The Red River has flooded over the centuries.  My mom was around for the 1950 flood, and I was in Winnipeg in 1997 and 2011 (we were in Australia in 2009 so I missed that one).  Epic and monumental are words that spring to mind.

It's amazing to observe, and in 2011, I was inspired to document an item I heard on the radio. The show was about flooding and the Red River Floodway which was completed in 1968 and expanded in the 2000s. The Floodway was dismissed by opponents of then Premier Duff Roblin, who proposed it, labelling it as "Duff's Ditch".  Little did they know ...

 

The river is high again 

rushing north.  Rained hard at night and then for a few days.

 

A geographical anomaly

Remnant of the last ice age

 

Fossils are part of the local architecture.

 

The ancient lake wants to reach equilibrium

and I heard an old man talk about his achievements

which are visible every time the rivers rise. 

He was modest;

"priggish", said an announcer from the 1960s.

But our social structure has a lot to do with what he brought into being

including the big gates that divert the mighty Red from terrorizing the city that was built at the confluence of two prairie rivers.  They are the bottom of the ancient lake bed and all water will run through those channels.  The ancient clay bottom doesn't soak up much.  

The water moves along.

 

Our wheelbarrow was full of water in the morning.

I rode my bike over the rushing Red, several times today. Suspended on a bridge spanning the flood. 

Spring 2011

 

 

 

Thoughts, poems, musings in the early days after university ...

Cropduster drone against a half-moon summer sky.

Sleeping graves lie

in even prairie rows

to fend off

tunnelling gophers

and yellow-edged night. 

 

July, 1984

 

 

A visit to Ontario (home), Aug. 1984 (I needed to escape the confines of my small town existence and had a chance to get out for a holiday.)

Kev, smiling as if his life depended on it.  Warm rain pelting down against us -- "Have you ever driven 40 miles an hour into the rain?"   No hello.  I didn't want it.  Hair plastered against tanned forehead, forearms and shoulders hunched over the ancient steering wheel -- "I've got to get these peaches into the barn." It was good to see him again.  I could have stood in the rain for an hour, soaking in that smile.

 

 Satellite going East

 

Trailing its flight into the deep-dusk purple night.

Sky oscillating like so many shivers.

Venus flips by, surprised.

I blink too, as the Dipper is skimmed.

Revolve me away from my hands,

littering this asphalt with peanut shells.

 

Sept. 29, 84 - written in Winkler where I lived for my job

 

The copper-hued and blue toned towns

are etched

against a disappearing prairie -- 

infinity of its darkness broken only by the gridded network.

 

(flying to Vancouver from Winnipeg, Oct. 84)

The geese are going against a

layered, shuffling

high grey cloud.

 

Calling the warmed-over days away with them. 

 

Oct. 9/84

 

Thoughts/ideas I jotted down in my life in the small town:

 

• When younger, it was always a special thrill to hear a Mennonite name in advertising, over the news.  Something alien, yet somewhere in there an identifiable characteristic.
• Interaction between people forced into a community -- e.g., senior apartments.  I heard of an  older woman accused of being a prostitute.
• Load of potatoes in a pick-up out the front window!
• She loved her cousin enough to marry him -- he was alike, yet he was different. 

 

 

 

Assiniboine River:  Bare-bones ghost of a wind, ruffling water.  Disturbing the silver moon's path, illuminating a track from water to leaves on trees.

Spring, 1982  

Rain on a July morning.  Swaying poplar trees, richly scented, heavy with memories of other humid spring evenings.   Weighs on my olfactory senses like a memory, awakens remembrances of other days.  Honeysuckle-perfumed morning air mingled with crisp, green cut grass.  The smells blanket all sights and sounds momentarily.

 

 

 

Apollo's Gate

 

Driving west under Orion's belt

 I want to see you again.

 I want to sway with the accelerating train

 and stand in a cocoon of almost dark

 and silence.

 

The hillside towns will flash their lights as we recall the day:

 Echoing with lost glories,

 filled with the red-ochred walls,

 and Apollo --

 still guarding his temple gate.

 

I travel through the dark-skied dim corridor

 and the headlights swathe my memories

 and leave them at Apollo's cast-bronze feet.

 

Feb. 29, 1984 (remembering a visit to Pompeii)

 

 

 

 

Dreams to Remember By

 

I sleep in strangers' beds and let the waves of my imagining

 carry me from darkening hills

 to light-washed towns below.

 Then hold me to a tide-soaked shore

 (although my footprints fade at water's edge) 

 and capture me in the cold white light of northern winter moon.

 

Sleeting air cools and snow soon lies air-brushed

along the blades and twigs that mark the path.   

Jan. 1984

 

 

 

 

Seduité

I taste your tongue on mine and am at once unsure.

How I came to be here, I know:  

    This is a celebration, 

    attendant requirements have been met.

 

Balloons,

    streamers,

          drinks in hand.

 

And smiling eyes, music from just around the corner --

    An occasion that merits attention.

 

Instead,

your cunning tongue leaves this fluorescence 

ebbing along the boundaries of my sight,

my vision trapped by these outlines of skin. 

Feb. 1984

 

 

 

"The Devil is not the Prince of Matter; the Devil is the arrogance of the spirit, faith without smile, truth that is never seized by doubt." (Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose)

 

Jazz on the Rooftop

 

Five days of rain in a prairie summer.  I blink like vampire,

trapped by the sun that appears.

 

It bleeds through the window cracks,

shadows potted palms against glazed granite walls.

 

Paper floats to the ground behind the guitarist.

That distracts me from the geometric jazz that snakes into my mind.

Rhythmic fingers and feet moved around me:  They didn't see the paper. 

Aug. 15/85

 

 

 

 

 "have to kick at the darkness 'till it bleeds daylight ..."

Bruce Cockburn  (Folk Festival)

 

The Baby Minder

    The approaching death of a young man has touched on my thoughts, especially for the effect the idea of "death" has had on his support workers.  Both have been haggard about it.  Both have been, and looked, and sounded, hurt.  Death in its most unfair sense -- a handicapped young man, low resource background, both in terms of family and finances.  Eighteen years old.

     He died last night.  A hard time for the support worker who was curled upon the couch when I left the house this morning.  Was it better for the young man who died?  A few weeks of terrifying pain, not months.  And it could have dragged on much longer.  Today the northern wind is cold and hard, with a large, haze-encircled white winter moon.  Goodbye to a life.

     I knew it would happen soon.  I knew it because they put a baby minder in his and the support workers' room so he wouldn't have to shout for him, or cry for long.  A creative use of an item designed for the beginning of life, not its end.

Jan 14, 1987 - too many men died of AIDS 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's Time... to write again

It's time to get back on this writing saddle and get going.  I'm going to take the easy way out and document a poem I wrote in 2009, partly because I want to organize some of the bits of writing that I've done, and partly because I want to get rid of some of the papers that are lying around.  What's somewhat shocking is that this poem I wrote so long ago shows me not much has changed.  Conflicts have moved into other settings.  The language of the perpetrators doesn't seem to differ.  People still die and try to escape.


Driving back from grocery shopping

The mist sits on the hill.
A crown, a toque, a beanie,
fog really.

Drapes itself around peeled trees,
drips from leaves, 
hides the road. 
Good thing I've driven this a few times.
Lights on for safety.

Kookaburras are quiet today, too busy staying dry to cackle.
We love this fog as we walk to school.
Can't see to the top of the hill.
Cockies crooning in the trees, quieter too.  Talking to themselves.
Fog distracts the birds.
Usually the magpies burble in the mist
calling, look, here's a tasty little bite.
They talked quietly this morning.

Washing on the line is soaking again.  I forgot to take it in last night.
Little lakes are starting to fill -- they have been dry for 10 years.
Hope is strong in the man's voice on the radio.
He's been farming for years.
He's middle aged
he says.
The dry has left him without much more than his good reputation.

The hill is often wet, at least since the heat stopped.
Slippery leaves and sliding mud along our walk.
A small wind stirs the giants in the fog and they spill onto my carry bags.
I love how the small drips fall from leaf to leaf.  Makes them twist.
No little parrot having a rest on the branch today.  The berries have been eaten,
but those little red parrots like to sit there, dozing.
Must be annoying,
those little drops of water on your back when you are trying to sleep.

The Americans are talking about fighting again.
How they must take on the evil warlords (or words like that)
in Afghanistan.
The Diggers and Canucks die often, far away from their own homes.
It's dry there, no more paradise of figs, apricots, roses, fruit, roasted lamb and doogh.

The word enemy is repeated by the President's people.

Oh, civilians are dying too.  They're trying to go, trying to find a place that isn't as dry.
Another boat was intercepted yeterday.
They get on boats and float across the water, hoping the money they gave to a man 
somewhere
will get them into safety, hills,
mist to hide them.
I should turn that radio off.

I just wanted to make a nice meal for my family.
And the fog look great, crowning the hills.


Ferny Creek, 2009

Lake Winnipeg

Lake Winnipeg - October Afternoon

An update from Tom...

Here's a letter Tom sent a few weeks ago to the staff members at his school, during their United Way campaign.  Some of you might want to be updated with regards to Tom's health.

Cancer Update

I was diagnosed with prostate cancer in September of 2011. I guess this means that I now have had cancer for three years. My cancer did not stay in my prostate. It metastasized to my right hip. I had no cartilage there. On April 4 of that year I could not get out of bed. Obviously I was not going to work. I was off work for one year and 3 months. I walked with a cane. I took a lot of pain killers. On November 21, 2011, I received a titanium hip. Cost-$50,000.00. It works great.

I live a life with cancer. I have stage four cancer. I will not be cured. I will just be able to maintain my cancer at the level it is now. Yesterday, my daughter Nicole asked me; “Dad, when will you be cured from cancer?” For her, everything is black and white without any subtleties. The answer for her is that I won’t be cured.

The Cancer Care building is the nicest, brightest, sunniest building that you would never want to enter.

I am there twice a week, sometimes three times a week.

I went there for chemotherapy, which I was dreading. They put you in a big blue lazyboy chair and drip chemicals into your arm. This is two and a half hours of my life I will never get back. I did this 10 times, every 21 days, since last May.

There is always a twenty minute wait for a chair. The chairs never get cold, as there is someone else waiting. They only shut down on Christmas day. They do not have enough chairs to handle all the cancer patients.

Once a month I go to the hematology lab for a blood test. It is on the main floor. You take a number. The previous time I was there, the nurse couldn’t find a vein, and just stuck the needle in and swung it around until he could find something. Really painful. I will not have him again. On Monday, I was there again. There was a small boy ahead of me. He cried and cried when they stuck the needle in. This was tough to take.

I am on prednisone. I have gained thirty pounds. I have a “moon face.” Please don’t call me moon boy when you see me.

My feet are swollen and my joints hurt. I can’t fit my winter boots. I can’t fit my clothes.

I can’t grow a mustache to save my life-no pun intended.

It costs $50,000.00 a year to treat one cancer patient.

One in seven people will get cancer.

Please donate to the United Way Campaign.

Thanks for reading.

Tom Roberts

The Kindness of Strangers

Recently I had an experience in the poplar bush of one of our local dog parks.  I went with daughter Nicole and our dog Kallista to the Parkerlands for a Saturday afternoon walk.  Nicole DID NOT want to join me on the walk and insisted I was forcing her into a bad experience equal only to other forced marches in the history and wastelands of the world.  I dramatize our moment, but we were not happy with each other, and she trudged along unwillingly behind me as Kallista bounded and danced in front of us.  A woman and her dog walked by and Nicole muttered that the person had given her a dirty look.  "What?", I said, thinking I hadn't heard correctly.  The woman had heard, but she ignored the comment.  "People always look at me like I'm weird", said my unhappy daughter. [As if the grumpy face and attitude wasn't a give-away...]  I think you can tell by now that I wasn't that happy with my daughter either.

I turned around to talk this out ... it's always my "go to" solution to talk things out, even though now I realize that sometimes my daughter just wants to feel mad.  Mad at me, mad at the world, and mad at whatever is making her mad.  "Nicole"... I said through my own gritted teeth: "You don't have to think that everyone is looking at you."  [And isn't that what most teenagers feel at some point? -- everyone IS looking at them...]  Obviously the mother of the mother/daughter pair wasn't that happy either...  

Another woman, who had walked by at this point, turned around, and with a loving smile commented that her name was Nicole as well, and wasn't it a beautiful name.  Didn't (my) Nicole love her name too?  That simple act of stopping and commenting on some obvious unhappiness stopped us both in our tracks.  She told us how she loved her name, and continued to engage directly with (my daughter) Nicole, commenting on the weather, the dogs who were sniffing each other, and on the qualities of the name they shared.  This compassionate act was thoughtful, and directed to engage with my teenager who struggles with social connection. It forced her out of the state of misery and made her connect to the empathy and love that flowed to her.  

I wondered then, and still think about why and how that happened.  Is she empathic somehow?  Is she trained to notice when people cannot engage directly with the world?  Others had gone by, ignoring the gloominess.  The two Nicoles focused on each other, and it was as if a healing touch had been given -- the bad mood of the day lightened, and the stagnant attitude that trapped us was blown away.  This simple act of compassion and direct contact made all the difference.  There was no need to stop and talk, and yet she did.  She saw and felt something and connected to it with meaning.  It reminded me that there are caring people who feel the weight that sometimes drags around with us.  We get used to that feeling, and don't want to change.  The kindness of a stranger took away that heavy attitude.  I offer my thanks to the kindness of a stranger who turned a grudging moment into one of reconnection.

A Eulogy for Summer

The dark days of late autumn (early winter) are now upon us.  All I want to do in the mornings is curl back into the warm nest of my bed, away from the cold Winnipeg mornings.  And did I say the mornings are dark?  A few weeks back, son Kai wrote this eulogy for his English class.

A Eulogy for Summer

 

When the snow melted away, and the remains of winter disappeared, summer grew. She grew slowly and carefully until she took over the world. How she did it? Cool in the morning and hot in the afternoon. 

Summer always sparked creativity in everyone she met. She encouraged everyone to get out on the street and meet new people. We had forgotten about them, as we shivered out the winter months. She got friends together, and then, people in groups. Summer made sure we got stuff done. She doused the earth with rain to wash away dirt and gravel. She made trees and food grow. Summer gave us warmth and light to build new houses and repair old roads. 

She took most of the world by storm. People fell in love with her. They left school, jobs, and the darkness of their homes. She encouraged them to travel far and wide and to explore places they’d never been. Families bonded and spent time on beaches. They camped and lived rough for awhile. Summer helped families stay up late and get more active. She made them get wet, muddy, she made them laugh and cry. 

Summer made the world happy for the couple months she was around. She warmed the earth and everyone she touched. I know that she warmed everyone’s souls.

I remember when summer came, racing to the cottage with my family to soak up the sun. Summer was always right there beside me. Even though summer was not one of my own, everyone in my family loved her. We loved living with her and she loved living with us. 

She was always the same; I would sit on the deck, and watch her wake up. She was still always half asleep and it took her awhile. She would sit with me until she was warm and ready for the day. We would pack a lunch, and go for a hike. Summer always came with us. She loved moving around, and when it got too hot, she provided us with shade. We would head to the beach in the cooler part of the evening. I know this was summer’s favourite part of the day, because she loved painting with light. She created lots of beautiful works of art across the sky. Dark blue here, purple and red there, she always left us amazed. 

Summer was taken from this world too soon. She had so much ahead of her in life. I always had a dream that summer would settle down. That she would find someone she loved to enjoy her life with. Summer leaves behind, friends, family, acquaintances and colleagues, all of whom loved her.    

I feel sad when I look ahead and see the bleak darkness of winter. But even though she is gone, I know she will live on in the memories of all of us. I will remember her warm touch and the light she gave the world and I know that she will never be forgotten.