I am continually confounded by the interest people have in this blog. A place filled with enigmatic, often impenetrable poetry mixed and rants, raves and reviews of a “regular” guy.

Yet the numbers keep rising. Nearly 400 subscribers along with more visitors this year than the entirety of last year (which was a record year). Insane.

I have spent a lifetime writing. It is my safe place. I retreat to the written word for comfort and to rave. My writing is incredibly self-centred. So much so that I forget there are so many other people in my life that are and can be impacted by it. Such is the perspective of a narcissist.

My desire is to be a more responsible writer. A writer of more universal truths than things uniquely specific to me. Such writing is more accessible that way.

Still vulnerability has been one of my hallmarks. It has been noted repeatedly as a good thing in my columns and I don’t want to lose that. However I can be more refined, more mature…wiser, when it comes to writing. This comes from recognizing that my journey is not one done in isolation. Few people’s are. My journey is, like yours, one done in caravan. We are crossing the desert to the promised land together.

Family, friends, enemies even, acquaintances, coworkers…we are all journeying together in a messy, joyous, raucous, grief-filled crowd and our actions impact one-another in good and not so good ways. I hope I have been the bard in our group telling stories…often our own, to put the journey into perspective. To give you permission to laugh, the weep and to cry out in anger when necessary. It is not a responsibility I take lightly.

Here’s to the journey and learning to walk in a way that respects the people around me.

My column in this week’s Winkler Morden Voice and Altona Rhineland Voice newspapers.

take the little happiness you have found
and carry it in your breast pocket
that it might keep you warm
through these, the ice ages;
a new sun will rise
once the old one sets
and the world will be renewed
in colour and sight and sound
until you forget the former existed
and joy will be your foundations
until your time comes to an end.

these morning shadows
they’re just as long as afternoon’s
but they move differently
like children without the weight
of the protracted and heavy day
stretched out ahead;
they are light and grasping
hopeful ghosts of impermanence
waiting to become night
as they fall together
losing themselves
in a greater darkness.

And there is beauty in the streams we stop to admire… silent reverie broken by water’s fall on snow and ice…we are witnesses given over to a joyful nature.

Simple things –
A blue Jay at the feeder
Calms my brain like water
Poured onto a brush fire;
There is life outside of me,
Unconcerned,
Without anxiety (maybe)
Standing as example
Breathe…
You live in love
Expressed daily
In the small things
In the big things
In embrace
And shared meals
Breathe…
There is a Jay at the feeder

what kind of fool
is suspiciuos of joy
that they would seek
to be comforted
from its horrors
to be reassured
that it is not real
and the world is still black
beneath its bright blue shell?

and what kind of nightmare
would wrap their arms around
and whisper calming lies
to sooth them into complacency?

it seems exhausting
and doomed to failure
a pathetic dance of idiots.

Surrounded by life

Surrounded by love

I am;

Hearts beat near me

In tune with mine

And I’m reminded

That this,

This is good

To be

Connected

Still standing

As testimony

To an unwritten future

Moving forward

Wide-eyed and eager…

Hopeful.