Borders: Real and Imagined (Poetry Pandemic continued)

Guest Post by haiku poet Carole MacRury of Point Roberts, Washington, USA (originally shared on Facebook March 2, 2020 ─before the sh*t hit the fan, so to speak). Carole offers a balanced perspective that encourages us to see moments of light and beauty without ignoring the darker context and the health and safety protocols we all need to follow. Carole is also a talented photographer whose photos remind us that in these times of anxiety, uncertainty and physical isolation, nature offers a sense of continuity and solace. Thanks, Carole ❤

[photo by Carole MacRury]

Covid-19—
a deer grazes both sides
of the border

Living in an isolated community such as mine [Point Roberts is located on a small peninsula connected to Canada, with access to the rest of the USA requiring crossing two borders], it’s easy to forget the pandemic spreading across the country as we watch eagles building nests, the patient herons waiting for a fish and the female deer bringing out their yearlings to graze. All things I saw just yesterday. All of it brings a sense of hope, of light, of Spring around the corner, but of course, we know the dark side is never far away. While we have one grocery store, one postal office, we can only rely on one small clinic that lacks a full-time doctor and is not open every day. Otherwise, we must cross borders to get to our primary doctors. There is no huge infrastructure available in our small community, except for community itself, and our fire department, ready and able to do everything possible with their a-class medics. Yet, across the border, businesses are already suffering, through fear, not reality, yet. No state of emergency has been declared in BC, but it has however, been declared in Washington State with the death toll increasing, specifically in one nursing home. I straddle both scenarios living on the 49th parallel between US and Canada.

Covid-19—
the dim-sum crowd
disappears

A large Asian population lives just across the border in the lower mainland of Vancouver. A place I love to visit. All the signs in Chinese, the food opportunities, of course offer a culinary delight. However, even the Chinese Canadians are avoiding their own markets. Business is down. The only reason, fear. People need to eat, so to not support local business will hurt us all. The Asian malls, too, suffering. Well, we can put off buying unnecessary items, but what will it do to the store owners? Then there are the beautiful open markets with their colorful displays of fruits and vegetable. Such a waste. Fear is keeping people away. As we hunker in our homes, remember the homeless, living and breathing on the streets.

the homeless. . .
hungry eyes pass by
rotting produce

Yet, despite it all, life somehow goes on. People do their best to get to get to work, after all, bills won’t stop arriving in the mailbox, unless the postal workers gets sick. Our hero’s ─ ambulance drivers, health workers, doctors, nurses, policeman, firemen continue to come to our rescue. Yet, it’s hard to live in a cave of one’s making. To think of our homes as a prison, so we venture out with caution.

a tiny cough . . .
the tai chi class moves
six feet apart

Carole MacRury

—

[Note: The World Health Organization accessed the Covid-19 outbreak as a pandemic on March 11, 2020, after Carole’s original post. Check your local health service for the most recent advisory. Click here for the Canadian link.]

As the pandemic continues and more and more people are self-isolating or social distancing, let’s unite through sharing poetry, art and acts of kindness (and the creative ways people are finding to create, inspire and help each other across “social distancing”). I’ll share more pandemic prompted haiku in my next post.  -Jacquie

Poetry Pandemic

First off, my heart goes out to everyone adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

How are you coping with social distancing or self-isolation? Has it prompted any poetry (haiku or otherwise)? As a writer who spends a lot of time working alone at home, the health scare hasn’t changed my routine a lot. But I will go stir crazy if I don’t get out of the house for walks and occasionally get-together with family and friends. I’m not sick, so I can go out, but it’s hard to maintain distancing on public transit, which means I’m either staying home, or trying to avoid peak times for crowds (plus, of course, doing a lot of hand-washing).

crowded Skytrain
a new awareness
of shared air

[Update March 18, 2020: now staying at home and not using public transit]

I’m also going for more lone walks closer to home, enjoying the spring blossoms and bird songs, and I just experienced my first video-chat meeting today (via Zoom), which was actually kind of fun. With the cancelling of upcoming conferences and travel plans, I’m travelling vicariously through getting back to working on the train haiku anthology (after temporary derailment by other work commitments). I’ll be posting an update later in the spring and should have a book cover image to share soon!

If you have any pandemic poetry, or creative ideas for weathering the Corvid-19 precaution period (while staying safe and keeping others safe), please share.

West Coast winter haiku

One thing I actually enjoy about Vancouver’s winter rain and early darkness is the neon reflections.

(A version of the above photo-haiga was published in the last issue of A Hundred Gourds)

Today, we even got some snow. It’s days like this that I’m happy to work at home.

Fall is cherry blossom time?

 

While spring is the traditional time for celebrating cherry blossoms, fall is when we hear the results of the annual Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku Invitational contest. This year, I was excited to learn that one of my haiku (inspired by the Vancouver Canucks hockey team making the Stanley Cup playoffs) was selected as the top winner in the “Vancouver” category. And, seeming in honour of the occasion, these rather confused cherry blossoms were blooming in November when I visited Vancouver’s Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Garden.

Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku Invitational Top Winners, 2015

Vancouver

Stanley Cup playoffs
the last cherry blossoms
still hanging on
                      Jacqueline Pearce
                      Vancouver, British Columbia

British Columbia

cherry blossoms
come and go
my seventy years
                      Dan Curtis
                      Victoria, British Columbia

Canada

Alzheimer’s ward
cherry blossoms
in the fog
                      Marco Fraticelli
                      Pointe-Claire, Quebec

United States

cherry blossoms
no room in the selfie
for me
                      Joe McKeon
                      Strongsville, Ohio

International

cherry blossoms
falling
in love again
                      Brendon Kent
                      Southampton, England

Youth

cherry blossoms—
grandma tells me about
her first date
                      Cucu Georgiana, age 12
                      Botosani, Romania

Click here for commentary on winning poems

Fall is also a time when local cherry trees are filled with beauty of a different colour.

Getting ready for Chinese New Year

I didn’t expect to see much in Vancouver’s Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Garden in the middle of January, but when I visited last Saturday, I found it blooming with red lanterns and bustling with preparations for Chinese New Year. I was also surprised to see winter jasmine in flower and many trees full of early buds.

The Chinese  lunar New Year (which begins on January 31 this year) is a time for sweeping away the old (dust, clutter, debts, worries) and welcoming in the new (renewing hope for health, happiness, and good fortune). Staff and volunteers at the garden were busy cleaning, tidying, tying up loose-ends, and decorating in preparation for the upcoming Year of the Horse Temple Fair, Feb 2 (2014). Red lanterns are hung around the garden to bring good luck (red is considered the most auspicious colour because of its association with fire, the sun, energy, light, and life-blood, which demons fear, so it also keeps demons away), and they welcome back the light of spring.

A few images and haiku from my visit:

New Year’s lanterns─
the courtyard mosaics
swept clear

preparing for
the New Year─
peony buds

still pond─
finding the courage
to say goodbye

Chicken Soup for the Soul & the lure of a frozen pond

Everywhere it snows, kids love winter. The first snow of the year is always the most exciting ─especially if you live in a place like the south-west coast of British Columbia, where snow is not guaranteed. When my boyfriend and I moved from Vancouver Island to Toronto to go to university, we were looking forward to escaping the cool, rainy winds of Victoria and experiencing a real Canadian winter of sunshine sparkling on snow and ice hockey on frozen ponds. We packed all our essential possessions in two large hockey bags (including two pairs of skates and a toaster oven). The morning we left, we discovered that our friends had graffitied a sarcastic message on the road in front of my boyfriend’s house: Craig loves Harold Ballard (Harold Ballard was the coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team at that time, and my boyfriend was not a Leaf’s fan). [Note: scrawled on the road in front of my parents’ house were the words There is no pie in Toronto, but that’s another story.]

Our first winter in Toronto did not start the way we expected. We discovered very quickly that the York University campus, where we were living, had the apt nickname, “Siberia,” and that we had exchanged the damp but relatively gentle winds of Victoria for the bone-chilling, driving sub-zero blast of what we were beginning to think of as a flat urban wasteland. Did things improve? Did we finally get that beautiful Ontario snow we were expecting? Well, you’ll have to read my story in the new collection, Chicken Soup for the Soul: O Canada The Wonders of Winter: 101 Stories about Bad Weather, Good Times, and Great Sports.

But seriously, Craig and I ended up having many wonderful winter experiences over our four years of living in Ontario (including snow-shoeing over pristine snow north of the city, seeing my first Snowy Owl and Snow Buntings on an outdoor education field trip, and gazing down at the frozen Niagara Falls as we crossed the bridge to the US to watch a hockey game in Buffalo). By our second winter, we had a car, and two of our good friends, Mark and Donna, had moved from the westcoast to Hamilton (an hour’s drive from Toronto), and on weekends we explored a lot of the countryside together. Craig and Mark were on a constant quest to find the best pond on which to play ice hockey. In warm weather, they scouted for accessible ponds with potential. When the temperature started to cool, they monitored the thickening ice. The moment the ice could hold their weight, they were out skating and passing a puck around (long before locals were ready to brave the ice). Donna and I skated too, but we never lasted as long as Craig and Mark.

When I saw the call for submissions to a Canadian winter themed Chicken Soup for the Soul, I knew I had to write something about our Ontario experience and the siren call of frozen ice. But which of our many winter memories should I pick? Should I write about the Christmas day we tested the ice on a pond in the middle of a deserted conservation area? Or the night we skated on an old outdoor rink ─with boards around the outside and lights overhead, canned music, and a warm-up hut with a wood stove? Or should I write about the time we were house and dog-sitting on a farm north of the city, and we skated on the farm pond as the two big dogs slipped and skidded around us? No. I decided to start at the beginning ─with the first winter and the first pond.

Bamboo & Basho

Interested in haiku poetry or how to use bamboo in your garden? This Saturday I’ll be joining other poets from the Vancouver Haiku Group at Vancouver’s Dr. Sun Yat Sen Classical Chinese Garden for a celebration of bamboo. Angela Naccarato, poet and Intuitive Consultant, will lead haiku workshops (open to anyone visiting the garden, with three workshop times between 1-3pm), and I will be sharing some of my photographs of “bamboo in Basho’s footsteps” (from my last visit to Japan).

A haiku I wrote on my last visit to the garden:

Things are looking up

It’s been a grey rainy week here in Vancouver, but downtown today, I had an unexpected glimpse of cherry blossoms and sunshine ─appropriate for the start of National Haiku Writing Month (February, the shortest month for the shortest poetic form).

early blossoms─
a new spring
in my step

Click here for more info on National Haiku Writing Month (NaHaiWriMo).

Inspired by fall leaves and history

I thought I’d share a glimpse into the wonderful writing retreat I experienced last month at Spark Box Studio near Picton Ontario (with funding gratefully received from the Canada Council!). A whole week without distractions, focusing on the craft of writing historical picture books! I was particularly interested in exploring the question, “How do I take a huge topic such as the War of 1812 and hone in on a small story suitable for children?”

To help me get on the right footing for my retreat, I stopped in Toronto beforehand to meet with children’s book author Monica Kulling, for a thoughtful and inspiring discussion about writing historical stories for children. Her latest book, Lumpito and the Painter from Spain, about a little dog who touched the life of Pablo Picasso, was hot off the press, and provided a great example (I love the dog, illustrated by Dean Griffiths).

Next, I took a side trip to soak up some War of 1812 history and watch the reenactment of the Battle of Queenston Heights near Niagara Falls. The boom of cannons, smell of smoke, calls of the soldiers, costumes of the military and civilian reenactors, and the cool, damp fall day helped to cast a spell that opened a window into the past.

At Spark Box Studio, I started each day with a solitary walk between farmers’ fields. The empty fields, subdued colours, and the whispers and rustles of leaves and grasses that followed me as I walked, made it easy to imagine a young girl two hundred years in the past, standing on the edge of a field, hearing the distant boom of cannon and cracks of musket fire. I felt like I was walking with one foot in the present and one in the past as I wrote these haiku:

.

autumn wind─

on the lonely path

many voices

.

 

whispering grasses─

the words always

out of reach

.

While it was great to have so much time to myself to think and write,  talking with the creative hosts and other guests at Spark Box Studio was also enriching. And, despite that last haiku, the words weren’t out of reach. I finished the first draft of a picture book story and concluded the retreat feeling buoyed in spirit, recharged and reinspired to continue writing…

Fraser River flood flashback (and book giveaway)

On this day in 1948*, the town of Agassiz’s Victoria Day dance was interrupted by news that the Fraser River was about to flood. Men, young and old, quietly left the dance to build up the sandbag dyke along the river and begin what would inevitably be a lost battle to keep the water back and protect their homes, farms and businesses. A few days later, children waded through waist deep water on the school grounds, men rowed boats down the main street of town, and hundreds of dairy cows choked the road west of town as farmers herded them to higher ground, murky water licking at their heals.

Tom, the main character of my new chapter book, Flood Warning, wishes he could join his father and the other men fighting the flood. He’s sure his favorite radio hero, the Lone Ranger, would do no less. At the very least, the Lone Ranger on his fiery horse, Silver, would escort the evacuation train safely out of town. But Tom has to go to school, and when school is dismissed early, he has to stay home and help his mom around the house. Until the flood comes to him, and Tom must become a real-life hero and help save his family’s dairy cows. (Info on book giveaway at bottom of post.)

The story, while fiction, is based on what really happened during the 1948 flood. Agassiz was the first town to be evacuated (read Flood Warning for the unusual role played by the town cemetery), but communities all along the Fraser Valley were affected. In total, 30,000 civilians (local farmers, townspeople, and volunteers from other areas) sprang into action to fight the flood, rescue stranded people and animals, and bring in supplies. Sixteen thousand people (including 3,800 children) were forced to flee, and hundreds of animals were also removed to safety (750 cows were evacuated in Agassiz alone). Roads (including the Trans Canada Highway) and railways were swamped, people who remained in the flooded areas were cut off from the rest of the world, and even the city of Vancouver was isolated from the rest of the country except by plane.

When the water finally began to recede two weeks later, it left devastation in its wake. Orchards and field crops were destroyed, debris was everywhere, floor boards of houses, cupboards, stairs, etc. were warped and rotting, carpets were ruined, walls stained, water-soaked furniture falling apart, and dark stagnant water and mud remained stuck in low areas. Yet, throughout the ordeal, there was a sense of camaraderie and mutual support, and people’s spirits remained high.

For more information on the Fraser River flood, Nature’s Fury, a first-hand account by newspaper correspondents and photographers who witnessed the flood, is available to download from the city of Chilliwack’s website.

Check out Flood Warning for a child’s eye view.

Book giveaway!

I’m giving away a signed copy of Flood Warning along with a bookmark, special button, and a DVD that includes episodes of the 1950s Lone Ranger TV show. Add a comment here, or “Like” my Facebook page to be entered in the draw. (Draw deadline: June 15, 2012.)

Of course, you can also ask for the book at your local bookstore, or order it through Amazon.com, Amazon.ca and other online sources.

Flood Warning is part of the Orca Echoes series for grades 1-3 and is illustrated by Leanne Franson (Leanne also illustrated my previous chapter book, Mystery of the Missing Luck, and I love her work).

* Note: Today is Victoria Day here in Canada, and it was on Victoria Day in 1948 that the flood warning began, however, in 1948 Victoria Day fell on May 24th.