forget you’re doing the devotional for the youth group at church tomorrow. By the way, have you prepared?” Rachael’s eyes lit up. “Almost. I’ll go finish it now. Thanks, Mom.” She swung around and raced down the hall to her room. As her bedroom door slammed behind her, Tyne couldn’t help but wonder how much Godly thought would be put into that devotional. ͣͣ Tyne could not have known that her thoughts and concerns as she returned to the kitchen were the same concerns that Ronald Harrison had harboured just a short while before. How had Rachael become so close to her cousin? How well Tyne remembered Rachael’s distress when Lyssa had bullied her all through their childhood and adolescent years. But something had changed in high school. Gradually, the conflict had subsided and the two girls had become friends, almost inseparable. Tyne and Morley would have preferred Rachael have a friend her own age. Lyssa would be graduating from high school in a little over a month and, at eighteen, was more worldly than Tyne would ever want one of her own children to be. Ruby Harrison had not had much control over the child, and had even less over the adult. Rachael did have friends her own age, but she seemed to prefer her cousin’s company to any of them. No matter how often Tyne had asked the girl to invite her girlfriends to the farm, she rarely did so, and even sulked because they discouraged her from inviting Lyssa. What could she and Morley do? Tyne often wondered. Should they actually forbid their daughter from an association they felt could lead Rachael into trouble? And as always, when she didn’t know the right approach, she heard Morley’s prompting in her head, Let’s pray about it. “I’ll do that tonight, Lord,” she murmured as she crossed the kitchen to the electric range to turn the oven on. “I’m sorry, but right now I have to get dinner started.” She smiled, thinking that, after ten…
The Roast En Route to Great Falls, Montana The last few days had flown by. Joel had decided that he would follow Roy’s advice and have a sale of his own at the ranch. He would hold back the buckskin gelding and the palomino filly that he and Tanya had rode at the Great Falls show—he was thinking pretty seriously about hauling them to the World Championships. He hadn’t committed to Tanya yet, but it was something that he had to do for both of them. In addition to offering the remaining ten three-year-olds for sale, he would augment them with two weanlings, two yearlings, and two of the two-year-olds. That would make a total of sixteen horses up for sale. Almost enough for a real sale. Roy had been pleased to hear the news. He immediately set to work on behalf of Joel, recognizing that Joel, being new to horse auctions, didn’t have a clue about promoting a sale of this nature. Roy asked him to kick in 3,000 dollars for advertising. Joel had balked at the idea, and then Roy did something he had never done before: he offered to split the advertising expenses, fifty-fifty, and he would put Cindy to work creating and arranging the ads. Even as he made the offer, Roy couldn’t understand why he was being so generous. Sure, he stood to gain from his five percent commission, but there was something else. He really liked Joel as a person. He also suspected it had something to do about the way that he had found out that the Ramage Ranch people were retaining someone else to run their sale.He could still remember the day that he saw the ad in the Quarter Horse Journal, proclaiming that…
Opposite the burning fireplace, my hair still damp, I only gazed at the fire and the blackened stones. Many a time we dreamed of two stools we could put next to one another and we could entangle our hands silently without any fear of silence since we knew that each of my thoughts would be yours too, that there wasn’t any other. Opposite this fireplace that has enough wood to burn all night we wait for the rain to stop so we can catch the bus.
Inanemius Before you He stands the invisible observer albeit His piercing glance reflection of a mountain peak into the glassy water ghost on duty awaken inside Him hagios of a different clan the Great Deliverer of souls Thanatos claiming His share of life once chthonian that always filled the fragrance of dawn when the souls armored in their invincibility needed to be taught their lesson in universal balance
spaghetti western. The ballplayer tried willing the inebriated soldiers— wrestling in the dirt now, smashing bottles, urinating in the ditches — to vanish, all a mirage. For the film crew to put away its equipment and the brutal caliph to strip off the fake moustache and disappear inside a trailer. But it wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t a movie. The comandante was swaggering through the clearing. – El hombre comunista! he roared, a prosecutorial digit aimed at Paco. And then, leaning over Witherspoon, Your Mexican friend is not a student, yanqui! He is a dangerous radical! But Witherspoon’s formal education had ended prematurely. He wouldn’t have been able to identify a communist if one was standing before him, although he seemed to recall being told that to be one was a bad thing. Since puberty his had been a world of curves and splitters, of wind sprints through a freshly cut outfield grass. There had been an American teammate in the Florida State League, a prospect from California. Every time he struck out, which was often, the kid muttered, Effing commie bastards! For the longest time Witherspoon believed a communist to be a southpaw who threw breaking balls. The comandante ordered his centurions to strap Paco to a tree. A mango was placed atop his head. The soldier reached into Witherspoon’s duffel bag and removed a baseball. It was Wild Man’s talisman, the ball used in his first professional victory. He’d intended to place it alongside his father’s war medals. – It’s very warm today, the comandante addressed the crowd. We need some entertainment, no? Witherspoon was familiar with the expectations of spectators — knew well that where they collect in sufficient numbers, so must there be a performance. First in Spanish, then in English, the comandante explained his intentions: – If the gringo knocks the mango from his friend’s head, the rebel can continue his journey. We’ll pick him up another time. But if he misses . . . The comandante’s gold tooth gleamed under the blazing afternoon sun. Witherspoon rose to his feet. He placed his fingers along the seams of the baseball. A murmur rippled through the crowd.
Tomorrow we’ll uproot the crosses of the sea cemetery to engrave children’s boats and to incise in headstones small statues of beauty and of the sea to fill the deserted house to beguile life and ourselves in spite of the negative god under the blessing of God The masts vanished the smoke had sunk behind the voiceless contour of water that resembles the knee of a mother asleep and the voyage vigilant in our breasts vigilant like the wind and the sea in winter’s dusk Soft hills travel in the mist and the sick sun is sleepy on the moist stones of evening The storks high up in a triangle of repentance A small lonely prayer book under the evening rain the Saint Nickolas cenotaph by the shore where Autumn stops to throw a coin of bitterness in and a yellow leaf while the roar of rough sea distances the misted sandy beach to the teary starlight of silent September Gather the azure marbles from childish days with games and cries to carve the ocean’s statue bloodying hands in the cloudy afternoon where the pale reflection of pelagos writes a circle of sunlit guilt high up in the vacant air
At heart I am a poet and my soul feels nature’s grandeur and people’s sensitivities. My emotions are close to the surface and my eyes mist in happiness, in sorrow and in awe, and I have been forced to hide this throughout my life. You would too if you had five brothers! At heart my mother was a poet, probably still is; those qualities must also be applauded in heaven. But because she was a woman it was OK if her eyes misted over, and especially if she was feeling happy or was at a wedding or was listening to father read a sentimental Ukrainian tale. Our trips to Saskatchewan are usually orderly and Terry and I waste little time dawdling enroute. Having travelled all the routes leading to Saskatchewan the objective is to arrive. The urgency is to break out of the confines of the mountains and foothills or the wooded areas of Ontario, to get by Calgary or Winnipeg, and experience the calmness of the prairies. And the sensation of arriving in Saskatchewan! Our pilgrimages usually serve other purposes as well, a family reunion on my side or on Terry’s side, a wedding or a funeral.
Hellenic Canadian Literature 