April 29th, I was out with two very special women, who’ve been at my side and had my back since I was 10 years old. How fitting that they were the ones to take me to Chapters South Edmonton for a post-dinner rummage around the literary offerings there. Mark Messier’s memoir was prominently displayed in…
Author: prairiepomes
Writer, gardener, hopeful curmudgeon, free-range Aboriginal, lover of life, Poet Laureate of Edmonton 2011-13, traveller, Fifth World Drummer.
Choral Collaboration News
In just over 2 years of collaboration, Mari Alice Conrad has composed a number of remarkable settings for various of my poems. Beyond delighted to announce that Journey Song has arrived for purchase on Cypress Choral Music. Meanwhile, in Toronto, Exultate Choir will feature the Stephen Chatman Award winning At First Light on May 23rd…
Day 17: replete
One way or another, you get full. Mind and body pick up souvenirs some of your choosing, some say you have all the choice, but consider bystanders, and know we are moved by a larger hand. Still, it seems you can rank them when you wake one morning, replete and see the future, deer and…
April 14: Maundy Song
Mandatum novum do vobis said the Lord, the Romans say And Empire got so cosy as to make vernacular shorthand, Maundy, a nickname for the sacramental solemnity before the Sacrifice, the heart of its religion. What might the Mandatum Novum be today? Love one another still stands a statute all-healing when wielded but let us…
Day 13: Rivet
Hold your attention, keep this together, thin sheets of your heart fastened along the same old lines, the squeeze and clatter memories Or you go young, releasing Sort the moments, choose which will shape your vessel space and place tiny metal touchstones, remember the hill Ponies, wind, something distant lifetimes before and to come maybe…
April 12: Cloud Layer
However bright the sun up here the captain’s vision and instruments bear witness, that a journey promises two passages through turbulence. Wise traveler, hold earth in your heart ride it out, your cares a beacon. Image courtesy LevaNevsky on pixabay.com
April 11: Old-Fashioned
He gathers himself grieving, still, in this body, the line down through generations. It is not ignorance that kept him from the doctor, but bones ringing with memory rippling years shrugs a mirror is not the other’s gaze. Allude to Rome. Consider Damascus. Line up your sentinels along the Empire waste-line of lives. But there…
30/30/2022 Day 7: Swans
Have you seen the River Goddess? I have, and She is multifarious in her splendour Her cozzies and woolly toques gliding through Oxford’s cold green April morning water, quietly She gathers her various bodies to briefly wear a swan’s disguise, and then resume domestic duties, jobs and children husbands and the entangled lines of it…
30/30/2022 Day 6: Birds
We fly at each other, across the human -sized streets of this ancient gathering ground, these mellow golden stone streets We are not old, but youth has flown and taken roost in leggy fledglings blushing beside us. Look at us. These bushy years, these old dilemmas rubber boot years worn low to the point between…
30/30/2022 Day 4: The World, A Bear
slaps you down, rolls you into wild trajectory You’re all feet against the claws, trying to reach, brace, land, swing up, ride upon her broad shoulders, apprehending: you are not the hunter, not the prey, you fare your way the while, you tumble spun by her fierce love, the all-encompassing roar. That is how it…
30/30/2022 Day 3: While the Sun
was stretching long ancient arms past all obstructions, to let light bathe His tenderly loved domains, I thought about winter, and a jet winked back at the morning, light skidding from wingtips As birds of other purpose skipped through limbs of elm awakening, then lifted Morning songs and I desired to tend small gardens along…
Prairiepomes 