Peace, Order, and Good Government - June 30 2026

 

Peace, Order, and Good Government

June 30 2026

I finally replaced that forlorn looking flag.

It had aged badly,

faded and frayed

from time and sun,

its fly edge ragged

from repeatedly snagging

on the pointed branch

of an encroaching tree.

More than undecorative

a ragged banner like that

didn’t just droop on its pole like a pointed finger

accusing me of neglect,

it seemed disrespectful

to the country of my birth.

But now, seeing it snap briskly in a warm summer wind

  — the bold red and white

against a deep blue sky —

I can’t help but wonder about the patriotism

I feel welling up,

a pride of country

I find unbecoming

as a citizen of the world.

Is this feeling small-minded

provincial

xenophobic?

Or unavoidable?

Because we while we are far from perfect

we’ve tried to do good

and are, by fits and starts, getting better.

Whether by deliberate choice

or an accident of birth

we are blessed to inhabit

a welcoming, tolerant, and progressive place

not riven

by ethnicity, religion, or the artificial division

of less enlightened states;

so I have reason to be grateful

as well as proud.

And because it’s just human nature

to need community

identity

the feeling we belong;

flag or not

people will seek out acceptance

set boundaries

fashion a tribe.

Anyway, it’s a pretty flag, as well as simple;

the kind of minimalism

I find attractive 

and like to practice as well

  — two vertical bars

with a maple leaf at its heart.

Who could object to that?

An inoffensive leaf,

glorifying nature

instead of aggrandizing man

or force of arms

or some narrow ideology.

A life-giving leaf

that gives us the air we breathe

and the beauty we crave.

What could be more symbolic 

of an earnest nation-state

that soberly proclaims peace, order, and good government

as its foundational creed?

That sees itself

as a force for good

and example to the world?

I really just wanted to write about my new flag. My impulse was decorative, not patriotic. But then, as the poem says, these feelings come. Especially since tomorrow is, by total coincidence, Canada Day.

I’m suspicious of nationalism. It seems small-minded. But then, while there's xenophobia and strident jingoism, there’s also a healthy patriotism that includes gratitude, an appreciation of history (the good and the bad, as well as the struggle), a sense of duty, and modest pride. But one that also doesn’t bridle at constructive criticism. We hear that defensiveness a lot these days from south of the border, where people who legitimately criticize their country are labelled as “hating America” and being “traitors” by some on the belligerent right.

I’m pleased with some of the descriptors I salted in. I think they reflect our national character: words like earnest, soberly, inoffensive. 

“Peace, order, and good government” — often shortened to the less high-minded sounding “POG” — is lifted from our founding document. Quite a contrast, as has often been pointed out, to its closest American equivalent: “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Time Out - June 29 2026

 

Time Out

June 29 2026

If timing is everything

then what about place? 

In this temporal geometry

there is no triangulation

no solid ground.

A now, but no here,

a past

that’s badly remembered 

or written by the victors

then revisioned to fit, 

and a future

that’s merely hypothetical

and whatever you wish.

Especially since time depends on speed,

is relative,

and who knows when the the clock

in the first place

was set to begin.

In time

out of time

pushed for time.

Mostly, not enough of it.

A time out

is all I’m asking for,

doesn’t matter where.

Filmstrips of an Absent World - June 27 2026

 

Filmstrips of an Absent World

June 27 2026

When I recall my childhood

enough time has passed

that all the colour

has bled from it.

I’m watching filmstrips, in black and white

of an absent world

I can’t imagine I was part of.

The cars, the clothes, the houses,

the clunky technology,

and the all-white faces

of a provincial town

that was complacently insular.

It’s startling how much has changed.

But also how much hasn’t.

Because while it’s easy to patronize the past

as well as romanticize

  —  laughing at the fashion

while presuming an innocence

we could only wish we had  —

the human experience 

doesn’t change.

We have the same loves and hates

fears and desires

wants and needs

as people have through history;

even our nostalgia 

for a mythic golden age

we were sadly born too late for.

Yes, I was alive

way back then.

But don’t ask me to remember

the great events of the day,

the geopolitics

nuclear fallout

and gee-whiz technology,

the prejudice

and toxic air.

I was a child, and my world was small;

a suburban street

of single family homes

with one car in the driveway and a weedy backyard

that seemed enormous to us,

and where fun

was something we made ourselves. 

They say childhood has changed.

For the better, one would expect,

because progress

is in our DNA.

But a septuagenarian 

who remembers in black and white

has his doubts.

Because more

hasn’t made us happier.

And while we also wished to grow up fast

  —  as all kids do  —

we had to take it slow;

some of us, even slower.

Which isn’t a bad way to live;

not “go fast and break things”,

but take your time

and treasure what you have.

YouTube has short video vignettes of every era since moving pictures. When I watch mid 20th century Toronto, I can imagine young people today seeing that time the way I see the jumpy scratchy film of the early 1900s. But living in it didn’t feel as primitive as it looks; things felt normal, modern, even futuristic! The age in which we live is the water in which we swim, and like fish, it’s just how things are  . . . as well as how they’ve always been.

One effect of watching these things is that they subconsciously bleed into my memory. I actually do start to visualize in black and white; do start to feel we were deprived compared to the way we live today. The “colour bleeding out” not just a poetic device. 

Watching also makes my childhood seem even longer ago. This is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, we shake our heads at how primitive things were. And on the other, imagine it as some golden age. Not just my contemporaries because that was our youth, but today’s young people as well. Because from this distance, that seems to have been so much simpler and innocent a time. (Doesn’t it always, looking back?)

“Go fast and break things” was Mark Zuckerberg’s notorious catchphrase for Facebook (Meta, if you prefer.). I think very apt here, since the worst thing about modern childhood are social media and the smartphone. Technology has created an anxious, dependent, and socially isolated generation of young people. …Not to mention, of course, all the good reasons there are to feel anxious:  Donald Trump, climate change, bad economies, and a profusion of horrible pointless wars.

Belles Lettres - June 26 2026

 

Belle Lettres

June 26 2026

A new word to me.

Clearly pilfered from the French

I let it roll off my tongue

with Gallic élan.

Belletrist,

which is writing

not so much for what it says

as how it says it;

with beauty, elegance, and grace.

That is, writing for the sake of it.

Which comes naturally to the French

who also live that way.

Not just wine and song

but rolling their r’s

as if to savour them,

moving their mouths

because words should be caressed

as one makes love,

and talking with their hands

in case words aren’t enough

  — because if some is good

more must surely be better.

While we are practical

and our language

a namby-pamby one,

swallowing our words

and speaking through pinched lips

with stilted tongues;

like repressed Englishmen

who speak marble-mouthed

and nearly shut,

a taciturn adolescent

grumbling under her breath

while rolling her eyes in disgust.

English is shameless, as well;

a mongrel language

that steals from all the others.

So while the French demand purity

we have no compunction

about borrowing words.

The colonizers   . . . colonized.

I aspire to be a belletrist,

penning essays

just for the sake of it,

writing poems

that land on the ear

with the rich resonance

and subtle overtones

of musical notes.

Like Bach’s Cello Suite

Ravel’s Sonatine,

a Chopin etude

Beethoven symphony.

But instead of instruments

beautiful words.

I began this wanting to evoke the excitement of encountering a new word. Especially one that distils a nuanced or complex idea down to a single term. And in this case, a beautiful one with a delightful mouth feel:  I can’t help wanting to say it out loud in my best French accent. (The first thing I had to get used to trying to learn French was to move my mouth. No swallowing words, as we English speakers do.)

I somehow never got around to the excitement part. Except inasmuch as it’s implied.

A Mourner's Discontent - June 26 2026

 

A Mourner’s Discontent 

June 26 2026

There will be grief in every life.

Because no one’s exempt from tragedy,

and is there even such a thing

as a timely death?

Bereavement seems inadequate;

the word sounds bloodless,

academic,

detached.

Like an anthropologist taking notes

while looking on

at the rawness of loss

and its disembowelled loneliness, 

at the anger, fear, and guilt

that seethe under the mourner’s skin

like maggots in a rotting corpse.

But to grieve

  — to be whipsawed from tears

to catatonia,

from brain fog to heartsick to numbness,

and from leaning on a wavering faith

to a feeling of abandonment

and fruitless search for meaning —

gets closer.

And if language is metaphor

it’s also onomatopoeia;

the banshee keening

of the word’s embittered eeeee

comes straight from the gut.

Because grief is embodied 

not just a state of mind.

Of course, everyone grieves in their own way.

Some scream, wail, and tear their hair.

Some repress

and can come across as cold.

While others lose themselves

in the small details

and unexpected paperwork;

the bureaucracy of death

can be formidable. 

But you can distract yourself 

only so long

before it wells up once more. 

It isn’t cured

and doesn’t resolve

but does eventually soften.

And it can feel like it’s yours alone,

even though you know it’s not. 

Because to live is to suffer.

And because love and pain

are inextricable;

the bargain

of a life fully lived,

and the risk of loving well.

Inspired by this recent piece from the New Yorker. 

What Science Knows About Grief
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/06/29/what-science-knows-about-grief

Frankly, my poem seems superfluous, because she’s a terrific writer and says everything better. The only reason I even tried is that unquenchable urge I have to put down words:  as if I can’t resolve my thoughts and feelings without processing them this way. As Joan Didion famously said: “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking.”

Darkness Falling - June 25 2026

 

Darkness Falling

June 25 2026

Darkness falls.

As I feel the cooling air settle.

As if the impenetrable night

had density,

as opaque as an ingot of steel.

As if light was lighter than air

as buoyant as a noble gas.

The warm light of day

raising the blue dome of sky

high over our heads.

Bad things happen at night

under cover of dark.

Vice reigns,

temptation beckons,

sinners fall.

While the virtuous huddle inside

in artificial light

as if that will protect them.

From the warm glow of my cozy den

the picture window

that overlooks the woods

is an impervious black wall.

It looks chilly out there,

the forest

where I’m so at home

now seems menacing. 

So why am I so tempted

to venture out?

As if darkness had a gravity

I can’t resist.

As if the air

had a reassuring weight

I could lean against,

would part before me

like a cool liquid

against my skin.

And beneath it

the land was uncannily still,

a frozen tableau

only I

could move freely through;

stepping out of time

and observing the world

as no one had before.

I’m very nocturnal — late to bed and late to rise — which I know can strike people as lazy, even decadent; but which to me is innate — my lifelong chronotype. So I suppose this is another poem (seems to me I’ve written many) trying to explain the appeal of night. Or perhaps more accurately, of darkness. There is a stillness, a peace, and a privacy to it. It almost seems that time goes more slowly. And it also has an edge of mystery, as well as possibility.  So as I sat, looking at that black wall of glass, I felt more aroused and attracted than repelled. 

We often use the metaphor “night falling”. I enjoy deconstructing metaphors by posing as a concrete thinker, taking them literally. Which was a helpful way to enter into this poem. And it does feel like it literally falls: the weight of the cool air, the density of the darkness.

 Before artificial light and illuminated city streets, night was particularly dangerous. A place for muggers, thieves, and ladies of the night. While out in the country, wolves roamed, wild animals preyed, malevolent spirits emerged from their hiding holes. So the advent of gas illumination brought a radical cultural change, as well as a certain political ferment. People could congregate at night, more freely walk the streets. Life was transformed. 

 

A Thousand Yard Stare

June 22 2026

The lower branches

overshadowed by taller trees

were brittle as twigs

and dotted with blighted buds;

hard little nubs

that never opened.

A tree — sensible, if not sentient —

culls its weakest link

as it keeps reaching for the light.

Like cutting off the arm

you don’t write with,

starving the part of your brain

receptive to love

when you finally give up on it.

Hard to hug

with just one arm.

Oddly, the top was also dead.

A porcupine had girded the tree

of a section of bark,

throttling

its upper end

like a hand around the neck.

So just the middle still lived;

but to my eye

barely.

We cut it down

then bucked and split the wood

and stacked it for winter;

making the best

of a regrettable loss.

I’d say put it out of its misery,

but then

we’re told trees do not feel;

that they’re not sentient 

but simply are.

The life force

and its surprising toughness.

How a tree

reduced to a remnant

still strains for the sun,

and how a man 

fights to the last breath;

even on the verge

of certain death.

Or does he?

Because I’ve see that people do let go    . . . eventually.

Few rage until the end

die gracelessly.

The life force, as fierce as it is

resigns itself,

accepts,

goes peacefully enough.

A mercy indeed,

like a chainsaw to the heartwood

in a shower of chips

and matter of seconds.

Or like the antelope going limp 

in the jaws of a leopard,

its eyes 

glazed and fixed

in a thousand yard stare.

I can only hope

its violent death

is as painless as it looks.

This began with a real incident. One of my precious tamaracks. As always, where it went after that was completely unplanned.

I wonder if there is flood of endorphins at the moment struggle becomes futile. When I see prey being killed on nature docs, it always appears that way.  But then wonder how evolution — operating through the twin imperatives of reproduction and survival — could possibly select for this mercy. Because a killed animal doesn’t reproduce, so can’t pass anything on to its descendants. And because when death is inevitable, nothing benefits its survival. 

Instead of The life force / and its surprising toughness, I wanted to write in plain English  It’s hard to kill a man. Because it is. But thought such a statement might sound more like a confession: as if I’ve actually tried it!   . . . Anyway, the way the poem turned out, it didn’t really fit.

They say the electrical signals we’re able to detect in trees change predictably when they’re harmed or attacked. That they release pheromones, perhaps even inaudible (to us) sounds. None, of course, is evidence of subjective distress; that is, of feeling pain and emotional suffering. But they are suggestive, nevertheless. But is it even possible for us to contemplate consciousness in an organism so different that it lacks both a brain and a nervous system?

Coincidentally, I read this just a few hours ago:

Quebec town recognizes the rights of trees

The Globe and Mail (Ontario Edition)

22 Jun 2026

MORGAN LOWRIE

GRAHAM HUGHES/THE CANADIAN PRESS

A small town west of Montreal has decided to officially recognize trees as living beings with rights of their own, in what an environmental organization describes as a first in Quebec and Canada.

A resolution adopted by Terrasse-Vaudreuil city council on June 9 declares that trees are worthy of protection, “including the right to life, to natural growth, to integrity and to regeneration.”

Mayor Michel Bourdeau says Quebec filmmaker André Desrochers inspired the community to take action.

He said Mr. Desrochers’s film, called Des arbes et des arts convinced citizens that trees are living entities that live, breathe and communicate with each other through their root systems.

“A tree is like a human being,” Mr. Bourdeau said. “It breathes, it lives, it takes in water. It protects us from all sorts of things.”

The International Observatory of Nature Rights says the town of about 2,000 also became the first municipality in Quebec and Canada to sign on to the Universal Declaration of the Rights of the Tree, which is an international initiative spearheaded by environment groups.

Its three main core articles state that trees are living beings and a common human good, that life on Earth depends on their existence, and that humans must act in “fraternity and solidarity” with them.

Mr. Bourdeau says the new resolution means the town will review its existing rules and bylaws to ensure that trees are protected or replaced, if they must be cut down. He also plans to implement measures to further increase the canopy, including offering trees for residents to plant.

“Trees are a true green infrastructure,” he said. “They help reduce urban heat islands, improve air quality, manage precious water resources and protect biodiversity.”

Mr. Bourdeau said the move was adopted unanimously by councillors, and appears popular with citizens as well. He also doesn’t anticipate it causing any problems, such as interfering with development, although that’s partly because the town has no more vacant land on which to build.

He says his town is a natural fit to become a tree ambassador. It’s built in the woods, and its citizens value a rural lifestyle. Its residents are also intimately aware of the damage caused by extreme weather and climate change, after being flooded three times in recent years.

When it comes to fighting climate change, “our biggest ally is the trees,” he said.

Yenny Vega Cardenas, the president of the International Observatory of Nature Rights, says the declaration on tree rights is part of the same push that has seen jurisdictions around the world, from New Zealand to Colombia, grant legal personhood to rivers and other natural areas.

It has also happened in Canada, where Quebec’s Magpie river was granted legal rights by a regional government and the Innu Council of Ekuanitshit in 2021.

But Ms. Vega Cardenas says the tree declaration is special because it acknowledges that a single tree is an ecosystem of its own, which can provide shade, food and habitat for other species.

“We need to understand that [trees] have dignity and they have senses,” she said. “Not sentiments, but senses … They can feel and they communicate with each other in a very specific way.”

Karine Péloffy, a lawyer with Ecojustice, described Terrasse-Vaudreuil’s decision as a “very hopeful gesture in the broader movement for the rights of nature,” and said the idea isn’t as strange as it might initially seem.

“We know corporations have legal personhood and rights and they are definitely not living,” she said in a phone interview. “So if some nonliving things can have legal personhood, what’s stopping living beings from equally getting legal personhood?”

Sleeping Dogs - June 21 2026

 

Sleeping Dogs

June 21 2026

I root for the underdog.

Don’t we all?

For the rebels

with more passion than means.

For the social justice warriors

who know in their heart what’s right,

even though self-righteousness

can focus vision to a laser beam

scorching what it sees.

And for the last place team,

whose diehard fans

believe in miracles

  — the magical season

when the comeback kids

go from last to first.

Because under-dogs

are the vessel of hope,

and hope is never false

victory all the sweeter.

While the over-dog

weighed down by expectation

has no such dreams

  — a win

comes simply as relief.

Yet who admits

to being top dog?

Everyone, it seems, even the most privileged

has a chip on their shoulder, 

a niggling sense of envy,

a feeling life’s unfair.

As if we’re all Davids against Goliath,

underdogs

gamely challenging

the powers that be.

All rebels,

even those defending 

the status quo.

Because in a time of tumultuous change

standing still and taking a breath

can itself seem radical.

All filled with hope.

Until, that is, the moment we’re not;

neither over- nor under- ,

just sleeping dogs

lying in the sun

taking quick shallow breaths,

too exhausted by the heat

to seek out any shade.

The fateful moment

when hope abandons us,

and remaking the world

doesn’t matter anymore.

Is this another example of my subconscious emerging despite me when, like a stenographer taking dictation instead of authoring the words, I let the poem write itself? Because aside from the idea that we all naturally root for the underdog, I began without any idea what I’d say. Yet somehow, the place I end up at is despair: not the brave warrior, rebel, and reformer against the odds, but the idealist who has finally given up. Is this really where I am now: disillusioned and demoralized?

(Btw, I’m one of those diehard fans who has suffered for countless years with my team. But last season, we came within a whisker of winning it all. Only underdogs get to enjoy the extra measure of sweetness that comes with such unexpected good fortune. So this season I realized just what a burden expectation is. And now — almost halfway through, and with that expectation predictably disappointed — I’ve returned to the far more familiar terrain of hope. A lighter feeling that makes playing well good enough, and losing, easier to bear!)

Making Conversation - June 20 2026

 

Making Conversation

June 20 2026

Thunder rumbled in the distance.

The clouds were a mix

of fluffy white and dirty grey,

closing and parting

to reveal a bright blue sky

and high summer sun.

The sudden heat

coming so abruptly on a dull wet day

felt like the gods were toying with us,

quickly drying the rain

which would only fall again

in short light showers.

Mercurial, to say the least.

The weather changing

like a racing mind

that whipsaws from manic to morose

benighted to benign.

But at least something to talk about

with strangers you’re stuck in line with,

talkative baristas

when the lunch rush has died,

and distant relatives

on family occasions 

whose names you can’t keep straight.

If only the thunderstorm had veered this way.

Lightning cracking the sky,

Sheets of rain

pinging off the pavement,

and hail

battering the glass.

Wind-whipped trees

bent like willow wands,

their leaves

twisting madly

and straining at their stems.

Something really good to say

in those awkward lulls.

The opening stanza is exactly what it felt like today. A little of everything! 

Which left an impression, so I just started by describing it, while also fearing it would end up becoming another of my tiresome “weather poems” — something I try to avoid, because they tend to have little humanity, emotion, or even point. 

But, as often happens, the poem wrote its own way out. Who knew it would end up being about that awkward social imperative of “making conversation”?