The Big Empty

This poem consists of a period, subtended by an italicized footnote, in poetic form. I felt the period needed explanation. The concept expressed in the poem is based on A Course in Miracles, published by Schucman and Thetford. This approach to the whole concept of reality is one that I whole heartedly agree with. If you want a refreshing perspective on tired Biblical and religious and philosophical concepts that no longer hold meaning for you, take a look at this approach, which really has the potential to change everything.

News

I applied to and have been accepted as a member of the Zeugma mailing list for poets. The application consisted of four parts: writing, technical proficiency, critique and analysis, and a bio; here is a link to the criteria. I have not yet submitted a poem for critique, but am working on one. I have submitted a critique of a poem on the list. [Update January 26: I have posted two more criticisms, called CRITs, and finally posted a new poem called "Language Barrier", which has not yet posted because Yahoo is experiencing a huge backlog in which posts are delayed and mis-posted out of order . . . . I guess that will increase the suspense for me.]

There are 66 poets on the list, although I suspect only a few are active at a time. The difference between this list and the usual forum is that I am automatically subscribed to any post; on the writing forums, one must read a post or make a post respond to one before one is subscribed to it. The other big difference is that poems posted on the internet are considered to have been published. The down side of that is that publishers are not usually very interested in such material; however, I believe that material posted in such as the Zeugma list is not considered to be published, since it is not accessible to the general public. (I hope.)

I have started posting results of our Leisure Arts Duplicate bridge, just the first five places. Here is a link, in case you are interested: Bridge. The results are published on Wednesdays.

Goodbye, Calypso

This post is background for the poem, "Calypso", which I published January 18, 2007 in wordcurrents.

When a beloved pet dies a tough death, it's not the death itself that wrings your heart, it's the moments of beauty from the past that haunt you, bring you to that gulp of emotion that just about ends you. Calypso was our beautiful, graceful twelve year old Abyssinian, who died Sunday of bone marrow cancer.

We have had two cats: Circe, our fourteen year old mixed hybrid, still alive, "my" cat, who is healthy and pretty self-sufficient. Circe adopted us when she was a kitten, insisting that we take her home from our island cottage with us, when the weather started to change in the fall. She had been brought to the island as a mousing kitten, and a fabulous mouser she is, too. Calyso is the long-limbed exotic we bought two years later as a companion to Circe. For about the first year, the two cats had a tough time adjusting, until the following summer, when Calypso became marooned in a tall cedar tree at the cottage, too high for me to reach her. Finally, after several hours, Circe went up into the tree, and in two tries, showed Calypso how to use branches as a spiral staircase to descend. They were close buds thereafter.

At first, Circe was Flora's cat, Calypso mine. Calypso would ride around on my shoulders, comfortably warming my neck. Stephanie has even included that pose in one of her paintings. The two cats had very definite allegiances; for example, if we left them with Flora's sister, Circe would sleep on the undershirt I left out for her, Calypso on one Flora had left out on the bed. After one trip, at some signal that we did not notice at the time, they switched allegiances, and Circe became my cat, Calypso, Flora's.

But I still admired Calypso from afar. Every position she sat or stood in, every movement was ballet. Her breed has very large ears, very long legs and a long graceful neck. She was also one of the rare ruddy haired abbys, without the black colouring.

Her death was a tough one: we did not put her down; she chose her own time. Looking back, we can see that she was not well this summer: she did not hunt; even though she is not allowed outdoors at home, she was during the summer at the cottage, and she loved to hunt. One little guy from next door thought she was a baby couger. In my memory, she was a pistol, one really cool cat. Here's a picture taken at the cottage; I will be cleaning out the background when I have time:

My niche of the St. Lawrence River

Some nostalgia for better weather: here are some photos from October, taken the day we closed our cottage. I found them stored as a draft in my Blogger account, so: better late than never. I notice that my camera's optical sensor needs cleaning. Anyway, these sunny shots show our dock up on shore, and views around the island as we left. The white thing in the view of the shoreline is a crash wave roaring by the beach. It was caused by a passing freighter, as usual breaking the speed limit during the off-season. These waves cause serious shoreline erosion, but nobody really polices this issue. Another example of a wonderful resource being damaged in an atmosphere of apathy. Getting grim; better stop.

daily route

"daily route" comes out of my experience delivering mail in the Christmas break from university, in 1957 (I think, although it might have been 1956). This was in Kirkland Lake, Ontario, my home town, in a very cold corner of Nothern Ontario. The temperature in the week or so that I did the job never rose above -34F, and the wind on that exposed side of town was pretty high most of the time; I suppose the windchill was often -60F. Don't worry; I was dressed for it. I was assigned the "Federal" walk, a friendly but thinly travelled region, where I seldom saw anyone outdoors. I walked down many paths and shortcuts upon which I my boots imprinted their distinctive treadmarks, which were almost never trod over by anyone else. I began to see that I was retracing my own footprints every day, and soon saw it as a metaphor for a life that has no possibilities but repetition. Over the years since then, I have thought of that experience often, until it has become one of my life stories. It's not that I hated or depaired of the job: I only did it for about ten days; but there were moments when I saw the possibilities, and they have grown into understanding.

I chose the sonnet form for several reasons: first, I thought that the theme required a disciplined predictable form to reflect the subject matter; second, I write iambic pentameter rather easily; third, the sonnet fell into a Shakespearian pattern because it is not a poem about metamorphosis, as an octave and sestet pretty well requires, but rather a poem about a situation that obtains, with a conclusion that I made hopeful in the couplet, rather than keeping the atmosphere as a total downer.

wordcurrents: New Look progresses

Here is the latest version of the new look at wordcurrents. The photo I took in July 2006 from in front of our cottage, towards the Ontario shore. This is the view that I see from my favourite haunt, our screened front porch. That is where I do a lot of reading, writing and thinking. I don't have a computer at the cottage, so I write in a spiral notebook with a gel pen.

About the lettering in the photo: I did that in an old version of Ulead's Photo Impact, which came with a scanner that no longer works. I have finally given up on scanners. I don't think any of the three I have owned have ever scanned more than a few dozen things before burning out or failing in some way. That's no fault of Ulead, which makes fine software.

I am trying to make the site more accessible and more inviting and personal. We'll see . . . .

Latest blog configuration

Here is the latest look. I still have some adjustments that I shall try over the next few days. Note that it is similar to the previous one, but has three columns. I have also gotten the widget thingy to work by rewriting the directory structure. So . . . .

New look at wordcurrents

I am experimenting with new templates for wordcurrents. As a result, it is looking kind of freaky occasionally, as I run through the twenty or so templates I have down;loaded form the good volunteers at WordPress. I have always wanted a calendar that has live links to the posts for each day, to make navigation easier and more instinctual for visitors. I tried using "widgets" to have one with my usual "becca" theme, but the drag and drop does not work in either Firefox or IE7.

I like some themes, but I am worried about how my readewrs will react to white text on a black background or the number "82" mysteriously haunting a prominent corner. Here is a screen capture of the one I am currently trying. I may run poll here to see what my readers think.

The calendar is live, and gives a popup of the title on that date. I think the header image takes up too much room. I shall probably substitute another, like a photo of the St. Lawrence. This is called Wucoco two column, designed by Mike Lococo. I wonder if he is the same Mike Lococo who studied dentistry and lived with us at St. Mike's.

Jiggle buds

In 1965 (I think — I have dated "Green Christmas" by the dates of the poems in the box I dug it out of) we had a green Christmas; however, we did have snow in January, unlike this year so far. I have always remembered the poem I wrote about it, and the phrase "clickybuds jiggledeverbore" resounds with me every time we have a green Christmas: I can hear the headcold that the miserable narrator develops as he contemplates a green Christmas. I also got Irving Berlin's history from an article by J. D. Mullane; in the article, he tells of how his firstborn baby boy was just three weeks old when Berlin discovered him dead in his crib on Christmas day, 1928. There is more to Berlin's angst about Christmas.

I recall how Christmas used to be a time of distress in my family: my father, a respected dentist, was an alcoholic who never to my knowledge gave my mother a present. I remember one Christmas, when I was sub-teen, giving my mother salt and pepper shakers I bought at Woolworth's — all I could afford. It was her only present that year.

When I was a parent, I was in anguish every Christmas that we might not have gotten what our kids wanted for Christmas. It was always a very emotional time for me. That is what I mean in the poem when I mention "unfulfilled expectations".

Merchants' hype of Christmas, churches' hype of Christmas always build expectations: the churches' stories are all about perfection to come; the merchants' stories are all about rewards for goodness — in this way, if you didn't get what you wanted, you have been punished. I am sure people who deliver lumps of coal to their kids think the custom is a great lark, and a sort of justice, but I think it is cruel in the extreme. Nobody deserves to be crushed at this intimate level, in the heart of hearts.

By the way, I had a great Christmas. And I hope you did, too.

A neat river slide show

Percy Billard, a buddy of mine from our work days, has forwarded a file to me http://riverwriter.ca/slr/MonStLawrent.ppt, a beautiful tribute to the St. Lawrence River, featuring photos with French subtitles and music by Lucille Dumont. It is a 10 mb download, but if you have broadband, it is worth it. Here is one of the images: