Water in the Wilderness

excerpt

Only ten o’clock? She felt like she had slept for hours. Then she remembered, and she gasped aloud, “Morley?” Has he called? Did they find the children? Is he all right?
She started to get to her feet, but a cramping pain in her abdomen took her breath, and she fell back onto the cot. Clutching herself with both hands she rocked back and forth until the discomfort subsided. It had to be her bladder complaining about the growing life threatening to displace it. Tyne shrugged. No doubt things would get worse as the baby grew so she had better get used to it. She made her way to the washroom.
A few minutes later as she returned to bed, the pain seized her again, this time so hard that she cried out. Hurrying footsteps resounded from the corridor, and Inge Larson rushed to her side.
“Tyne, what is it?”
“Pain,” Tyne gasped. “The baby.”
“Lie down, Tyne. I’ll call Dr. Rosthern.” She swung around and started for the door.
“No, not in this weather. Don’t make him come out in this weather. I’ll be all right, Miss Larson.” But the pain did not let up, and she drew in a sharp breath and lay back.
The matron paused only long enough to say, “The snow is letting up, and the wind isn’t so strong. He’ll get here, if I know Dr. Rosthern. It’s you I’m concerned about.” A moment later, Miss Larson was speaking rapidly into the telephone in the OR office.
Tyne closed her eyes. “Oh God, please keep my baby safe.” A picture came to mind of a young patient in the private ward at the Holy Cross Hospital when Tyne was a student nurse. Jeannette Aubert had lain in bed for weeks, her rosary clutched in her hands, alternating between praying and crying, and Tyne had prayed with her. A few months later, Jeannette had delivered a healthy baby girl whom she and her husband Guy named Tyne.
“You saved Jeannette’s baby, God. Please, please save mine.” She groped around for her rosary, forgetting for the moment that she was not in bed at home. Then she lay still as the prayer, so familiar since childhood, filled her mind with peace. “Hail Mary, full of grace,

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Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume I

Ocean’s March

Winter caught up with us all alone
in the small green seaside house
The deserted balconies
and on the pale seashore
the fog walks noiselessly
Decay of yellow leaves
silent death of chrysalis –
the seaweed blocking doors and roads
verdant memory of cypresses
At the turn of the road the shadow of silence
We saw through the window the last
summer visitors leaving
and the small caique with the empty baskets
Ships sleep in the harbor
and the ash-colored flags of wind
are fluttering on naked masts
In a little while the sorrowful rain
will come
to cleanse the lyric names
the childish plans
and the sea reflections
from the summer boats
With the light of lightning
we’ll read fate
in our open palm
and we won’t have
not even a word to feed loneliness
not even two crumbs
to feed the few sparrows
dying by the deserted road
The dock trees
slant and alone
in the looted twilight
– wooden busts of summer

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Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

excerpt

Ken began to add up the costs, and the fact was Isumataq was going
to cost a fortune. He enlisted Diane’s and Marsha’s help in a campaign
to raise corporate funds. They composed and mailed dozens of letters.
While waiting for replies, Ken concentrated on publicity. There had been
an initial flurry of stories in the press, but the media had moved on to
newer sensations. Even the raft of articles in the local papers had only
been read by a small percentage of the city’s population. Even Stevenson,
who sold paint to artists, had been completely unaware of the show at the
Columbus Centre and prior to Ken’s visit, he had been unfamiliar with
his name.
He called his old friend Gary McLaren, at CTV, whose Sunday Morning
show he had appeared on so many times. He explained the immensity
of Isumataq and that he wanted its evolution recorded. When the painting
was done, the public would have a behind the scenes look at the making
of it in four television segments.
Gary enthusiastically fell in with Ken’s proposal and arrived at the studio
with his cameraman, Bailey, who filmed while Ken told stories and
worked with giant hoses, compressors, nails, and staple guns.
“This is amazing,” Gary said one day in the parking lot, during a break
in the shooting. “I don’t think anyone has ever done this – shown what it’s
like to be on the inside of an artist’s head.”
“I’ve never seen this done before either,” Ken said. “And I don’t have a
clue what the hell I’m doing, but it’s being done on a giant scale, which is
not the way things are usually done. You’re inside this particular scenario,
and I think it’s the proper approach to the whole concept of art.” Then
he pointed to First Canadian Place, the tallest office building they could
make out on the hazy Toronto skyline.
“See that office building? You can imagine everything that goes on inside
that building. That’s what I do.”
“Hang on a second,” Gary said. “Bailey! Grab the camera! Get this on
tape!”
Ken started again. “See that office building there? That’s First Canadian
Place, the tallest office building in the Commonwealth, if it is still
the British Commonwealth. Everything that goes on in there, I do. I’m
the dreamer, manufacturer, salesman, sales agent, packager, shipper, accountant,
banker – everything. And people talk about businessmen and
artists as if they were two distinctly separate creatures. I’m the only true
entrepreneur – whatever the hell that is. I’m the only true one, because I
do it all right from the beginning to the end. Every job is my job.”
The next time Salvador dropped by, Ken told him about his publicity
campaign. What if the same crew that had erected the Inukshuk in his
studio put together a number of Inuksuit, drilled them all and took them
apart? Then, in the dead of night, erected them here and there in the city

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Impulses

Tulip
For mothers made of granite
who birthed giants
mothers of smooth sculptures
and immortal diaphaneity
for faint smiles on the faces
of demigods holding pencil scroll
ones standing in front
of sun blushing shyness
mothers who nourished
petals of virtue standing up
sharply like ancient swords for
mothers whose womb carried
gleaming star bursts for you mother
I humbly offer sunlit chalice

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