Photo by aikijuanma
Here is a lovely story of youth adding beauty to the world by setting up a poetry stand and giving away instantly crafted poems to anyone who asked for them.
A few months ago as I was walking in Government Street in Victoria I met a woman standing beneath a tree outside Munro’s Books. The tree had small pieces of paper attached to them and when I looked closer I saw that they were poems, hanging on a “poet tree.” The poet turned out to be Yvonne Blomer and she asked me if she could read me a poem. When I said, with delight, “of course!” she asked whether I preferred any particular subject. I replied that I wished her to read me a poem about the territory of the open heart. She looked at me for a second and then reached into a file folder and pulled out this one:
To watch over the vineyards
O carrion crow, pulpy skull of scarecrow
going soft in your black bill,
in this fetish-orange field lies worship:
the sweep of glossed plumage over glistening
membrane; lies the sweet blood of purple skinned grape
cut on your sharp edged tomia,
shimmering there; sun-light on wet earth.
You too sweet to ripe; you black in the shadows, calling when you’re calling – –
the herds fly in dust gone crow, gone scare,
gone trill in clicks and shouts of krrrkrrr.
I applauded and remarked at how appropriate the poem was in many ways, especially in the resonance of the last sound, which approximated the French word for heart: coeur. She signed the card upon which the poem was written, handed it to me, and wished me a good day.
There is nothing bad that can come from poetry offered freely in the street.
I have a wonderful family. They put up with this graph all the time, but they don’t ask the question.
I have just had a full week at home, my first since September. Off to Victoria next week for a week of meetings with VIATT and then home for Christmas and then a two week shutdown of all Harvest Moon Consultants activity.
Blogging will be light as I reacquaint myself with my home.
Photo by paparutzi
My contemporaries. Still missed. Still remembered.
- Geneviève Bergeron (b. 1968), civil engineering student.
- Hélène Colgan (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
- Nathalie Croteau (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
- Barbara Daigneault (b. 1967) mechanical engineering student.
- Anne-Marie Edward (b. 1968), chemical engineering student.
- Maud Haviernick (b. 1960), materials engineering student.
- Maryse Laganière (b. 1964), budget clerk in the École Polytechnique’s finance department.
- Maryse Leclair (b. 1966), materials engineering student.
- Anne-Marie Lemay (b. 1967), mechanical engineering student.
- Sonia Pelletier (b. 1961), mechanical engineering student.
- Michèle Richard (b. 1968), materials engineering student.
- Annie St-Arneault (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
- Annie Turcotte (b. 1969), materials engineering student.
- Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (b. 1958), nursing student.
Chicago, Illinois
It comes off almost as a sigh.
Chicago-O’Hare is well known for being a finicky place to make connections, due to weather or traffic. I’ve mostly had good luck coming through here, with only one weather delay. Today though I have enjoyed the hospitality of the C concourse for most of the day, compliments of a United flight to Vancouver that was cancelled at 9:00. I’m now awaiting the call for the 3:25 flight home.
So what does the C concourse have to offer the stranded traveller? There are Starbucks outlets, but they lose their appeal after a couple of shots of watery espresso. Hudson News is omnipresent but despite selling The Atlantic, The New Yorker and The Economist, they seems suspiciously short on Harper’s. I am half imagining that the reason is political, given Harper’s stinging rebukes of establishment American politics of late. Whch is why I want to read it. Instead, I bought a copy of Best American Short Stories 2006, edited by Stephen King who provides an entertaining and honest assessment about the state of American short stroy writing: alive but not well. His selections for the anthology are great.
Food…so not much around here of note. I’ve always appreciated the fact that you can get Odwalla juice pretty freely around here. I’m loaded on some kind of blueberry B-vitamin power mix. Of the outlets, the Corner Bakery has the nicest sandwiches, freshly made pannini. When I need a fill, the Manchu Wok offers heaps of non-descript Chinese food, MSG free at least and it fills the belly for the four hour flight to Vancouver on United, which I have redubbed “The Hungry Skies.”
Wireless is cheap, at $6.95 a day which is a steal if you’re logged on for as long as I have been, and there are these power stations that are nice to work at. Power plugs in the waiting areas are scarce and nearly all in use by businessmen sucking down the watts while they make uberimportant cell phone calls.
And so the day proceeds, slowly, without any remarkable incidents, watching the crowds ebb and flow and waiting for UA1119 to spirit me to the west coast, eight hours later than I expected to get home.