Categories
General Poems and Prose Poems

Dovercourt House: Ecstatic Dance Studio (2023) Read by the Author

Right cheek warmed by friendly planks,

I sprawl beneath a chosen window

that spills its sunshine on my lips,

ladles honey heat over tilted nape.

I roll from side to side, waking combs of beeswax

and provoke the floor to creak an invitation:

“You can ask me anything.”

***

Unsure, I glance to the mirror for answers,

but it speaks only shame, does not listen.

I fling away my glasses, and the judge dissolves to Wisdom:

examining my body is only one way to experience it.

***

Rising yesward on bolder knees,

I study the high ceiling,

ten tall windows with fans whirring on their sills,

the fire exit platform threaded with vines –

and this choir of generous portals shouts

“Get Your Freedom Here!”

and bids me stand.

***

Now on my feet, I allow shoulders and wrists and thighs

to shake off dutiful belittlements —

the should’s, the sorry’s, the shrinking silences —

and let them be shed and shredded on the dance floor

somewhere south of broken.

***

For once, my hips don’t apologize for their curves

and they dare me leap from mountain bridge

to thunder-soaked river, where I wrestle

with dangerous currents I’ve shunned out of fear.

Surrender to the river tugs me wild open, cracking my thick shell,

pushing, pulling, having me rolling like a beast

who slaps mud on her chest and stamps her hooves

and doesn’t care who thinks she needs a cage.

***

Being here in this dancing river

feels like returning to the fire-girl I was,

burning up caution, sadness, and grief in a healing fever,

reveling in electrical storms that crackle along my bones,

flourishing a purple cape, tasting the salt of delectable effort,

spine loose, palms grateful, instinct hushing intellect,

feet singing over noise of the brain.

Here in this movement, I inhabit my body, my rightful home.

Categories
General Photography

Impressions of Progress Campus

Forest Behind Progress Campus (2023)
Near the Banks of Highland Creek Behind Progress Campus (2023)
Tree Reflections in Highland Creek (2023)
Categories
General Photography

Impressions of Ashtonbee Campus and Nearby Sites

Mystic Skittle, Ashtonbee Library (2016)
Ashtonbee Library (2016)
Ashtonbee Library (2016)
Grasses Beside Ashtonbee Campus Parking Lot (2020)
Ashtonbee Campus Hub (2023)
Wexford Woods (2018)
Meadoway (2023)
Meadoway Contra Jour (2023)
Meadoway Winter Arch (2023)
Self-Portrait Among Meadoway Grasses (2023)
Ashtonbee Road Puddle (2023)
Categories
Artwork General Photography

Heart Mosaic’s Evolution

May 2017
May 2017
May 2017
May 2017
August 2017 Memorial for Heather Heyer
October 2017 Mosaic Embellished by Neighbour’s Children
October 2017
October 2017
2018 Red beads from Grandmother Raine (1911-2008)
2018 Marble from Uncle Doug Jones (1935-2005) and bead from Grandmother Raine
May 2019
June 2019 From Uncle Doug’s collection of enamel objects
June 2019 From Uncle Doug’s collection
June 2019 Uncle Doug’s marble
June 2019 From Uncle Doug’s collection
June 2019 From Uncle Doug’s collection (with bonus portal to bees’ home)
June 2019 From Uncle Doug’s collection
September 2019 Marble from Uncle Doug
September 2019 From Uncle Doug’s enamel collection
September 2019
May 2020
May 2020
June 2020
June 2020
June 2021
August 2023
December 2023
Categories
General Photography

Belleville Sojourn

Sagonaska River, Belleville
Sunrise meets the banks of the Sagonaska
Riverside Park West
Return to Toronto by ViA Rail
Categories
Artwork General

Ellen’s Turtle

Ellen’s Turtle, Catherine Raine 2023

My friend Ellen once told me that turtles were one of her favourite creatures, and I hope she would have enjoyed this collage devoted to her memory.

Detail from Ellen’s Turtle, Catherine Raine 2023
Categories
General Photography

Images of the Meadoway and Rouge National Urban Park

Black Locust Tree of the Meadoway in September, Scarborough Ontario
Black Locust Tree in October
Mast Trail, Rouge Park
Mast Trail
Rouge River
Rouge River
Categories
General Poems and Prose Poems

Barn Memory (2007)

Recorded by Sean McDermott at Offaly Road Studio, 2022. Read by the author.

I am a ruined barn, empty but smelling of ancient hay. I sit in a lost valley, no longer a shelter nor part of a living farm. I used to be warmer, to glow orange from lanterns on February mornings, to retain animal heat. Now my shadows fill in their outlines, brief flashes from the highway my only relief.

I am tired of being a relic, a rural ghost who attracts photographers from the city. Their insulting attention reminds me that I am just a skeleton of economies past, a symbol of romantic decay.

All my sounds are whispers and echoes now, where once I heard grunts, shouts, whinnies, cries of pain and hunger. It’s so quiet now. Ruin is quiet. My unsteady walls feel dry, brittle, so straw-like that one warm hand on my door would set me ablaze. I welcome this fire, this sweet extinction into ashes.

When it rains, I feel the blessed water soaking my beams, splashing through broken panes, swelling the hayloft floor so that I forget my ladder is broken and my stalls now shells that once held a family’s wealth and sustenance. I miss being whole. I miss being real. I miss the animals I used to protect.

Categories
General Photography

Interplay of Leaves, Grasses, Bark, Flowers, and Light

Alley Walk, Liberty Missouri
Liberty Missouri
Liberty Missouri
Liberty Missouri
Scarborough Ontario
Categories
General Photography

Portpatrick, Largs, Pollok Country Park, and Glasgow

Portpatrick
Portpatrick
Old Parish Kirk Grounds, Portpatrick
Old Parish Kirk Grounds, Portpatrick
Old Parish Kirk Grounds, Portpatrick
Old Parish Kirk Grounds, Portpatrick
Largs
River Cart
River Cart
Pollok Country Park
Pollok Country Park
Pollok Country Park
Whitelee Windfarm
Whitelee Windfarm

Pollokshields, Glasgow

Buchanan Street, Glasgow
Categories
General Photography

Rambunctious Summer Clouds

Near Victoria Park Station, Toronto (2023)
Jutting Eave of Victoria Park Station Entrance (2023)
Categories
General Photography

Puddle Vistas

Ashtonbee Road, Scarborough (2023)
Categories
General Photography

Two Great Lakes, Huron and Ontario

Lake Huron
Lake Huron
Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario
Categories
General Photography

Chalk Invitation

Gatineau Trail, Scarborough

Near the back garden of a trail-adjacent home rests an invitation: give your pet a drink of water and borrow some sidewalk chalk from the green box.

A group of young people had recently accepted the chalk invitation and left colourful words on the path to motivate the walkers, runners, and cyclists who would follow.

Thank you, anonymous messengers of encouragement!

Thank you, butterfly!

And many thanks to the kind hosts who filled the silver bowl with water and offered chalk for creative expression. You brightened my walk this morning!

Categories
Photography Poems and Prose Poems

Construction Site Haiku

Indigo tarp veils/construction site while wild vines/sign fence in cursive (CCR, 2023)
Categories
General Photography

Images of Plattsburg, Lee’s Summit, Lamar, Liberty, and West Plains Missouri

Plattsburg, Missouri
Unity Village, Lee’s Summit, Missouri
Lamar, Missouri
Discovering a new alley and a weathered garage, Liberty, Missouri
Lilac on Lightburne Street, Liberty, Missouri
Spring River (West Fork), near West Plains, Missouri
Penny the Pig, West Plains, Missouri
Categories
General Photography

Afternoon at Sandbanks Provincial Park, Ontario

Categories
General Photography

Sidewalk Cliffshapes and Purple Puddles

Ashtonbee Road, Scarborough (2023)
Jack Goodlad Park, Scarborough (2023)
Field Beside Jack Goodlad Park, Scarborough (2023)
Reflection reminds the concrete that roots lie underneath; trees were here first, not parking lots. Jack Goodlad Park (2023)
Categories
General Photography

Ice Sentinels, Chandeliers, and Sky Claws at Guild Beach

“This Way to Rochester!” East Point Park (2023)
East Point Park (2023)
Ice Chandelier, Guild Beach (2023)
Bedazzle Ice, Guild Beach (2023)
Guild Beach Sky Ice (2023)
Guild Beach (2023)
Sky Claw, Guild Beach (2023)
Resting Ice Shapes, Guild Beach (2023)
Categories
Photography

Reflections in Rain Puddles and Sunset Meadow, Scarborough