Waited for an inevitable downpour today, which never came, and all for the better, because the drizzle, cold, autumnal, was a small wonder to bike with, something about the smoother roads, perpetual squinting and relaxing of the face, the face that accompanies each of us, everywhere. A change came to me. Sometime during the first bike ride, in morning, biking back. It was subtle, like a passing thought, an everyday pause, but it was also […]
This line moved in and out of my mind for a few days—here’s the now accompanying poem: It was not what I saw but what gave way…Not what gave way but what did not…So the pale moon sets forththe night so long ago…When the orange of the streetlampspied into our eyeslove-sick, love-flourishedhands becoming a promise…There were raccoons in treesand pianos of our childhood…So the soulbefore it knew time…Given this life, and the next…
Tonight there was a beautiful sunset, and it was cold. I stood by the end of the trail that led to the road, and drafted four lines with a steady voice: Many clouds travellingIn this season of change,Many sides of the skyNo longer the same. For so long had I forgotten, what spring and fall felt, and here they were, fully presented. The orange tones, rain remnant. When this month first began our family went […]
Cases are rising in Australia—vigilance is slowly falling back in the household. The vigilance never left, but is it reverting to one that I think most here simply do not understand. Like when I tell people my mom used to make me do leg stretches to grow taller. What? In all honesty, I would feel confident to say that everything I am doing is wrong. Is this when happens you are privileged and depressed? This […]
Evenings lately have been impossibly brisk, and simply impossible, with the surge of mosquitoes. Usually I gain back some of the sense I lost to the afternoon languor, and it is refreshing despite the unspeakable frustration I suddenly realize again. Occasionally I think about how if I died, my poems might suddenly be revered. My genius, lamented. (Please do not hate me, I am trying to be honest). My past, picked apart and my poems […]
I have had no loyalty to this summer, and I feel compelled to apologize when no one knows so. April and May were the greenway, June the forest, July the neighbouring neighbourhood. I cannot go back to whatever is the previous, I cannot bare to look at one thing for too long. I’ll be happy with the nine paintings out of the thirty I planned. (After the fifth painting on the fifth day I broke […]
It’s been three weeks since you’ve left and what has changed and what hasn’t changed rest in the movement of the hour. Spring came today weighted and unexpected, and I paced through my day with a clear veil over my eyes. There was no wind to sway it, even a little.
Toronto has never looked this good for a March Saturday, and I can’t find the words in me to say it better. The sun-blue follows me everywhere and I follow it back; the sun-blue never followed me. Is this what it’s like to live without time? Just the particles, the colours, the infuriating reality of these careful shadows, a solid paint-stroke. Maybe it really is so blue. Sometimes suddenly, a ray pierces my heart and […]
Perhaps there is little difference between day and night. Between you and me, we live both at once and it seems it is not enough. And too much. What happened? …How did it happen? I asked. You replied, We laughed. How can I understand how to love you under the sun? That is, how to love you when you have turned your back to the cloud, when you have left the missed hours behind, to […]
Look, it’s soon March, and I’m not the one weeping, you are the one weeping, and yes, I am weeping. It’s a leap year, so here I am, trying to negotiate an early bloom, a new, normal surprise bloom. I know we agreed to stop counting by Day 3 or 4, but when you’re asleep, I cannot help but crinkle the pages, dare a re-glimpse. (What do I discover but the words, blinding and binding, […]
