Touching

gentle piano music touches me 

flows through my fingers 

to play along with the invisible melody

to sway in time with the rhythm

 “The important thing is to feel your music, really feel it and believe it.”

~ Ray Charles

At the Food Court

I saw reality today.

dressed in torn jeans or puffy jackets

in strollers with parents

people using walkers or canes

all ages and abilities

families and friends

the roll of cleaning carts 

books and iPhones

board games and visiting

an all around aroma and sizzle

of cooking foods of any cuisine

the wipe of micro rags on tables

woven through it all

the hum of humanity in the Food Court.

“One love, one heart, one destiny.”

~ Robert Marley

Waves and Water

Daily routine

 ~ a buoy

that has kept me afloat

~ a parasail and board

has kept me riding the waves

in the roiling seas of life.

“In the shapeliness of a life, habit plays its sovereign role.”

~ Mary Oliver, Long Life: Essays and Other Writings

Is It a Bird?

Looking to the skies, 

to the clouds 

where the imagination flies ~

I thought it was a bird, 

until the glint of sun on wings 

as it tipped into a turn.

“The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.”

~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Becalmed

blank

muddled

body like a noodle

words asleep

writing has timing except 

when it doesn’t 

early morning

mid afternoon

evening 

yet

words still sleep

Therapeutic massage

needs the therapy of rest and sleep

“I have this feeling - of being unplugged and too far 

from the socket and what remains is a red warning bar.”

~ Sarah Hall, Burnout

Book Review - Eating Dirt by Charlotte Gill

I first read this book, in February of 2014 for the book club I belonged to. I enjoyed it and the conversation it engendered then, and I enjoyed it now. Just missing the conversation and my friends from that time. What follows is the review that I wrote at the time. 

“This two hundred and fifty page book is richly planted with history, information and humour. The ‘tribe’- men and women of all ages who make up the motley teams that replant our forests, forests valued in dollars and cents. The equipment of tree-planting ~ from hand tools, heavy canvas bags to hefty trucks for transportation to large heavy equipment. The history of the forests that have been relentlessly harvested to the baby trees planted by 'the tribe’. Descriptions of British Columbia’s weather, forests and coastlines are damp, gritty and glorious. Charlotte Gill has crafted a continuous, rolling movement through the rubble and slashes of reforestation, the slap-dash camps, and companies that employ anyone who dares test themselves in the rough and ready career of tree-planting.”

            “As the planet warms, we may come to see clear-cuts 

as an obsolete extravagance. We may wish we’d looked

 at forests in a different way. Worth more standing than

they are lying down, better off as trees than as logs.”

~ Charlotte Gill, Eating Dirt

Title: Eating Dirt ~ Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe

Author: Charlotte Gill

Copyright: 2011

Publisher: Greystone Books

Type: Non-Fiction

Format: Paperback

ISBN - 978-1-55365-977-8 (cloth)

ISBN - 978-1-55365-792-7 (pbk)

ISBN - 978-1-55365-793-4 (ebook)

On an Afternoon Walk - Elvis on 13th Avenue

 Yesterday was windy, with high fluffy clouds, and I really missed my jacket. Today, on my walk to the Bookstore, under the blue sky, I felt the warming sun and stuffed my jacket in my bag! On my way back, barely a block away, the thump of outdoor music echoed. As I walked I could hear strains of energetic song and soon the whole of 13th Avenue could hear the best of Elvis! And there he was, not Elvis!, but a tall man, his shaggy grey hair escaping his hat, microphone in hand serenading 13th Avenue with his energy. His black hat with red bandana hat band and Canadian flag waving in the breeze seemed a signature just in case no one noticed his Karaoke - at least I’m assuming it was Karaoke. He leaned into his old car to adjust his tunes from time to time, never missing a beat. Walking further, I looked up in the trees to see minuscule buds soaking up the sun. Which one gave me the most joy? It really doesn’t matter ~ my walk home was a very pleasant one.

“Comparison is the thief of joy.”

~ Theodore Roosevelt