April 2008

University is a kind of crazy culture. By crazy, I don’t mean the parties, at least, not right now. We’re in paper and exam time and it is absolute lunacy! I haven’t had or haven’t made time to swim or run. I am planning on transferring all my academic energies towards my training when school finally shuts down. However, I’m not worried that I will not do my best in the triathlon. And I am not falsely confidant.The younger ones run fast and Jesse and Stephen think I’m not serious but what they don’t know is I live far from school and have been riding my bike like a mad man all winter long. (Every driver in Halifax can attest to this) I also do inclined pushups resting my feet on the sink and my hands on the bathtub.

April 2008

As a middle child in a family of ten there is a sense in which you are wedged between it all; you look up, you look down and there are brothers and sisters at both ends. I remember the first time when Stephen left home to go to university. I cried. I remember leaving home to go to Spain and leaving Joe. I cried then too. Since then I haven’t been at home nearly as much I should yet there is a bond of blood and soul that keeps me bound even in the haziness of time. It is this bond that gives us clarity as we train ourselves entirely to find a cure for carcinoid. What does this mean? There will be a triathlon. We along with our friends will overcome the distance that separates us. One by one, we will finish a few of the many laps in the big race to help so many like my mother survive.

Your happiness Still Penetrates the Sky (Halifax, March 2008)

So many days,
months now
that the sky has been
covered,
covered in gray.
The snow falls
and I think of you.
I think of the drifts that it
would make,
and how wind
made a white vortex,
swirling over
its surface.
when I was a boy,
when I was a baby,
then in that
house in P.E.I
where the snow
would make drifts
up against its sides,
and you we’re always happy,
so many months of gray, and you we’re always happy.

Mother of the Flock (Fall 2007)

Oh, mother of the flock,
how tender is thy love,
weary am I
and bury my face in thy
gentle feathers,
asleep I
fly,
And
Awake,
only to find
rays of golden
sunlight
revealing the horizon
Mother of the flock,
thou art my guardian,
tender, gentle, and strong heart
..............grace............ soaring
............soothing......... pulling me
...............my.................. upward
..............youth................ onward
......................to that horizon
......................of golden sunlight

Barcelona in June (2007)

I’m on the edge of a city sitting in the sand thinking about her. How she calls herself Mummy to Joseph. He the youngest, thirteen, and she holds on in that word which binds up all the diapers, all the pains, sleepless nights, worries, meals, bills, soothers, an infinity of everything she is. And all I want is to call her Mummy to hold on to her as long as I can. It’s all I want.

Eurovillas Spain (2007)

It’s the evening of May 27. I’m in the salón, my only salón in Spain. It is here in this house where I spent my first 6 months immersed in a culture and a language that I came to know and now three years later, Michael and I are celebrating, our birthday with my Spanish family. We have finished la comida, the table has been cleared, I’m sitting on la sofá, and my móvil rings; I say ¿Hola? And then there is a voice singing, that same voice that sang to me, “rain drops on roses, whiskers on kittens, these are my favorite things” as I lay a child listening. Happy Birthday to you, Happy birthday to you....