rocks
In a daydream, Virginia and I
paint rocks at river’s calm edge.
I take the rocks home.
Put them on the shelf
beside the stack of her words.
She finds more rocks – puts them
in her coat pockets.
I wish I could have known her.
Drowned her in love.
I hope everyone is having an enjoyable long weekend. I’m grateful for today – the space of it, to fit in all the things I didn’t get to yet. It is nice to let work wait in the shade, but today, I feel it crawling out. Are you having difficulty feeling motivated too? Is it the heat? The smell of summer? Nostalgia for youth…when school’s end was so close the only thing that mattered was finishing? The final plow of project outputs, studying…the cleaning out of desks and lockers…It’s funny how it all still feels so alive in me. Likely because I have school-age kids, and goodness, has this ever been a school year like never before. Sigh. And, so I go for it. Trudge into the office to clean and organize. Hold my head and heart up to the coming week.
VANESSA SHIELDS, writer 
Hi Vanessa, How wonderful is this? Rocks are such a powerful image!
On CBC radio this morning, I was fortunate to hear the poet who wrote” I Talk Like a River”. He’s from Vancouver island , and has a very noticeable stutter . He said that as a child, kids at school were mean. His father often took him “ to the river” Where they could talk. In a poetry class in high school, a teacher advised him To “ read the way he speaks”.He said that advice changed his life! His book, “ I Talk Like a River”, has been short- listed for the June 1 Governor General Award. I was really impressed.
Sent from my iPad
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