Category: General

Dad, I’m giving your military sleeping bag to the Anglican Church of Canada. The last time you unrolled this large pocket for sleepy cadets and folded your tall frame into it, Eisenhower was president, and you were training to be a Naval Air Traffic Control Officer. From Midway Island, you witnessed atomic testing in the Pacific, received a gooseberry pie in a package, and wrote long letters to your sweetheart.

When civilian life resumed, you kept this olive-green souvenir of your time at Midway’s Naval Air Facility, and after your death in 1995 the bedroll that once padded your barrack’s bunk remained unclaimed. It was stored in perpetual coil in my Missouri childhood home.

Not long after the 20th century spiraled into the 21st, the sleeping bag was unearthed from the mudroom and given to me. Following its passage from Missouri to Ontario, it returned to a dormant state on a shelf. Out of active service for 61 years, nobody expected it to unfurl for a second mission, and if the pandemic had not struck, it might have lain in limbo forever.

But today the Community Director of a Toronto church has called your Navy sleeping gear into service. He has requested emergency donations of sleeping bags, water, and shampoo for people who have pitched their tents against the sheltering bricks of the Church of the Holy Trinity.

So, I plucked your bedroll from its dusty cupboard and ran it through the washer and dryer. Then I ritually wound it round itself and bundled it into a shopping bag for transport.

On donation day, I arrived fifteen minutes before the doors of Trinity opened. To pass the time, I paced the nearby labyrinth with a loaded dolly that trailed behind like an unsteady pilgrim who carted your sleeping sack, a case of bottled water, hand sanitizer, and a blanket.

Guided by the twists and turns of an ancient pattern, I meditated on the evolving, looping journey of the sleeping bag — from Midway Island to landlocked Midwest, United States to Canada, Cold War to global pandemic, Navy to non-military encampment, father to daughter, car trunk to dolly, labyrinth to arched door.

In the gentle maze of my mind’s center, images related to the transfer of Dad’s military property appear: my father is in the sleeping bag, 21 years old and having just seen the ocean for the first time, and now it is 2020 and a new person is snuggling into the bedding, someone who needs it.

Dad, I see your spirit in the sleeping-bag gift. I remember how you volunteered as a job counselor for a local shelter and as a cancer-hotline listener. I still see you in acts of service like the unrolling of a temporary bed and Its careful placement in a tent, a shelter during a time of pain. If you could send a message to your brother or sister in sleep, I believe it might go like this:

Take this donation with my blessing and heartfelt prayers for your well-being. May it provide a protective layer between you and the hard ground below as well as the cold air above.

Like you, I have known struggle. I fought a cold war, lived with epilepsy, and battled for my very life, surviving two bouts of cancer before the third one got me. I was vulnerable. I was scared. I often felt alone. But suffering passes. You keep smiling. You keep making jokes.

May this old but sturdy bedroll of mine help you sleep through the night, giving you strength to face the morning. May it contain some of my optimism, fight, and love to match yours. May it not let you down.

Sleep well, dear comrade, and may sanctuary enfold you always.

Be warm. Be well. Be safe.

Be at peace.

Putting bath-bomb enjoyment on hold for six months does not rate highly as an example of noteworthy sacrifice during a pandemic. However, from March to August of this year, it made me sad every time I saw the lovely non-violent bombs (a Christmas present from my sister-in-law) languishing in the bathroom cabinet.

Without access to a spacious lounging bath at home, I usually count on hotel rooms with tubs to provide ideal conditions for foamy immersion in swirls of moisturizing colour. During this unreliable year of ordinary expectations dashed, travel restrictions grounded my bath bombs on the shelf, turning them into symbols of the luxurious freedoms that I had previously indulged in without a thought.

On July 31st, Ontario entered Stage 3 of re-opening from lockdown, and I celebrated by planning a trip within the province, vowing, “I must not take this privilege for granted ever again!” The chosen destination was Bancroft, and I booked a motel for five days near the end of August.

When the day of the road trip arrived, I carefully packed the four bath bombs that had remained inactive for so long. Upon settling into the motel, excursions to Silent Lake Provincial Park, Papineau Lake, Egan Chutes, and downtown Bancroft took place in the days that followed, and evenings were devoted to long soaking sessions in playful combinations of fizzing blues, purples, yellows, and pinks.

On the last day of the holiday, bittersweet satisfaction accompanied the ceremonial dropping of the fourth unexploded bathing-device in the tub (indigo with gold stars) before fully packing up for departure. Never had I appreciated with such fervour the deferred pleasure of travel, motel life, and a return to decadent bathing.

Neither smooth nor automatic,

the mechanics of forgiveness

clank fist-first into the soil

broken by a rusty plow

that moves so slowly

it strains to finish the first row.

Forgiveness is not a miracle.

It is work to be done

and redone as the seasons cycle.

It requires the engagement of gears,

calls for the mallet, the shovel, the hoe

to shoogle resistant brick

and stony clods of dirt

that have hoarded energy locked

into coils of resentment.

Muscular labour turns the wheel,

pulls up the choking nettles,

and digs a clearing for rain,

for seedlings,

for tenderness to grow.

Say yes to this employment.

Grab the tools from the shed.

Go.

Gathered by avid thermals,

the downy nipple rises from nested bed,

sails the length of groves,

and embroiders the soil in gossamer

when she lands.

Fresh gliders follow their sister in flight,

freighted with seeds that trust the wind

to lift and spill them free.

Ghost stars that surrender

to be flung into the future,

they drift in currents that flow beyond lifetimes,

feathered travellers who ignite wishes

hushed from candles to palms of gods.

Fluffy as eiderdown, these tufted legacies

weight their fall with massive purpose,

Zen pilots seeding blossoms for the pollination corps.

In the same way, when compassion

flies the nest of our minds

to meet the world’s loom,

connecting threads weave furrows

for kinship and love to sow their crops.

Just like the time a grieving daughter

received solace from a stranger,

a wedding guest who said,

“My older brother was your dad’s friend forty years ago,

and I used to tag along with their crowd of high school buddies.

They all mostly ignored me,

but your dad showed me how to dribble and shoot a basketball,

taking time to coach me. I never forgot that.”

No matter how fragile,

filaments spun from empathy

go home smiling to the unknown,

shimmering pilgrims with the power

to comfort a yet unborn daughter

whose father lives again in the story

of kindness that defies death

and returns to bless the living.

The daughter at the wedding

can no longer conceive a child,

but she has faith that gentle generations to come

will cultivate expansive families,

communities both chosen and given,

whose deep bonds testify,

“We are all of love-bearing age.“

The slick gray humps —

shadows of glorious glacial whales of old —

have ebbed from cycles of freeze and thaw and rain

to create islands of receding winter.

From January to March,

these masses have shrunk,

slunk much lower to the edges

of the sidewalk by the cinema.

Saturated with soot and exhaust,

the sullen ice-beasts resist the warmer air

and clutch at soggy remnants of broken

plastic spoons, cigarettes, and coffee cup lids.

The time to release caution

and rejoice in change

has not yet arrived,

for the evidence of a harsh season

still lies in gritty drifts on the ground.

Spring is not to be fully trusted

because she has not unlocked herself from this long winter.

Nevertheless, let us witness

how this reticent mistress has lifted

the curled edges of sidewalk ice

so that currents of rippling melt-water lift the floes,

stirring hopes we guard like hungry seeds.

What’s left of me is ragged lace,

more absence than presence,

gnawed upon but not consumed.

I forbid you to pity me.

If you impose sympathy

with those I’m sorry for you eyes,

tart disdain will salt your gaze.

Instead, reach below O poor leaf!

to ask yourself ‘Where am I torn?’

‘Who would recognize me if they knew

how fragile the web is that holds my flesh together?’

Once you have opened the gate

that isolates my suffering from yours,

I will accept empathy from you.

But only then, mind.

I might even tell you about the time

I believed romance meant total surrender.

And you can describe the trusted beloved

who professed support but undermined from within.

As we share stories side by side on the forest floor,

let’s strengthen our arteries together,

arching them upward without apology,

neither holding the heartstrings hostage

nor concealing our corporate wounds.

Meet me at Farlinger Ravine,

Ravine west of Kennedy Road by the Dollarama,

Dollarama that conceals the lost banks of Taylor Massey Creek,

Creek I witness from this rusty bridge.

This bridge where I loll at the rail and examine,

examine the sticky burrs on my mittens,

mittens that spell “Lover” on my knuckles,

knuckles that soften with warmth as the sun rises,

rises to lavish its image on the stream.

Stream of Farlinger where youths from the shelter,

they shelter under maples, entwine limbs on fallen logs,

logs that block the narrow path to the culvert.

This culvert that thunders in storms, eases the stink of sewage,

sewage that swirls over submerged shopping carts,

carts from Giant Tiger, condoms, and Tim Hortons cups,

cups whose rims did not win.

Win next spring, maybe, but today ice curls at the edges of flow,

flow of water that plays with the sun’s colours,

colours of frozen glass in red, purple, and silver,

silver that polishes the depths of Farlinger Ravine.

A screen of ice has pinned my body to a puddle.

Caught between the surface and the depths,

my fluted edges have been numbed and blurred,

robbing me of external definition.

The blessed sun has melted my face to visibility,

fooling viewers with its tawny cheer.

In fact, the roots of my smile do not reach the deepest veins,

which await the body’s liberation

from the clutches of cold fear.

Testifying to repressed power,

iced etchings trace the shapes of submerged wings,

wavy carvings that design their whims

as they skate on the very surface they groove.

The stem lives in contradiction;

part of it captured in ice

but the tail released from confinement.

Not gripped by the dark blue crystals,

nor defined by white scratches,

this licensed grace heartens,

strengthens desire for freedom

to be lifted whole from this chill bed.

Hopeful of return to movement,

the blood irrigates polar and temperate veins alike

whether I believe in restoration or not.

If I desire to be more fully alive,

I must warm and be warmed —

fueling faith in winter’s end.

Tree branches, blue sky

reflected in melting ice —  

winter hieroglyphics.

Fractal patterns,

webs of connection,

forest’s neurons awake.

Branches stretching out

over cold morning waves

sunlight glints on stones.

Bluebells in spring,

spring into life,

forest wakes in mute beauty.

Reeds stand sentinel,

green and straight against a wavy background —

one moment in a changing world.

Cormorant on a stump,

its shadowy image

echoed in still water —

listening, watching, waiting for a sign.

Wildflowers nestling

by a fallen fence — sweet colour

on this spring morning.

Tilting its delicate head

the morning glory listens

to the world’s song . . . and silence.

Tree-shapes sheltering

this quiet forest clearing —

a splash of sunlight.

Sparkling light in the darkness

shower of stars

fallen

down to earth.

Dewdrops on a leaf,

red, yellow, dark purple

expanded moments, radiant.

Profusion of golden leaves

reflections in the stream —

The world is a narrow bridge

we need to cross.

(Note: italicized words from Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav)

The saint of the lake sits high in a sequoia

that grows from an ait kissed by mild waves.

Alone yet expansive, the art of silence

presses the holy woman’s heart between two ferns,

releasing notes of dried clover, cornflower, and marigold.

Rain begins and the saint stirs, prays and praises

the blessèd cover of a thick branch overhead,

its tough bark more waterproof than a nimbus.

Though distance obscures the hermit’s face,

one brown palm is visible against the green.

Cupping the rainfall has awakened her birthing sense,

and she is listening to the tadpoles’ legs emerging,

the fox lining her den with leaves for the coming kits,

and the egg-teeth of baby finches tapping their shells into openness,

their long embryonic wait almost at an end.

When the creased cup of the saint’s hand overflows,

she empties its reservoir with a dancing turn of the wrist.

Backing closer to the tree’s broad column,

she gathers heels into the thighs’ shelter

and circles warm knees with her arms.

Breathing into the curled nest of a compassionate self,

she sleeps in Love, heartbeats lapping in sync

with the lake’s gentle rhymes deep below.

Just behind Cedar Ridge Creative Centre, a steep switchback trail leads me to the west bank of Highland Creek, where tall grasses sway beside a sandy bank with cheerful stones below. As I continue along the narrow path beside the bank, I stop to photograph an elegant monarch butterfly before moving into deeper tree cover beyond.

I soon come to a tributary of the stream that is flowing much more slowly. Thanks to its shallowness, I can cross by hopping on the most stable stones. As I pause on the series of stepping-stones to survey the next viable perch, I experience moments of flowing water, such as a chartreuse leaf bathing in the stillness.

Although sunlight struggles to filter through the thick canopy, the steep bank offers a vision of hopefulness in grasses that are beginning their rooted stance, a scrap of sky above, and more tree leaves arching over the negative space. I have the sense of inhabiting a furrow or deep groove in an earthy canyon, transforming me into a creature with the option of crawling up and out from a den.

And I do just that, scrambling up the bank with the steadying aid of roots and branches for balance. I emerge onto the manicured openness of Scarborough Golf Club, owner of the footbridge I had glimpsed in a clearing on a previous walk. After I observe a few treasures of the golf course, including a short boardwalk in a marshy area, four irises, and an apiary, I return to the creek’s edge and forest path, the afternoon bathing in light.