To thine own self be true

Cheapest buses available. Only in Edmonton.
2 pedestrians mowed down so far because the blind-spots can hold 19 pedestrians.
Economics and the limitations of technology vs. human lives. Same old.

(taken by my daughter)

(Imagine living without the sound of birds and Nature)

Especially after listening to yet another sublime concert by the Vienna Philharmonic. Ah, the language, power, and beauty of music! To say nothing of all the beauty of evocative spoken words and images. Imagine not being able to hear a Shakespeare play or a great poem by anyone else. The ear savours and quenches itself with preferred sound/s. Whether via the music of pure or natural sound, music or words. For me, music has been long and deep throughout my history. I have listened to much and played much. I could not live without music. And hearing words–the eloquent, mellifluous tones of great lines, writing, poetry, and drama. Blind or deaf? Hearing matters muchly for me. The voices, tones, rhythms, melodies, and ultimately transcendence.

(Think, too, of all the great or fine cities and towns built by lower class or ordinary male workers.)

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who built civilizations (European, Egyptian, Asian, and so forth) and the most beautiful and remarkable edifices and buildings of human history. Thought of this morning watching the Vienna Philharmonic’s summer concert with the palace and all its other glorious buildings, fountains, grounds, and sculpture. Too often ordinary folk dwell about what it would be like to live or have lived there as nobility without remembering that only the peons and plebeians ever physically worked on these structures, took all the risks, etc. to raise them. Low or no-pay labor and laborers, sometimes over decades and centuries. We will never see the like again. The age of the great passionate building has long past and we are in the long infrastructure phase to preserve them from the ravages of time, tourists, and terrorists. We have long passed the apex of Western civilization. And, significantly, still, it is only in the past that one will continue to find such powerful meanings, beauty, and significance on a grand scale. It sure as hell ain’t in a tiny smartphone screen. No Shakespeare, Beethoven or Michelangelo will ever arise from our obsessively plugged-in microcosmic private worlds.

(with international romantic poet-friend Kadrush Radogoshi)

Always a pleasure. A full house at the Upper Crust. I was the mic host for 4 scheduled readers and 7 open stage readers. ‘Twas a lot of fun as usual, a reactivation of my note-taking, teacher, and conference speaker skills.

Jo-Ann Godfrey rhythmically read wonderful +ve and -ve memories of her childhood, parents, and grandparents which were unfailingly honest and interesting. Joyce Harries, another elderly lady, took us through many possibilities and what-is as she shared and reviewed her past, sprinkling choice images across our consciousnesses. Nancy Mackenzie brought a special mind-blowing quality and imagination to her poems about far away travels abroad. Hers was a dynamic poetry of the depths, spiritually, sensuously resonant and deliciously fulsome. Neil Meili was another perspective poet of concisely rendered ironic memories and unexpected juxtapositions.

Among the guest readers were Robin Smith, who was a student in my 1971-72 Ed CI class with a significant influence–Professor Glenn Martin (who published my first magazine article), and Kadrush Radogoshi (another poet-friend whose work I’ve help translate into English), who read a tender romantic poem. On another Stroll note yesterday, my workshop on poetic sensibility was approved by the Stroll committee and goes on a Saturday in November. ‘Twill be a remarkable, challenging session with input from 12 other poets.

1. All these immigrant workers nickeling and diming to make a living in Canada, doing dangerous jobs with companies cutting corners and totally unconcerned about worker rights and safety in order to increase the profit line. Immigrant colonialism. (Punish the capitalist bastards and sue them where they will understand: financially and significantly.)

2. Rudy Guiliani calls Trump a ‘genius’ for dodging taxes. (I thought a genius was someone like Einstein or da Vinci. Trump?!? What is particularly telling and galling is yet another inappropriate expropriation of language to glorify American money-making and greed. But doesn’t that say it all about the U.S.?–it’s all about corruption, the money, and making money. Ever-relevant, The Great Gatsby never dates in America.)

(“Hyla Brook”–poem and place at Robert Frost Farm, Derry, New Hampshire, 1991)

He had come to New England in the third quarter of his life, had come to where the October highway forked and he could see now that the road he was on curved left and was, in fact, the main thoroughfare through the valley. Although he had driven much of Massachussetts this long weekend, he was ready to try a side road.

In his mirror, he saw an approaching right road that disappeared into a grove of golden trees. When he was able to, he pulled the rented car over and watched the long line of cars behind him safely pass his. And when he turned off, he knew instantly that he had taken the right road after all.

He pulled over past the first stretch of trees where leaves thickly covered the road.
There was no sound of traffic although he could look back and see the highway ever busy with vehicles shining in the afternoon sun. Past the ditch on the other side across from him was a sleepy farm with mending wall. He wondered who chose to live here, wondered what this place might mean to the people who lived here with a proud red-flag mailbox at the end of their driveway. His buried life seemed far away now, quite irrelevant like a stack of accumulating, unmarked essays. The sky back in Alberta had been grey-white when he left it, half-expecting snow.

He drew in now and looked up for the Sunday sun moving without effort through the tall trees, or was it just leaf-heaven that sighed and moved this moment ever so slightly like his uncertain soul over a once-black road? He could not see more than fifty yards ahead from where he stood, but it hardly mattered. He wondered if the sidetrack could get any better. Hopeful, he got back in the car and drove farther along. The road continued rising gently, going up and up in a gradual succession of knolls and denser bush.

It was about this time he realized he was literally in another world–an obscure hamlet with a faded white nineteenth-century church. There were no stores, no modern encroachments anywhere, just houses tucked here and there like attitudes. No people anywhere. He began to feel the limits of his small car as it struggled up a long hill. The road gave way to mountain grade as his ears popped. Around him the trees retained their gold, now mixed with ferns and moss. On one side, he caught sight of a stream running down, joining the ditch on his right. In all his adult life, he had never seen such deep, significant colours. So lost and absorbed was he, that he had almost no time at all to react to the spooked deer–a doe–darting across in front of the startled car.

He pulled over at once, more aware of his breathing. He got out and leaned against the car, strangely dizzy from the suddeness of life springing momentously into his post-lunch consciousness.

Completely covered by leaves, the road itself could no longer be said to exist in any tangible way at this elevation. This many miles from the Interstate, it would take an act of imagination or faith to bring it back to life.

Acorns bounced ridiculously off the rental hood. He smoked now, slowly, and realized for the second time how distant everything was that had manacled his yearning fall soul like dead history. He thought again of the doe and wondered why it had chanced a death-dodge with a stranger. He stood now looking about as far as he could into the undergrowth where the green mixed freely with gold. His mind said `Wither?`and he gave the word voice. His feet felt too tired to walk now and he wasn`t sure if movement would make any difference.

This, then was the stillest, most perfect moment he had ever known. Like the moment after love, a shared solitude more real than the imagined cares of deadlines, airports, or other lives to lead. More real perhaps than the memory of lost youth or failed loves.
He felt the muses everywhere about him like the leaves that continued their never-ending randomly-scripted departures to earth. But there really was no point in trying to write any of this down, to take the time to think of words. He reached, instead, through the open car window and pulled out a camera. One picture, he thought. One moment before moving on. The shutter clicked. The only sound in the sacred silence.

Leaning back against the car to get his bearings, he breathed out, shivered, and zipped up his jacket. He felt the forest`s call now deep in his heart, knew in some strange way that he was no longer alone or would ever be lost again no matter which road he travelled. And some part of him would remain here forever by the side of a nameless road–a small part of an otherwise mapless journey, in the wisdom of this great, unexpected tranquillity.

“The Window” (a study in self-imposed limitations; living mole-like with blinders and chains on oneself)

for me in terms of consciousness. I have never looked back. Aided and inspired by such landmark films as My Dinner with Andre, I was ‘awakened’ from a deep slumber, and took ownership of my life. The first New England trip functioned that way. Took off at the beginning of the school year. I could not wait for the trip my colleagues said they’d make when they retired. (I doubt they ever did.)

Yet another consciousness resurgence in 2014 and the decision to start this blog. I have never regretted any of these Moments of Being and Becoming. Although a lot of people will tell you Life’s about what you’ve done and how much money you’ve made, they’re barking up the wrong trees. Life is mostly about consciousness, right from day 1 to the grave. It is about knowing yourself, knowing who and what you are first and foremost, and accepting yourself, dispelling whatever fears, hang-ups, and self-imposed limitations, finally. Only then can one can live freely, autonomously, honestly,and authentically.

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(first poem of personal liberation in 1991; a starting point and credo)

And So Lately

I choose this island
and its freedom from false face.
I select a landfall apart
from the swell and tides of others.

I claim this lone strand
for the Dominion of Self.
Unattended by minions, I live
without the cant of congregations.

Self-governed, yet worthy
I shun the uncentered
fawners for lost pieces
in the shadows of Other.

I pick my comings and goings,
my music and arts.
I cull first flowers
and pitch the weeds of dependence.

My mind sharpens and sculpts itself
in monuments to glory and love
begging naught of another.

I go it alone, unafraid and unperplexed.
Respectful of this reign,
my hopes people this island.

I harvest the metaphors of life
with a timeless abandon
that knows no thought of Other.

Bygone, the grey deep moans,
now distant, unheard.

Jackie Zinger. The Frame Channel. Highly recommended.

(It’s that time of year again  when many North American bird species intuitively know that warm days have ceased and so they head south. One of the oldest patterns and cycles on the planet.)

of sandhill cranes moving north to south all afternoon continuously yesterday, croaking in the quiet air beneath the low-hanging cloud-cover. If I had been with a preschooler, I would have pointed them out, their attempts at V-making and platooning, and said: “See and listen to the cranes as they make their annual ways south. This is yet another Wonder of Nature. Enjoy.”