9/20/2020 POETRY: JENNIFER WENNAVIAN ODES—CANADA GOOSE The chill, glassy mist just then Dissolving into hints of sultriness Echoed with jubilant honks, Avian position-signalling on high, Pulling my gaze up to your magnificent Flying V’s northward bound Flinging joyful vernal greetings. Come the ordained crisp autumn day The calls echoed again off frosted fields As your arrow formations streamed south, Bidding farewell until spring warmth Once more crept in. Winter past was deep, consistent; Now it staggers all around, Reeling under humanity’s blows, Glistening white morphs To sulky brown mud, Defiantly open water Supplants sparkling ice. Eminently flexible, A few goose homebodies Spawned many more of you that Seize what’s on offer, spurn the effort And trade glorious flight for ungainly Waddling about and strolls through traffic, Expropriating luscious, manicured turf, Cheerfully crapping all over your squattage; Soaring nobility mutated to a Grey-brown-black wingéd pest Herded off the cathedral greensward By a bellowing leaf blower; Target practice for a skulking Archer in a London park; Clubbing victim of a sportsman Whose putt was ruined by an Inopportune anserine klaxon. Undaunted, you multiply and toddle on, Once a belovéd seasonal herald, Now flocks of Cassandras trumpeting Warnings, flaunting consequences, Announcing a battle joined. Jennifer Wenn is a trans-identified writer and speaker from London, Ontario. Her first poetry chapbook, A Song of Milestones, has been published by Harmonia Press (an imprint of Beliveau Books). She has also written From Adversity to Accomplishment, a family and social history; and published poetry in Beliveau Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Open Minds Quarterly, Tuck Magazine, Synaeresis, Big Pond Rumours, the League of Canadian Poets Fresh Voices, Wordsfestzine, and the anthology Things That Matter. She is also the proud parent of two adult children with a day job as a systems analyst. Jennifer Wenn's website.
9/20/2020 POETRY: WANDA JOHN-KEHEWINSTAND BY THE LAST STREAM Mother, I can hear you cry with every pipeline being laid to unrest deep in your folds, deep in your layers. I can hear you cry and those who believe know why- Stand by the last stream it’s only a matter of time and stories will be told of a time when water was clean and free. It will be a fairy tale in good books sold at exotic establishments. It will be what dreams are made of and what man will die for. Stand by the last stream watch it struggle pitifully, trying to complete the circle with nothing left to prov. Stand by the last rive,r gather around it to pray hard this doesn’t end the intentions of Mother Earth. Remember the slow trickles, the last sounds anyone ever hears of a time when water was clear and a time when it was free, a time when water fell from the sky clear droplet, clear droplets that could be tasted as it fell. Stand by the last stream that feedds the life of our animals who trusted Mother earth to always provide. Imagine the new bear or the new child not knowing where the last stream is. What will become of them? Stand by the last strea, the last unmurky source of life, peace and renewal, gurgling, choking for breath and space not a fish in sight because they are all in farms and zoos. Stand by the last stream as our children's’ children gather round and wonder why, saying they could have done a better job, and they’d be right. Stand by the last stream, with your friends and loved ones and reminisce about a time when you could reach in with both hand, almost in prayer and cup the water and drink straight from Mother Earth- the breast of mankind. Stand by the last stream wondering what happened, turning into a 3rd world country as the trees that once stood tall, fall by the wayside waiting to be turned into more paper for more signatures and stamps of approval to go ahead and destroy the last stream. Stand by the last stream with your child looking on at the last crystal clear wate trickling to an end and try to find the words to explain. Try and explain what no one will understand and hindsight is 20-20 Stand by the last stream as money floats by instead of fish, and gold can’t be eaten, and silver can’t be eaten, and diamonds can’t be worn, and animals can’t be saved, and the trees rot on the ground while children swarm singing in empty playgrounds by the last stream, and you can’t give a newborn oil, and not even the dandelions will grow, and the birds won’t call, and the pictures you see in your head will only be a story... and the only thing left will be regret... Will you stand stand by the last stream... Previously published in Seven Sacred Truths, Talonbooks in 2018. Cree poet Wanda John-Kehewin studied criminology, sociology, Aboriginal studies, and creative writing while attending the Writer’s Studio writing program at Simon Fraser University. She uses writing as a therapeutic medium through which to understand and to respond to the near decimation of First Nations culture, language, and tradition. She has two poetry books published by Talonbooks, two children’s readers and is currently working on a graphic novel. She finds time to write between the lines.
9/14/2020 FICTION: CATHERINE BUSHBLAZE ISLAND: AN EXCERPT Miranda woke in darkness. She was riding a fierce wind. The changes were not going to stop. Someone was moving about below her, and the small sounds would have been reassuring, except that it was only a little after five a.m. Whoever was below had lit a fire. Heat ticked in the metal chimney on the far side of the room, the ticks speeding up. Miranda whispered to Ella, the dog, not to stir. Through the half-open door of her father’s bedroom, she took in the tussle of his empty bedclothes, reading glasses tossed atop his dresser. Always there had been secrets in this house, and she had surrendered to her father’s desire for them, the things they’d kept hidden about their past, other things he’d attempted to hide from her and she’d allowed herself to ignore, but a new impatience surged as if she were struggling to climb over the fence that encircled her. Downstairs, in his coveralls, eating a slice of toast at the counter, her father turned sharply at the sound of her footsteps. “Miranda, what are you doing up?” “Couldn’t sleep.” She kept her voice as low as his. He’d made only the one mug, not a pot, and everything in his posture made her presence an intrusion. He wasn’t welcoming her, she was merely slowing his escape. “Why don’t you go back to bed. There’s no need for you to be up so early.” But she was wide awake. “Where are you off to?” His face relaxed into a smile. “To see if by some miracle I can access the internet at the cabin.” “Can I come with you?” It was an impulsive thought, and he said no before adding, “There’s no need for that.” “Why not if I want to. Are you meeting someone?” He shook his head. “Best to have one of us stay with our guest.” Our guest, she thought, and then, more possessively, my guest. Something else gnawed: Would her father lie to her? Had he before, would he again? Did her own safety make the lies justifiable? “Dad — the plane that landed at the airstrip the day before yesterday, who was on it and what are they doing here?” Her father gulped down the dregs of his tea and set his mug in the sink. “Miranda, I need you to sit tight for a bit. Can you do that for me?” He was ruffling her hair, asking her to do something for him once again. She shook herself free, some essential part of her refusing to be deterred, a new resolve forming in her throat. “Why won’t you answer me? I’m supposed to do what you want but you’re always hiding things from me — saying we should never leave then inviting people here and going off with them. What are you actually doing? Whatever you’re up to, it isn’t just weather monitoring, is it?” “Miranda.” He stepped into the middle of the room. “If I’ve kept secrets, it’s only been for your own good. Things are in such a precarious state. I’m trying, from this out-of-the-way corner of the world, to do everything I can—” “What if I don’t want to be protected like that?” He didn’t have an answer, other than to show her that she’d jarred him. When he hugged her, the strength of his embrace stopped her mouth even as she struggled to say more. The next moment, with a rustle of jacket and shudder of boot, her father was gone. Always when she’d allowed herself to think about the future it had been shaped by the contours of the past: how else did you envision what was to come other than by reconfiguring what you knew? There were days when, swayed by Caleb’s suggestions, Miranda had imagined living with him on the far side of the cove even as another part of her retracted from the dream. She had assumed that somehow Caleb and Sylvia would be in her life forever. What she loved would always continue, how could it not? More often she’d seen herself living in the little white house in Green Cove with her father and Ella, taking care of her father, because he needed her to do this. She’d ruffle Ella’s fur, meet her brown-eyed stare. There’d be more animals, because she wanted more, she would tend the land, build a bigger greenhouse, listen and note each time the wind shifted, there would be order and safety in such a life, in its deep choreographies and self-sufficiencies, in being responsive to sea and sky and the wild and ragged weather growing wilder all around them. There had been ruptures and alterations, but nothing had shaken her fundamental belief in the continuity of this life, given to her after the biggest rupture of all, the catastrophes that had sent the two of them fleeing to the island: everything here was proof that, despite grief, a new life could be made. Even the rupture of losing Caleb, painful as it was, had somehow been bearable. She’d gone on. They all had. Now, though, the world looked so different she wasn’t sure she could step back into the body she’d inhabited only a day ago. Catherine Bush is the author of five novels, including Blaze Island (2020), the Canada Reads long-listed Accusation (2013), the Trillium Award short-listed Claire’s Head (2004), and The Rules of Engagement (2000), a New York Times Notable Book and a L.A. Times Best Book of the Year. She was recently a Fiction Meets Science Fellow at the HWK in Germany and has spoken internationally about addressing the climate crisis in fiction. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Guelph and Coordinator of the Guelph Creative Writing MFA, located in Toronto, Canada, and can be found online at www.catherinebush.com. Blaze Island: a novel By Catherine Bush Goose Lane Editions, 2020 Synopsis The time is now or an alternate near now, the world close to our own. A devastating Category Five hurricane sweeps up the eastern seaboard of North America. On tiny Blaze Island in the North Atlantic, Miranda Wells finds herself in an unrecognizable landscape. Just as the storm disrupts the present, it stirs up the past: Miranda’s memories of growing up in an isolated, wind-swept cove and the events of long ago that her father, once a renowned climate scientist, will not allow her to speak of. In the storm’s aftermath, things change so quickly and radically that she hardly knows what has happened. Blaze Island asks how far a parent will go to create a safe world for a child and how that child will imagine a future. A gripping story, the novel unfurls in the midst of constantly shifting elements: drifting icebergs, winds that grow ever wilder, and the unpredictability of human actions. |
ISSN 2563-0067 © Copyright 2023 | Watch Your Head Contributors Sign up for our Newsletter Buy our print anthology Watch Your Head: Writers & Artists Respond to the Climate Crisis (Coach House Books, 2020). |