After the sun salutations

Downward-facing dog. Disobedient as hell. Some poses are like that. Some people only bend a certain way. I suppose being mindful of one's breath does not include watching the cat ignore the forward plank, the upward-facing dog. She did crank her head around when I stood up after that darn downward-facing dog. She had that look on her face. That why on earth are you disturbing my sleep with that nonsense look, the same look she gives when I read my work aloud. But maybe she was just warming up, too. Doing some daybreak yoga. As I did my last half lord of the fishes, she shifted her weight into her eyes and held my gaze for five deep breaths. The condescending pose. Perfectly executed.

This morning

The traveller wakes up in Hillsdale, dreams howling. He and his three sisters start out in four cars, he thinks it’s crazy. In his car is the old family dog, too weak now for any of the out-of-control doggy stuff she used to do. He’s just driven through town, stopping briefly for a train. He scrambled for the next open page of his notebook to write down the locomotive number. His notebook is jammed with pages from a tabloid Jeanette Lynes had given him earlier.

The dreams blow through Hillsdale from the south, carrying traffic noise, cars driving off, a condiment supply truck at the back door of some hotel. And someone’s idea of an empty paper cup a-tumble in the parking lot. The traveller feels morning in his face. He re-composes his list of things to do, the one he was working on while lying in bed, before the storm of dreams. Read Barbara Guest and that photography book. Transcribe the second half of his interview with Mr. Gentles. Transcribe the Parker street piece from yesterday. And make a note of what he'll see later on a van and trailer: Prairie Boy Windows.

This wind

Can't think when it's this windy. It's the wind of sleep. That's all I want to do. Almost a tent-ripping wind. Like the wind that whipped that night. Twenty years ago now. Maybe more. Harvest underway. Waves of grain dust. I woke up in a gust, nose to nylon, rolled over, let the tent rub away.

These pages

Flailing about at the desk of my mountainside studio--a smash of binders, piles of paper, books and other debris--I uncovered a "Leighton Studio, Michael Evamy [the architect]" guest book, first entry Mark Jarman, July '98. All the way up to Christine Wiesenthal, July 20-Aug.2, 2009.

I must say hello to Christine, an old classmate from U of A, early 90s or so. Now she runs the creative writing part of the English department up there. "So many friends and admired authors in these pages," she writes. Indeed. Next week Robert Kroetsch shows up. I was thinking last night that I'd like to introduce him to, say, the printmaker from Adelaide or the translator from Indiana as my elder but have to check about appropriate use of that term. Anyway, he's long been one of the giants for my own writing practice, all the way back to Nelson, in '82-'83, when I read a Kroetsch poem in Grain and, encouraged by Fred Wah, dropped Kroetsch a line, asking about the poem. He replied in a most cool way. Later I included an essay on Kroetsch in my MA thesis and in my (unfinished) PhD dissertation, around the time I shared a German class with Christine.

Packing for a trip back in time

Must remember the letter. The printout from Google Earth. A shovel. GPS. Comfortable jeans. Tweezers. Empty containers with tight-fitting lids. A sketchbook. Camera. Batteries. Binoculars, of course. A chair with sturdy legs. Band-Aids. And water. We'll need plenty of water.

For Evamy, a Leighton Studio

The studio sits in a small clearing of spruce and pine forest and faces a gently sloping ridge a few metres to the south. Not having much look (I meant luck) at my keyboard, I went outside and climbed the ridge to a larger clearing at the top. Someone had fiddled with the rocks, laying them out into letters and other media events, which I didn't bother to read. They meant about much as I did. Back at the keyboard, I put a bride and a mountain together, a highway and a suburban park. My teacup was empty but my window full.