Today the wind is from the north-northeast

When I get up in the morning I always peek through the slats at the smokestack to see what's what before the blind goes up. The direction of the smelter smoke sets the tone for the day. This morning it was coming straight at me. A wall of it. I was cornered. I left the blind down and crawled back into bed. Now, at day's end, the skies are almost free of cloud. The sun has turned the smoke into apricots. Apricots and whipped cream coming right up.

It started when I woke up to an uncertain rhyme, "boots on" and "croutons"

The city was all cut up today. 19-block Rose Street, a north-south vein of downtown Regina, was blocked off for a ball hockey tournament featuring NHL-ers and local businesses. Watching from a broken window in a 2nd-floor office in the old Leader building, a woman saw Blake Comeau, former Saskatoon Blade, slash away at Boyd Kane, ex-Regina Pat.

At my son's request, I sliced three inches off his hockey stick this morning, the better for him to operate in tight corners of the ball hockey court.

Jack Semple played "O Canada" in the manner of Hendrix ripping "Star Spangled Banner" into the skies over Woodstock, 1968.

More afternoon after that: cut cake at a baby shower, drove south on half of Albert Street (the other half lifted away for resurfacing). Finally, a slash of sun out of showers around 2:30. I helped my daugher fix some plumbing and got home in time to watch A.J. Burnett take 101 pitches to get through 5 innings against the Cubs.

Right about now the Riders break out of a huddle.

By the close of business today, I will have spent money at Wal-mart, Home Depot, Aegean Coffee Shop, Sears, and Dollarama.

It's overcast, windy and spitting

The only bright spot in the day is the pair of red and white high-top runners hanging from the power line in front of the neighbour's house. Size 12 at least. They've been hanging there for six months, maybe more, and show no signs of wear. Perhaps they're an offering to the god of basketball. Volleyball. The god of ugly shoes. They've been twirling all day. Around and around as if lost in thought. Laces knotted. Not rotten, but getting there. Certainly twisted.

Best of all, it's a dark baby blue

I drop in to Toyota for an oil change, take a seat in the Customer Lounge. The rain piles up. By the time I get out there it will stand twice as deep.

I wouldn't mind changing some fluids myself. Felt a bit sluggish on the diamond last night. The ground balls ricocheted like hammers off a twice-bent nail.

It makes me want to buy, this rain. Maybe a V6 Tacoma to drive around town in, let rain wash my stubble away. I plan to come out clean, whatever lane I drive in. Play a little Steve Earle on my AM/FM Stereo Compact Disc.

Oh my god, the Tacoma's got a six-speed.

They've been hauling sand like crazy

I wonder why? The stockpile we walk by has grown noticeably. A semi would look pretty small on that sand mountain now. And the road looks like a beach. In places it's tough to walk on. Tonight I had to dump the sand and stones out of my shoes at least ten times. During one stop I noticed a new hole in the little sand pile that's well off to the side of the main one. By little I mean it's about the size of four school buses if you stood them on end. I don't know why they left that pile there. Anyway, a few years ago a pair of kingfishers burrowed into its wall and nested for a while. I don't think things worked out. This year the hole became larger. Another hole appeared. And paths leading to the holes appeared and deepened. On a windy evening this spring we startled a fox on its way to the main hole. It didn't look too scared, but it wasn't friendly either. Not like some. We look for it now, but don't expect to ever see it again. Signs of activity will do. Like this new hole. How many ways in and out does one need? And it seems small. Incomplete. Or maybe from where I was standing I couldn't see the entire opening.

looks like rain

I hear there's nothing but blight and stones and lack of pasture elsewhere, but in the mouths of May or June, the city looks better than ever. Whatever wall is most worn out--shines. Discarded objects present themselves muted in greys and purples.

On a neighbour's balcony, a tabby cat lies on an arm of the barbecue and complains. Perhaps the cat is there to scare off the rock pigeons, I wonder.

Yet a rock pigeon purchases a railing, and the cat does nothing.

I put some marigolds in this afternoon

Two flats of marigolds go a long way. Smelly things. It's best to hold your breath when you plant them. I can see why aphids avoid them. And they're hard on the eyes to boot. The only good marigold is a red marigold. The yellow ones are so bright they make me squint. Imagine, the Dictionary of Symbols says they were named after the Virgin Mary. A symbol of purity and perfection, my foot! But, gaudy as they are, they'll protect my basil from pests. And hail bounces right off them. That's all that matters in the end.

Planespotting

This morning in fog I can only feel the 6:05 WestJet but I can see my breath. I'm breathing fog, the plane's passed through me, I'm lighter east.

Evelyn Glennie, the percussionist, deaf since childhood, was explaining on Bravo the other day how she feels different pitches in different parts of her body. She hears D-flat, for instance, as vibrations in her upper chest a little to one side, D-sharp somewhere else. Her prodigious four-mallet technique on the marimba thus performs to/from her entire body. She needs bare feet to do it.

There goes the 6:45, also east. What are eyes for?

Flight path

Two water-bombers flew right over the house tonight just after H fired up the barbecue. They were low. What a treat. That deep rumble drowns out everything. Or maybe I choose not to hear anything else when I'm feeling that sound in my bones. There's nothing like it. I half hoped the planes would pass over again, but that would mean there's a fire nearby. I don't want that. Mind you, it would be no surprise. It's dry. I can't remember when we last had rain. And there's no mosquitoes. None. They usually start work up here on or before June 1. I understand all their flights have been canceled due to the weather.

Transplanting

Unfortunately, this screen can't show all the arrows, but the piece of paper at my left elbow shows trans- leading to yesterday, that deep.

All planting does is show what your hands look like dirty. I gave my licks of basil and marjoram their dream home of prime balcony. Two cm squared each, that's about right. Today has been nothing but treat of rain.

Most of the time I'll need more water than the plants.

Transplanting

Deep art. Sure. I leave my poem on the lawn, sink my trowel into the soil. From one pot to the next. In goes the basil. Two varieties. In goes the parsley. The savory. The sage. A purple finch sings in the poplar above while I'm pressing down the dirt. Sings a bit too sweetly. I imagine it has no choice. It's evening. That's what comes out.

You bring machinery, I'll bring the hum

Let's imagine all life is departure.

WestJet 12 heads east, Mrs. Wah drives off in her Honda, King Pigeon vacates the upper northwest tip of the next building, the Queen City Vending van turns north out of the hotel parking lot having serviced the VLTs. I leave page 33 of Miranda Pearson's The Aviary: "Flying low, pressing through the calm, wounded air".

In and out of sight, these events, but only if the eye stays home.

The excavating company on the outskirts

It's 8 by the time we walk by. Nothing moving but us. Tonight the usual line-up on the east side of the road. Sewer truck. Semi. Empty trailer. Overturned car, its cab crushed and wheels missing, its undercarriage rusted and dusty. Crouching beside it, the panel van with the missing front end. It's been there for a good year now, maybe more. On the west side a Volvo BM loader sits idle, one rear tire flat. Backlit, it's bound to look beautiful as the sun goes down. That yellow paint will glow. It leans in a bit, snuggled up to a Case track hoe. Their buckets on the ground. Almost touching. Nothing alike.

Empty except for the driver

If you dig chainsaw, you might dig bus, especially the luxury coach variety. They roam the alley below my window when I'm being like Brenda with coffee (tea in my case) and a book of poems first thing in the morning (although I suppose she gives H. a peck for the real first thing in the morning).

From Alison Pick, The Dream World: "Nothing moves, / until a shadow lifts a finger, as if in thought" (22).

The driver--excuse me, operator--likes to idle. Get out, walk around his bus, pull open a few hatches and doors. Idle, idle, idle. After a while he pulls out and ahead, stops, backs up to the northeast door, sunlit, of the hotel across the alley.

Next, I no sooner observe that my teapot's a rock pigeon, strutting its spout, when tea spills and, I swear, stains the shape of a rock pigeon onto my green plastic table.

"The game binds me tight to the here and now" (30). The bus, more idling, waits for a team--women with hair tied back and gym bags.

Loads and drives away.

Firewood makes good end tables

It's nice to finally have a place to put my coffee cup. We grabbed a couple logs from the brother-in-law's woodpile the other day. Unsplit of course. Have them sitting out back on the west side of the house beside the fake wicker furniture. They're a bit short, but they'll do. It's cold back there this morning. Cold and dark. I love all the trees, especially now that they've finally leafed out, but I'm not a morning person and they're not morning trees. I'll sit back there later when the sun comes around. The other day I tried counting the rings on my new end table, but chainsaws make a real mess of things. I got to maybe thirty before the gouges made them impossible to count, but there must be at least twice or three times that many. I can't remember the proper way to look at rings, but it looks like there were quite a number of dry years. Now there's a coffee ring on top of it all. I think my dry spell is just beginning.