Saturday Morning Blake
Published December 13, 2008 | 
Earth’s Answer
Earth raised up her head
From the darkness dread and drear,
Her light fled,
Stony, dread,
And her locks covered with grey despair.
Slipstream
Published September 13, 2008 | 
Well the lush separation unfolds you –
and the products of wealth
push you along on the bow wave
of the spiritless undying selves.
And you press on God’s waiter your last dime –
as he hands you the bill.
And you spin in the slipstream –
timeless — unreasoning –
paddle right out of the mess.
- Tull
The Monday After
Published September 8, 2008 | httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCjFTsvL7mk
And let me try
With pleasured hands
To take you and the sun to
Promised lands
- the zombies
Welcome to the Monday after. The Monday after the last weekend after the holiday weekend. The Monday after the first Tuesday of School. The Monday after the first weekend when a long holiday is no longer an option. The Monday when all hope is truly lost. The Monday when autumn slipped through that still open summer’s night window and woke you with a cold shock. The Monday after the first Sunday of a new football season. The Monday when the first thing I read was that firing off just 1/300th of 1% of the world’s nuclear arsenal would drop the worlds temperature by 2 degrees causing something worse than the Little Ice Age (between the 15th & 19th century). The Monday after the conventions when politics really get stupid. The Monday when the Zombies are more appropriate than the Beach boys. The Monday after my last paddling class of the season, when being wet sort of sucks, when people realize they should have taken the class sooner. The Monday that signals a time when summer lust turns to love . . . or turns off. The Monday when Lemons and limes give away to apples and cinnamon. The Monday when I really start looking forward visiting friends in Israel which is much better than just looking forward to snow.
Traditional Fashion
Published August 27, 2008 | 
It’s ok. I really do understand. You’ve thought it might be interesting to go to a traditional training camp but then you wondered if you were going to have to wear one of those weird black rubber things. . .
After all they do look a bit odd and maybe they won’t let you in if you don’t wear one? I mean, even their beer bottles wear Tuiliks right?
I do know how you feel. Up until I went to QajaqTC last weekend I had never worn one. Being sort of a bi-paddler I’ve never totally slipped to the dark side. To be honest I was just a bit worried I’d look a bit like an Oompa-Lompa!
So I thought today we should have a look at what those Traditional paddler types wear. . and help you work through your concerns. . .
Maybe you think you will have to wear the flag of Greenland sewn onto black garb. . .
Or a scarf on your head when you sit at the bar.
Maybe you’ll have to show up looking all buff.
Like you just paddled around an island.
Do you have to look Tuff??
Would you have to wear shorts, a red apron and cook?
Do they wear pointy hats? Do they mind if you look?
Must you dress like some Greenlandic friend of Saint Nick. .
as you try as you might to roll with a stick?
Maybe you’ll have to shave your head. .
or wear babies draped over your shoulder?
Wearing a baby is something to think over.
Do you have to wear Canadian postal macs?
Along with short pants, dress shoes and socks that are black?
Do you have to wear Crocs. . . Pink on the other and yellow on one,
as you walk down the beach and talk to your son?
Do you fear floral with stripes?
Do you have to wear name-tags all day. . and all night?
Do you have to wear heels on the beach when you run?,
Then just leave them lie there. Not both, but just one?
No you don’t have to wear any of these things. You can just dress like you. Whatever it takes.
You can wear what you like, both women and boys.
You don’t have to wear a Tuilik. . .
but you must talk to Roy!
the autumn mind wanders
Published August 11, 2008 | 
An early morning, late summer chill.
The autumn mind wanders.
Blankets and sweaters.
Football and fuel.
A feeling that there is work to be done.
Something to prepare for.
Genetic memories.
Hibernation.
The autumn mind wanders.
Computer screens.
Television.
War and election.
Pencils. Hoer frost.
Dew.
The autumn mind wanders.
Leaves in the street.
Lovemaking under down blankets.
Giggles.
Chocolate & wine.
The autumn mind wanders.
Cigarettes and café tables.
Dogs and plastic forks.
What was, is again.
Time passes.
The autumn mind wanders while all are asleep.
It anticipates the screams of alarm clocks.
It sees age spots in the morning mirror.
The autumn mind flies at sixty-thousand feet.
Gets lost in the clouds.
Chases the sun’s yellow reflection on the surface of the sea.
The autumn mind is stranded on an island.
Imprisoned with a stranger, lost with a friend.
The autumn mind is watercolor, vision and madness.
The loss of an ear.
The slow drip of candle wax.
The autumn mind is awakened by a change in the wind,
Then passes with the arrival of snow.
postmodern hermeneutical theory
Published April 30, 2008 | 
There’s still a light in that old cabin across the field. Last night I could see a lamp fly past the window. I could hear things crash and the old man swearing under his breath. Funny how those acrid shouts in the night air fill me with a sense of comfort. After days of silence I feared that something may have happened. I imagined taking the long walk through the Durum fields, and the knocking on the door. . . oh, and the smell!! Oh, God, the smell! . . .I’m glad the old man is not dead. I’m glad he’s up crashing and shouting and cursing the world that races on around him. I won’t go and visit him of course. I hate the smell of his house anyway. Why is it some people never open windows?
——————
That last bit was what my silly brain wanted to write this morning. Don’t ask me why, or what it’s about. I’m afraid I don’t know. I wake up sometimes and suddenly a narrator just takes off yakking. It’s a sort of craziness I suppose. The same one that causes that late nights when you wake up from a dead sleep with the solution to a problem that’s been haunting you for days. Sometimes the brain has a life of its own. Occasionally, just occasionally it will share tidbits with its outer shell.
It seems as if our conscious mind is like a thick little brother to our “A ” student UN-conscious brain. Every now and again our smarter sibling will endow us with a story or help us with our homework, but then he moves on to other “big people” things leave us alone to wrestle with our fourth grade math problems.
scrambled, the river
Published April 20, 2008 | 
Yesterday we paddled down the river.
Ducks crossed in front or swam alongside the boats.
They always think they are going to outrun you.
When they realize you are gaining on them, they take off or turn to the bank.
We played in eddys and practiced ferrying.
We talked edges, angles and strokes.
Our kayaks raced down a wave train.
Bows buried.
Hair got wet.
The river widened.
Canada geese blasted alarms whenever they saw the kayaks come near.
They would shout at us until we passed by.
Geese on the river are like hecklers at a ballet.
The river spit.
We battled the current upstream through a narrow funnel.
We dug and dug, advanced, then maintained, then slipped.
The current won.
A turtle slipped off an old blackened tree trunk by the river bank.
Julian managed to sneak up on a Great Blue Heron.
It’s hard to tell who was more surprised.
The Heron leapt into the air right over his kayak.
Big broad wings carried the blue-grey bird into the east.
We found multi-colored rubber ball which would become a gift for a child.
On a slow bend a big Red Hawk stood sentinel on a tall barren tree.
Cardinals, Wrens, Blue Jays, Black Birds and Robins shot back and forth across the river
like artillery from opposing cannons.
We paddled up a side stream full of broken garden rakes. I found a golf ball.
A small waterfall turned us around.
We rounded another bend and were met by a cold wind.
Near the take out the river widens and slows.
In the floodplain the banks are lined with fallen trees & yellow grass.
The air is filled by the calls of Red-winged Blackbirds.
The kayaks sharp noses sliced into the mud. We stretched.
We loaded gear. We drove the bridge back over the river.
We continued home.
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