberts and his Creek wife, Linda Tuskineah.</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That
life became <span lang="es-PR">Pistolero</span><span lang="es-PR">
Pete</span>, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
fifteen year old Chicano card shark,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">who
fancied himself a Riverboat blackleg but upped the wrong ante one
hand too many, staggering down Patterson, with a stiletto-opened
back, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">found
cold on the Levee dead eyes open on the River of his dreams, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">left
by the kids for the cops, the only time he was ever caught, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">his
discovered corpse becoming their joke in his honour ever after.</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The
oldest was twenty, the youngest, twelve, Kitty,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">tubercular,
runaway from Slidell, carried on a board </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">by
the child whores though hurricane debris, coughing black blood, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">past
roofless, wailing, plaster-eyed nuns</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">who
received her like a sacrament;</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">until
seven years later, a newly frocked priest </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">gave
up his collar for her good graces;</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">still
working the hallucinatory streets,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">missionary
saints to runaways. </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Children
of forgotten Lou'sian, scavenge themselves </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">out
of an abandoned wilderness, blow Teliko</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">on
brass fittings and pipes, drum buckets and cans. </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">strung-wire
screwed onto resonators strummed</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">for
joy and ache wailing burnt-out basements, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">becoming
music the working world never hears,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">concrete
floors painted with their rage and redemptions, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">resounding
walls scrawled with their couplets and epitaphs, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">their
spoken minds chalked on giant beams from ancient forests,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">carve
themselves into soft brick walls,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Roman
reliefs becalming unlit catacombs.</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">They
slept and sleep together in arrays, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">twos,
threes, fours and many at once</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">loving,
pleasing, despairing, desperate for kindness</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">from
anyone, indifferent to background, to all the codes </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">they
bring like baggage, busted open, remade into one rule: </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">protect
haven and those who live and lived there, always.</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Like
Ginny Lupo, who everyone claimed was related to a mafia don</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">and
who could talk her way out of anything but a run-in </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">with
a wop-hating cracker from Gretna who beat her so badly </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">she
spent months recovering, while the cracker went on with his business,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">until
she could speak again, after which, her assailant was found </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">with
a bullet in his brain, hanging on a lamppost on Tolliss </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">near
the Crescent City Bridge, after which </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">she
went home came back with food and blankets and wine </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">time
after time; never forgot her friends and never will.</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Like
Saint Odile, the daughter of a preacher from Thibodaux,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">whose
bed was open anytime loneliness broke one of them,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">til
she got pregnant and carried the child to full term, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">gave
birth in a heating duct, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">and
left her son with the Ladies Auxiliary,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
rumour's always told, how she's been a cook, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">working
an oil platform, shipping out of Beaumont, Texas, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">and
another rumour always told, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">that
she keeps leaving children for her daddy, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">but
no one knows why, though several went asking</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">and
no one has found her, but they'll never stop looking.</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Children
and teens burned through life; come through years never enough;</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
other Summer of Love was for those with flowers in their hair, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">they
themselves knew only full life bore on Sanctuary Drive</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">where
wharves rot on pilings in the river sheen</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">of
oil tanker rust while brackish wash among dying reeds</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">recites
the coral snake rhyme becoming handy sometimes</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
“<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Red
and yellow, kill a fellow; red and black, friend of Jack.”</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And
for those still alive now, the memories never died,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">and
for those who died then, they're inside those who survived,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">and
for those whose minds broke or silenced,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">they
too, are remembered across years,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
living still hoping </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">to
lead them back </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">in
the name of the one </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">who
was hung on a tree,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
one at the heart, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">lynched
out of hate,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">never
forgotten, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">whose
only crime </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">was
doing the best he could </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">for
those who needed him,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">lynched
for being black,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">for
loving someone lighter, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">someone
who </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">remembers
each day since, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">including
the days</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">when
the walking streets almost took her </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">til
others who loved her </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">got
her home before </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">she
too found a branch</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">on
the same tree</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">to
bear what she could not.</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The
children of forgotten Lou'sian,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">black,
white and brown, high yellow and Asian, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Choctaw,
Creek and Houmas, </span></span>
</div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">salvaged
from a derelict time,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">refuse
of the atomic age, escapees</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">from
the implosion of nuclear families,</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">abused,
berated, shattered and bereft</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">led
out of New Awlins and across the Mississippi</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
way all cities drain youth from their catchments</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
way some never make it back, the way some always escape</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
way some always end up on the water's edge sinking</span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">because
no one knows when it began, or if it can ever end.</span></span></div>
<br /></div>
Jerry Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054428435443042500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269990338795110056.post-92050730328934924572016-01-12T13:35:00.005-05:002016-01-12T13:35:54.828-05:00In the town where I came of age<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>1.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
In the town where I came of age within
the landscape I still know as home,</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
granite, lakes and pines, I look out on
a corner that knows me, though</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
some of its storefronts are several
times removed from those I passed</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
in snowstorm, sunshine and heat, in the
cavalcades of colour</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
as defined by the autumnal brochures of
my youth.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The church hall of my theatrical past,
and of the dances of my loneliness,</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
is there on the hill out the cafe
window.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The bridge, over which I sometimes
pondered plunging into, in my not</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
so wonderful life, begat contemplations
of how long I would last</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
in the cold waters of the river's open
ice, just down the street, just out of sight.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am decades away from that almost man,
the no longer boy; the broken child</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
making his inchoate way into a future
of heartache he would not have survived</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
if the crystal snow had foretold his
future: his fortune, glimpsed in the narrow waters</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
of the otherwise frozen river, would
have ensured his death then and there.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Blessed are they who cannot see what is
to come.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
What is bearable in part, could never
be borne as a whole.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Like fairy tale breadcrumbs left on a
forest floor eaten by birds and rodents;</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
carried off by insects, and turned
sodden with rain to disintegrate before the return,</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
the way home, has an innocence, a
naivetè that makes hope possible,</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
so that, here in this cafe window, more
than forty years on, the miracle of breadcrumbs</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
keeps marking the trail of my passage
with the remaining innocence of my hope,</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
gladly carrying me beyond the forest,
beyond the desert, beyond the salt plain and</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
the mountains, beyond the swamp, the
rivers, the lakes, the pines:
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
a pilgrim's progress to a faith
stripped of pride, prejudice, and jaundiced I;</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
a faith that consists of the
distillations of love out of thin air and thick, the ever willing</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
ability to trust my heart more than my
mind, with just enough vision</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
of what might be coming, to believe in
every new starting again and every continuance,</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
every grace and insight, every
collapsing centre of every expanding care</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
around every bend in this unforeseen
road beyond this corner where I sit,</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
because outside the door, the last
period that will one day punctuate</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
the conclusion of my long sentence has
been known</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
since well before I arrived here</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
trailing breadcrumbs.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
2.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
It is no secret to me, that
the boy inside never grew up,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
no secret the teenager
within, has an unrealistic idea of romance,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
and dreams of ever more
rarefied manifestations of devotion and service.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The young man I was never
stood a chance of maturing in due season,
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
like this horde of teens and
pre-teens in the diner, lining up to pay their bills:</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
the long haired girls in
their riding boots and their perfect complexions,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
the red-cheeked boys and
their collective posing, too cool as a sum</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
to allow their insecurities
to individualize: they are young and full</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
of their own fragile
immortalities, but if seen as themselves, each alone,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
they come apart at the seams
into awkward anxieties, desperate to conform,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
to fit in, and yet stand
out.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
They are the peers of my
youth two generations later, like the ones</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
who thought me so much
braver, so much more willing to go out on a limb,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
as if I was not a damaged
child making up constructive rebellions, not making it</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
up as I went. Despite what
they thought, it wasn't confidence that made me other,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
it was the secrets inside
me, and no doubt, among these adolescents lining up</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
to pay for their lunches,
there are a few a least partially like me, though the rest</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
are happily aging into the
roles assigned them, with the provisos in their own minds,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
that they will do it better,
and so they should, but mostly won't, for all generations</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
are born to replace those
that gave rise to them, unless now, in the coming age</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
of a rapidly changing
climate, they alter the future in ways beyond all generations</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
that preceded them.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Some of these paying up and
leaving this eatery, will die along the way,
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
have their names and dates
etched into yearbooks; into the hearts and minds of their peers,
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
some lost, accidentally
forgotten by best friends some drunken night, a night
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
of random choice remembered
by the survivors forever, a choice that alters everything.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Others will perish in all
the other sundry ways in which youth fails to become age,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
because good fortune fails,
because sickness or random occurrence or suicide
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
removes them from the stage.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
It is humanity's lot to come
and go, individually, and as a species.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
There is only care and
consideration, or their absence, to mark our passage,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
the broken and the unbroken
alike, we all end in the grave, or the ash urn or spread</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
on the winds, or lost at
sea, or vanished into who knows where, though we each measure</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
our lives in love, or in its
absence.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
So let the young be naive,
and the old be wise, let those whose innocence is taken</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
and those who retain some of
the same all of their lives, remember:</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
we are creators and
destroyers, we manufacture hope and despair, we grow families and
friends
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
or fail to. So if you find
yourselves, or your sons and your daughters, or those of others,
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
on the routine cusp of
eternity, patiently - or impatiently - lined up to pay for their time
here,
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
consider them with kindness,
for we all carry a secret we don't always admit, to ourselves or
others.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
3.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
In a place I lived only
through high school and slightly beyond,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
but where my family still
lives, a place to which I have returned to</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
over the decades for
holidays and visits, I study faces for evidence</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
of those I once knew, most
of the names are gone, and familiarity</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
does not place many faces,
however much some seem like ones</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I once knew.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Humanity only has so many
variations of features with which to work,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
and so at best I recognize
possible and probable former friends and acquaintances,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
without knowing almost
anyone, just those vaguely reminding me</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
of people I may have known,
mistaken identities and assumptions,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
the partial memories of a
jumbled puzzle.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
There are too many decades,
there is too much absence, too little prequel to my original arrival</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
followed by comings and
goings, too many elsewheres, too many possibilities that faces</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
could be known from some
other place altogether, and that they too are visitors, tourists</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
in a tourist town with long
or short associations to the place.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
My family would know, my
mother, my brother, my sister: they are my continuity,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
the custodians of my old
who's who.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am, of course, sometimes
remembered, since my face and hair and body shape
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
are all unchanged, and thus,
to those who are from here; who once knew me,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am a face in context. They
know my name, though more often than not, I don't know theirs,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
unless I once knew them
well. Most names for me, are echoes of memories, resonance</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
without substance:
re-introduction, at best, provides only memories for the next time we
meet,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
some have stories with
anecdotal triggers, deep reverberations
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
that cause an eruption of
recollection, either from personal connections, or from shared
circumstances:</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
of the <i>we were in it
together </i>variety, either events from my student council
presidency,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
or from the two
neighbourhoods in which I lived, or the swimming hole,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
or hockey and soccer teams,
because there was a life here, some of which even I
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
remember better than others.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The landscape, the
streetscape, the landmarks of my first arrival here</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
alter more slowly than the
people, except when they don't. Buildings are demolished,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
new ones built, even the
granite shield is now subject to dynamiting developers,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
so that, where once there
were forests on rock outcroppings, ubiquitous malls</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
rubber stamped by town
planners across the province like bacteria spreading their wastes
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
on agar agar plates, now
decimate the character of localized places I knew,
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
eradicating idiosyncrasies
of less formulaic ages.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The landscape, the
streetscape, the landmarks also age like people, they grow old and
die,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
albeit more slowly, they
deteriorate, collapse and disappear altogether, while nature stakes</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
it's own inexorable claims
on every demense.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Humanity is mist on a lake
turning to clouds, and one way or another</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
we are a species on the
verge of oblivion or evolution, we are a process, not a stasis,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
so that, here, in this place
where I came of age among people</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I rarely recognize anymore,
the temporal shifts</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
reveal transformations as
unfoldings, not into flatlines,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
but into still other folds
within the folds;</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
what is hidden for a time,
can be seen in a heartbeat between breaths;</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
revealed and concealed as
wavelengths of life's momentum.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Jan 8-10 2016 Huntsville/Elora</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
Jerry Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054428435443042500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269990338795110056.post-8087770762901890302015-12-12T16:40:00.000-05:002015-12-12T20:47:31.311-05:00 My Plastic Christmas Knight 1 & 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZDj0jTDQPpEYKCzNYiwq4rLNsyOzxPkq2Jy0b8PU7kpeLfebnhZrOGt1XIFDdHoOoLPrbY-rzNIyasQLsbh1509uZ7jiVqdeiw4dUwyXu3GSHRnPD1jonVxpCBnM9grrn_PvS_84v6Hk/s1600/christmas+Knight.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZDj0jTDQPpEYKCzNYiwq4rLNsyOzxPkq2Jy0b8PU7kpeLfebnhZrOGt1XIFDdHoOoLPrbY-rzNIyasQLsbh1509uZ7jiVqdeiw4dUwyXu3GSHRnPD1jonVxpCBnM9grrn_PvS_84v6Hk/s320/christmas+Knight.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">
1.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
When I was nine, sick on Santa’s eve,
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
My mother & father & sister &
brother
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Came to my room to cheer me & sing
carols.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
They gave me a plastic molded knight
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Mounted on a white horse & armed
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
With a lance & sword & shield.
Two inches high.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I carried him with me out of childhood.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
He lost his sword in a fall this
morning,
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Weaponless he nonetheless stands guard
again.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
2.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
His helmet gone, his lance lost, his
sheathed knife
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
long disappeared and his scabbard empty
for years now, he
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
sits on his white horse - two of his
legs gnawed off by
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
my dog, teeth marks sunk deep into his
armour. His Grail
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Quest still unfinished, he is propped
up in the forest of
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
a house plant, encircled by a branch
like a serpent grasping
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
its tail in its mouth. He stands,
hobbled before a leaf bridge
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
within that mythic ring, like Lancelot
drained of life by
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
his desire for Guinevere. Light, shafts
through the curtains
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
in the study window & falls like a
road on the far end of his bridge.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
When next I notice him, one of my cats
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
has dug him out of the plant & he
lies on his side, his horse
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
on top of him, his head turned to the
garden out the window.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Like Merlin I assure my plastic
Christmas knight that he can’t
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
just lie there and wait for the cats to
pee on him, To prove</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
to him that he's not doomed to that fate, I move him to a sill</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
where a line of shells & stones & other shoreline debris</div>
lie beneath a goblet of towering blue
glass.Jerry Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054428435443042500noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269990338795110056.post-17544694589586199082015-11-18T17:57:00.000-05:002015-11-29T20:10:19.058-05:00We came to this land as refugees...<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium; text-align: left;">We came to this land as
refugees, in the days when territory was bought</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">from the Mississauga of
Burlington Bay and the Grand - a river they called the Ouse: </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">a nation reduced by war,
famine, and disease, a people </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">nearly lost to Yankee
traders with booze.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">We came as refugees of the
Revolutionary War, came to a colony that was nothing more </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">than a British military
encampment, filled with descendant Europeans, we came with </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">free Africans as well as
fugitives and the enslaved; </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">we came with remnant First
Nations, </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">allies-in-exile, loyal to
covenants with the Crown, friendship chains </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">binding Turtle Island
bloodlines to our common causes:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">bloodlines from homelands
seized by patriots, </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">dislocated from
still-living loved-ones who stayed behind</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">on just established
reserves, second-class citizens </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">in the newly created state
of New York.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">The Captain of the
Confederate tribes, Joseph Brant, lost his home in the Mohawk Valley;
</span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">and when he found refuge,
it was on land given to him on the north side of the mouth </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">of Burlington Bay,
positioned there, by the military commander that governed from
Niagara, </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">so that he and his local
native, white and black allies, would defend the Dundas Road to </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">Fort York; the Governors
Road to Brantford at the Grand.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">We came to a Protectorate
ruled by the marshal laws </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">of Lieutenants and
Governors General, men who operated in the shadows of Magna Carta &
</span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">the Protestant Bill of
Rights. </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">Descendant Europeans in
the Canadas were, as well, survivors of religious wars,</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">men and women who
indentured themselves to sail to a continent where some </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">were enslaved upon
arrival.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">We came as refugees to the
just-establishing colony of Upper Canada</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">carved out of Quebec,
which, before that, had been a single province held</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">since the defeat of the
French on the Plains of Abraham: <i>Canadien </i>peasants</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">decimated during
successive Franco-Indian-British wars<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">Stranded together, we
arrived as friends of those who had been tarred and feathered, </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">burnt down, and driven off
for their allegiances to ancient oaths.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">Black, white and red, as
would have been said at the time, </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">found refuge here, grew
old together in shell-shocked generations.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">Having repulsed the
invasion of 1812, Britain took refuge </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">from the madness of King
George, his subjects suffering while the royal house </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">staggered into the regency
of his degenerate heir: leaving colonial dreams tarnishing under </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">the greed and impolitic
uses of power by those raised on localized privilege,</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">causing the grandchildren
of former refugees to rebel in order to attain equalities </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">granted to their equals in
Britain five years before. </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">The emerging Canadian
nation</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"> was subsequently
enlarged by escapees of the Irish Famine; </span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;">enlarged by continuous waves of peoples displaced by conflict and
disease. </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">Diaspora's children, </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">we weave genetic strands
into ancient pools of lost causes and survived flights, </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">valuing good neighbours
and kind hosts. </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">We are bred to the bone of
solution; </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">grow sinews of acceptance,
and most of us, stand as one people,</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">willing to find something
funny about whatever comes next.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">Our community of remnants,
armed with abundant goodwill, is prepared,</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">whenever refugee waves
break on our shores,</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">whenever push comes to
shove; </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"> to comfort</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">those now grieving those
left behind, those</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">now yearning for those
still escaping.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">We came to this sheltering
land as refugees; and then,</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">we become the hope of
those arriving after us.</span></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">Jerry Prager,</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">Elora November 29 2015</span></div>
</div>
Jerry Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054428435443042500noreply@blogger.com0