Sign the Petition for Floyd

https://www.change.org/p/mayor-jacob-frey-justice-for-george-floyd

The Province of Manitoba in Canada Covid-19 Update

I am very pleased and proud of Manitoba and its residents.

By the time Covid-19 hit Canada, the rest of the world was already experiencing the tragic effects of this virus, we were ramping up our strategies to contain it.  Unfortunately the provinces of Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta were hit hardest and by the time we had our first case in Manitoba it was March 12th.  Most of the business sector voluntarily closed their doors and went home which greatly helped to contain the virus.  We are now at April 30 and to date we have 273 cases with 6 deaths, our cases are currently growing by 1-2 cases a day, sometimes 0.  Premier Brian Pallister announced yesterday that Manitoba will begin to re-open on Monday, May 4th and the list is vast enough to get people back to their jobs and restart the economy.  He has done an absolutely smashing job along with many other folks to get us up and running in order to save the economy from complete collapse.  Here is our re-opening plan!  And people joke about Winnipeg all the time as being one of the most undesirable cities to live in, but hey, am I glad I do!

https://www.gov.mb.ca/covid19/restoring/phase-one.html


                Restoration

Everyone knew the water would rise,

but nobody knew how much.

The priest at Santa Croce said, God

will not flood the church.

When the Arno broke its banks,

God entered as a river, let His mark high

above the altar.

He left nothing untouched:

stones, plaster, wood.

You are all my children.

The hem of His garment, which was

the river’s bottom sludge,

swept through Florence, filling cars and cradles,

the eyes of marble statues,

even the Doors of Paradise. And the likeness

of His son’s hands, those pierced palms soaked

with water, began to peel like skin.

The Holy Ghost appeared

as clouds of salted crystals

on the faces of saints, until the intonaco

of their painted bodies stood out from the wall as if

they had been resurrected.

This is what I know of restoration:

in a small room near San Marco,

alone on a wooden stool

nearly every day for a year,

I painted squares of blue on gessoed boards—

cobalt blue with madder rose, viridian,

lamp black—pure pigments and the strained yolk

of an egg, then penciled notes about the powders,

the percentages of each. I never asked

to what end I was doing what I did, and now

I’ll never know. Perhaps there was one square

that matched the mantle of a penitent, the stiff

hair of a donkey’s tail, a river calm beneath a bridge.

I don’t even know what I learned,

except the possibilities of blue, and how God enters.

               Mary Cornish

Open and Closed Spaces

Open and Closed Spaces

Tomas Tranströmer

Translated from the Swedish by Robin Fulton

A man feels the world with his work like a glove.
He rests for a while at midday having laid aside the gloves on a shelf.
There they suddenly grow, spread
and black out the whole house from inside.

The blacked-out house is away out among the winds of spring.
“Amnesty,” runs the whisper in the grass: “amnesty.”
A boy sprints with an invisible line slanting up in the sky
where his wild dream of the future lies like a kite bigger than the suburb.

Further north you can see from a summit the blue endless carpet of pine forest
where the cloud shadows
are standing still.
No, are flying.

Hope

Czeslaw Milosz

Hope is with you when you believe

The earth is not a dream but living flesh,

That sight, touch, and hearing do not lie,

That all things you have ever seen here

Are like a garden looked at from a gate.

You cannot enter. But you're sure it's there.

Could we but look more clearly and wisely

We might discover somewhere in the garden

A strange new flower and an unnamed star.

Some people say we should not trust our eyes,

That there is nothing, just a seeming,

These are the ones who have no hope.

They think that the moment we turn away,

The world, behind our backs, ceases to exist,

As if snatched up by the hands of thieves.

Seasonal

Such short summer;
fish on the hook.

Flash Back

I remember when
my dreams
wouldn't let you -

Go.

Happy 95th Dad!! August 9th, 2019

I've been looking so long at these pictures of you
That I almost believe that they're real 
I've been living so long with my pictures of you
That I almost believe that the pictures 
Are all I can feel

Remembering you standing quiet in the rain 
As I ran to your heart to be near 
And we kissed as the sky fell in
Holding you close 
How I always held close in your fear
Remembering you running soft through the night 
You were bigger and brighter and wider than snow
And screamed at the make-believe 
Screamed at the sky
And you finally found all your courage 
To let it all go

Remembering you fallen into my arms 
Crying for the death of your heart 
You were stone white
So delicate 
Lost in the cold 
You were always so lost in the dark
Remembering you…

The Cure

Moment

Thunder only happens

when it's raining -

she flips her long black hair

Debbie Calverley

Walk-ku

I remember when we walked
through cities
like we owned them

Debbie Calverley

RIP Mary Oliver your brilliant writing lives on

Where Does the Dance Begin, Where Does It End? by Mary Oliver

Don’t call this world adorable, or useful, that’s not it. 
It’s frisky, and a theatre for more than fair winds. 
The eyelash of lightning is neither good nor evil.
The struck tree burns like a pillar of gold.

But the blue rain sinks, straight to the white
feet of the trees
whose mouths open.
Doesn’t the wind, turning in circles, invent the dance? 
Haven’t the flowers moved, slowly, across Asia, then Europe, 
until at last, now, they shine
in your own yard?

Don’t call this world an explanation, or even an education.

When the Sufi poet whirled, was he looking 
outward, to the mountains so solidly there 
in a white-capped ring, or was he looking

to the centre of everything: the seed, the egg, the idea
that was also there,
beautiful as a thumb
curved and touching the finger, tenderly,
little love-ring,

as he whirled,
oh jug of breath,
in the garden of dust?

Mary Oliver 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TUD4CQT33w4

Little Wanderer - Death Cab for Cutie

INXS Stairs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1qd6gKM9oU

Peace Out Winter

Thanks Mr. Trudeau for proposing to kill small business - Sign the Petition Canadians!

https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-1239

Complete and utter Socialism at its very best.  I'll take the guy back with the bad hair any day.

Elevation

Love, lift me up out of these blues

Won’t you tell me something true

I believe in you

-U2

The day their sky exploded

the radio wasn’t on

she was playing a home-made cassette

a friend had mailed to her.

Elevation was on top volume

she was singing top volume

and driving full speed

down a country road.

A sky blue Tuesday

one of those autumns

that carried no pricetag

in the middle of a January white-out.

The version of Elevation

was not official

one she had never heard

lots of flute and that made her happy.

When she arrived at her client’s door

one she had never met before

she was greeted with

It’s a disaster

Laughing, she indicated she’d seen

a lot of homes in a state of disaster.

The woman looked at her strangely;

No, A plane just hit the twin towers

It’s funny what you remember

when the world changes forever -
It’s funny what you remember.

- Debbie Calverley

LP - Pride in the Name of Love - wow what a voice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UExvBBOO238

Barefoot Abandon - Mona T. Lyndon-Rochelle

       To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the
       greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.
                       —FEDERICO GARCÍA LORCA

Last night we were free     the moon     you     me.
Our lips of spiced cinnabar burned through the dark
and in barefoot abandon we dove into the sea. 

You     an azurite combustion     me     the Rose of Tralee.
We swam clear coastal waters with a great white shark.
Last night we were free     the moon     you     me. 

An offshore breeze seduced us so innocently.
We shed shift and shirt and ran to the seamark
in barefoot abandon we dove into the sea 

and rose so breathless I would not foresee
so fickle a kiss. Why leave me in the dark?
Last night we were free     the moon     you     me 

for my heart and love were eternal you see.
You singed my lips     burned your watermark
when in barefoot abandon we dove into the sea. 

You haunt my dreams with wild anxiety
I yearn for the years I lost you     my Irish anarch.
Last night we were free     the moon     you     me.
Barefoot     abandoned     I dove into the sea. 

MONA T. LYDON-ROCHELLE

The Southern Review 
Autumn 2016

After All

After all the poems I wrote
After all the times I said
After all the times you didn't
After all the times we did
After all the times there weren't
After all the times there were
After all the times I almost
After all the times you didn't
After all the times we wasted
After all the times we lived
After all the times we died
After all the times we almost made it

But there is no after all 
After all there is no more
But there is no after all

-Debbie Calverley