Aboard the Poetry Bus



...where the company is stimulating, the scenery is fascinating, and even the seats are comfortable. We seem to have left the station a little early this week. What am I saying? We weren't actually supposed to leave until next week -- but our wanderlust is such, we couldn't resist a little joyride. We would push the bus ourselves, if we couldn't get the engine running.

Fortunately, there's no need for that. This bus is humming, and TFE is at the wheel. He showed us three photos, and suggested that we use them to inspire our poems. The photo that caught my eye was the third one (third photo, not third eye).

I suppose this is as good a time as any to confess that my eyes don't work very well, any of them. The photo, as I saw it, brought to mind hoarding. When I went back just now to confirm that it was in fact the third photo, I enlarged it, for some reason. Oh.my.god. That photo isn't about hoarding at all. It's about desolation and the hope of redemption and...oh, well. This is what I wrote about hoarding. ;>)

Cling to the memories, girl -
hoard them; hold them
close beside your body
while you weep, while you sleep.
Inhale the heady fragrance of them,
rock-a-bye, rock-a-bye,
caress the tattered softness
of their flannelette skin.
Never let them go, girl,
they bind you, they blind you
to your filed away and folded
and circumscribed life.

Meet Duffy!



Wilson and Steinbeck have a new sister!

I was at Chapters yesterday, trying to buy a copy of No Plot, No Problem. They didn't have one, so I ordered it. My copy is due to arrive around the 28th of October. Thus, the three days before my NaNoWriMo will be devoted to reading about NaNoWriMo.

Anyway, I went to the desk, paid for the book, and noticed a shelf full of bears on the wall behind the clerk. If you'll recall, I've been wanting to find a bear for my very small collection of stuffed animals. I wanted a bear that I could name Duffy, after Britain's poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy.

"What bears are those?" I asked.

"We are selling those to raise funds for the Love of Reading Foundation."

Well. That did it. I had found my bear. Her fur isn't curly -- I thought I wanted a curly-furred bear -- and she doesn't have as pointy a nose as I expected. It's a wonder I recognized her, in fact. However, the fact that she is a fund raiser for a literacy project made her irresistible.

I brought her home and made her pose for her portrait straight away.

Friday Photo Shootout - Silhouette

When I first moved to Nanaimo, we had a mayor by the name of Frank Ney. Frank was quite a character.Among other things, he was the man who organized the first Great Bathtub Race. He was a controversial man. I didn't agree with his politics, but I remember him fondly as Black Frank, our Pirate Mayor. Recently, the city erected a statue of Frank Ney, dressed in his pirate costume, in Maffeo Sutton Park.

A couple of weeks ago, our grandchildren were here for a visit. On our way out to dinner, we stopped in Maffeo Sutton Park to play, and I took lots of pictures - including this photo of Frank Ney's statue.

Don't I live in an interesting town?