Canada Day – Our National Holiday

Fireworks! Wear your red and white!

It’s already 149 years since Confederation, when the British colonies of Upper and Lower Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick negotiated to form the Dominion of Canada. That fledgling nation of four provinces (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario) formed the core for our modern country. The rest, as they say, is history– literally.

First Snowfall

It was inevitable, but of course we were surprised (or just in plain ordinary Canadian denial, having procrastinated in getting snow tires) when we got our first real snowfall during the night of Nov. 21.

Huge snowflakes, floating gently, silently from the dark sky and glistening in the soft glow of street lights, piled in soft mounds on branches and covered the ground. Slick driving conditions notwithstanding, you had to be in awe!  

Why Try to Describe Nature?

I love walking around in nature– out in the open or in gardens– breathing fresh air. Well, I mean I love it when there are no mosquitoes, and when it’s not too hot, too humid, or too cold! Under those circumstances, I still love viewing beautiful scenery through a window or from behind a mosquito screen, or barring that, vicariously through poetry, prose, photography, or art.

The Solitary Tree. “Caspar David Friedrich – Der einsame Baum – Google Art Project” by Caspar David Friedrich – VgEo9JDzFjfGGg at Google Cultural Institute. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons –

It would be easy to leave it at that, but then

To My Homesick Immigrant Mother

You described it well,
That homeland you left behind.
Over and over
          Your words heaved like waves
          That tossed your ship towards us:
          Hopes rose as tears fell.

Describe it once more:
Those hills, their green heads dreaming
In pink haze of dawn,
          Your village snuggling
          In sleepy shadows below,
          Unscathed— yet— by war,

O Canada! Fun and Flight

Proper Attire on Canada Day!

It’s Canada Day, and our nation is celebrating its 148th “birthday”! Time for a picnic with thousands of festivity attendees in the park! Later on, our national anthem will resound proudly from all those voices before the impatiently awaited fireworks display begins. Children will happily stay up far too late, and everyone will chant “oooh” and “aaah” at every boom and burst of colour in the sky.

We don’t often sing or hear the second verse of our national anthem (English text by Robert Stanley Weir) but for me, today, the beginning lines are special:

Que sera? – One Last Winter Dream

Saturday Night, March 28 in southern Ontario: the day’s sunny high temperature of -3C was plunging back down to a nightly low of -10C (again/still…)

As I was waltzing dizzily across the dance floor in my hubby’s arms, new lyrics to the familiar Doris Day ditty started spinning in my mind:

When it was cold at minus 10,
I asked the forecaster, “What will it be?
Will it stay winter? Will there be spring?”
Here’s what (s)he said to me:
Que sera, sera! Whatever will be, will be!
The weather’s not ours to see. – Que sera, sera.”

Well, March went out bleating like a lamb after all, and April 1st brought

Mindset – Reflections En Route is published!

Introducing Mindset – Reflections En Route  – a book of poetry with photographic images:

A personal path travelled: enjoying nature’s beauty in four seasons with reflections on life, treading through dark ravines of adversity (including my personal experience of breast cancer), finally coming to a place of profound Light. 

The positive mindset of hope, patience, and joy underlying all situations emanates from reliance on and thankfulness to God.

The variety of traditional structure, free form, haiku, and tanka poems together form a cohesive “story line” enriched by the skillful blend of images.

Dear friends, the winter was long, the publishing learning curve steep (pretty much straight up),