Shaun 2002 - Feb. 28, 2020

 

Shaun

After an hour of tests at the vet’s

you sat on my lap so quietly 

waiting for the verdict.

They said you were in great shape for a dog so old,

and with a bit of attitude. 

I was so proud of you,

you were so patient and good

so content to sit there.

A few weeks later you were gone

The last week I made your favourite, spaghetti 

to be sure you would have some,

then let you finish mine.

Going for a walk

two days after

I turned down a side street.

Because I could not face the curve of Northmount drive

where you liked to stop and lift you leg against every other poplar,

as we waited impatient to get home.

I wonder now, as we walk the neighbourhood whether

the other dogs will unexpectedly smell you against this tree,

that rock and find,

as I do while standing at the kitchen counter

or rolling over in bed,

some happy memory of you.

First Draft (it took a year)

Remembering

The next two photos are Wendolene and Shaun's mugshots 

from the Calgary Humane Society.

Alberta’s Environmental Appeals Board was set to review the application to infill some wetlands, alter others

  Would that I could find Burton's detachment, although he seems to have a very comprehensive list of what has happened for someone who is so zen.

"I hear new news every day, and those ordinary rumours of war, plagues, fires, inundations, thefts, murders, massacres, meteors, comets, spectrums, prodigies, apparitions, of towns taken, cities besieged in France, Germany, Turkey, Persia, Poland, &c., daily musters and preparations, and such like, which these tempestuous times afford, battles fought, so many men slain, monomachies, shipwrecks, piracies, and sea-fights, peace, leagues, stratagems, and fresh alarms. A vast confusion of vows, wishes, actions, edicts, petitions, lawsuits, pleas, laws, proclamations, complaints, grievances, are daily brought to our ears. New books every day, pamphlets, currantoes, stories, whole catalogues of volumes of all sorts, new paradoxes, opinions, schisms, heresies, controversies in philosophy, religion, &c. Now come tidings of weddings, maskings, mummeries, entertainments, jubilees, embassies, tilts and tournaments, trophies, triumphs, revels, sports, plays: then again, as in a new shifted scene, treasons, cheating tricks, robberies, enormous villanies in all kinds, funerals, burials, deaths of Princes, new discoveries, expeditions; now comical then tragical matters. To-day we hear of new Lords and officers created, to-morrow of some great men deposed, and then again of fresh honours conferred; one is let loose, another imprisoned; one purchaseth, another breaketh: he thrives, his neighbour turns bankrupt; now plenty, then again dearth and famine; one runs, another rides, wrangles, laughs, weeps &c. Thus I daily hear, and such like, both private and publick news. Amdist the gallantry and misery of the world: jollity, pride, perplexities and cares, simplicity and villany; subtlety, knavery, candour and integrity, mutually mixed and offering themselves, I rub on in a strictly private life."

Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy 

Contentious $500M motor sports racing park near southern Alberta hamlet seeks environmental approval

https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/contentious-500m-motor-sports-racing-park-near-southern-alberta-hamlet-seeks-environmental-approval-1.5320641

Northern Flickers at the front porch over the last two days. (Better than the news)

"I lived in the first century of world wars.

Most mornings I would be more or less insane,
The newspapers would arrive with their careless stories,
The news would pour out of various devices
Interrupted by attempts to sell products to the unseen."

from Poem by Muriel Rukeyser

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47657/poem-i-lived-in-the-first-century-of-world-wars

I read a New Yorker article and something struck me.

 

"I’ve lived my adult life so far away from my childhood, away from whatever madeleines might return it to me, and yet here I am, in some sense having never left this neighborhood. Time has and hasn’t wrought its transformational power."

from Living in New York’s Unloved Neighborhood,  by Rivka Galchen

New Yorker,   Feb. 8, 2021

Polar Vortex - looks like it will be cold all week.

 

"snow
the day shut down like Napoleon
at Moscow
a day for art
the marvel of flight and of stillness
commotion and silence"

War and Peace
D. G. Jones

So we filled up the car, got some dog treats and snacks and prepared to hunker down.

We weren't the only ones getting ready. This squirrel is planning on getting into macrame in a big way. Helen is painting her miniature. Mine are still in the mail. And we can start patching the drywall in the big room in the basement this week.