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RIPPLED THO|UGHTS

Mikki … last night on my wonderous walk,
I touch my toe
in the flow
Of the frigid St. John.
The toe causes a ripple
The ripple a flow
Out to the Bay of Fundy
Out to the North Atlantic
South rippling around the Cape of Horn the next morn
Into the Indian Ocean to the Sea of Tasman ,
a shore a world away and
all from a rippling thought
for, of U….

…John Connolly, Bathurst, N.B

Fishing at the Gravel Pit, Geraldton Ontario

The longest, mildest evening in late Spring. Cars and pick-ups are parked below Second bridge and people are leaning up against them, smoking, talking, laughing. Their children chase each other up the heaps of loose gravel, singing 'I'm the king of the castle, you're the dirty rascal.'
You buy a paper cone of vinegary French-fried potatoes from the chip man and after you've fished out the last crunchy bit, you sip the dark pungent liquor at the bottom. You wipe your mouth with the back of your hand.
In front of you, spanning the shining grey water, the power lines wave garlands of fishing line and dangles of hooks, lures and faded red and white floats. You may have forgotten the time you sent your father's best lure flying round the wire but the evidence is still there, stirring in the breeze. Proof of your imperfection, of your passage on this earth.
You love this monument to human failure.
You watch the arc of your line over the water and lose yourself in the trance-like motions of casting and reeling, of waiting, waiting, waiting, reeling and waiting. You feel the air slowly cooling on your brow, you hear the water lapping against the pilings, the diffuse contented conversations of other anglers, the cars as they slow down behind you on the bridge. You breathe the achingly evocative odour of fish and lake and tarred wood rising from below.
You are perilously close to happiness.

Anne Levesque, MONCTON, NB

I tried to be a poet once
but I spent too much time looking in the mirror
I fell so much in love with what was there
that imperfections vanished and I was vain
I tried to be a man of words
but I wrote the words dictated to me by someone else's voice
who I long admired but had no desire to be
it's only every other week or so
in the second hour of the morning, while I'm bathing in a wash of streetlight
that I can manage to be honest to myself for a moment enough
to capture the few lines that truly belong to me
though I'm not so sure I could get away with putting them all together
and calling it a poem
I'm usually to afraid to leave my room or go to sleep after words
for fear someone might find me out or I lose my last chance to capture those few lines.

Justus North Kinloch, Ottawa, On

Jumping Ship

The thin woman seated by the window unfolds some fact with a flip of her open hand. I'm people-watching as I circle the 6th floor of the Queen of British Columbia which is on a 7 PM sailing towards Vancouver Island and this woman's gesture stands out as the best; her hand turns over the way a page is turned over.
But solitary people-watching becomes boring and my mind meanders into memory: one year ago a man jumped from the ferry in order to swim a short-cut to a baseball game on one of the islands. To pass the time more pleasantly, I walk out onto the cold deck and decide to push people over the railing and into the waters below.
First I push three little scouts overboard and then imagine them swimming to Galiano to get a badge entitled: "Canadian water-courage". They tie their yellow and orange scarves together as they swim off like little ducks. Next, I see a skinny teen shivering in a t-shirt. I bend low and then heave-ho him over the rails. I imagine him jumping overboard to swim around Mayne Island for a couple of years in order to beef up a bit. Finally I target two tourists who are taking an incomplete picture of the sunset. "Allow me," I say. They hand me their camera, all the closeness I need to send them over the deck railing. I take a picture of them in the water and then toss them their camera. In my imagination I see them gleefully jumping to get a better shot of the pink ripples below.
When I walk back inside, I'm tackled to the floor. I wouldn't call this people-watching but I'm staring right into their wide-open eyes.

Kevin Spence, Vancouver, B.C.

Anne of Sleepy Hollow

Craig was a car jockey for Rent-a-Wreck. Half his day was spent cleaning cars. The other half he was asked to drive tourists to and from the airport.
"Welcome to P.E.I."
It was mid-July. Peak of the tourist season. The Japanese couple now sitting in the backseat was Craig's seventh and eighth customers. It wasn't even noon.
"Is this your first time here?"
"Yes, first time. We love Anne."
Five years earlier, Craig was the complete nemesis of what this couple had read about, and what they had probably come to believe about P.E.I. Five years earlier Craig was seventeen and in a time frame of about six months had two car accidents, one failed suicide attempt, had been suspended from school, spent a night in a drunk tank, a weekend in a psyche ward, and to top it off became increasingly aware of a strong desire to sleep with men.
"Very beautiful."
"Yes, 'tis."
Craig massaged the crick in his neck and hit the gas. As the front tire plummeted from the curb, his passengers' heads bobbled from side to side.
Haywire played on the radio. Dance Desire.
Craig wondered what kind of musical his life would make.

Darrin McCloskey, Vancouver, B.C.

Saturday Morning Dance in Yellowknife

It is 1977 and I am wearing my new, Northern parka. I feel fashionable and authentic as I zip first the inner coat, with it's appliques of seal hunters, and then the outer shell, blue with pink trim. I admire the fur around the cuffs and collar, and the flounces on my shoulders, cuffs, and around the bottom of my "Mother Hubbard" parka. The coat swishes around my ankles as I walk down Main Street to my Saturday job at Joan's Fashions. I am fourteen years old, and Yellowknife is still a young town. I work at the YK Centre, the only mall in town at this time. As I walk past The Bay and MacLeod's, ice crystals sparkle in the glow of the street lights that are almost always shining at this time of year, and my breathe envelopes me in what seems like a romantic cloud. I feel like a Northerner.
After arriving at work, I am asked to get the mail. I grab the keys from under the counter and retrace my steps down the block and across the street to the Post Office. I enter and, through the glass of the inner door, I see the bodies of several men and women on the floor. I am shocked at first and then I realize that these people have found refuge here from the cold. No R.C.M.P officer has arrived yet to shoo them away.
I see Ernie, and Margaret, and others I recognize but don't know the names of local characters, alcoholics, residents of Rainbow Valley. Friday night's drinking binge has left them here, like fish washed up on the shore. I open the door and enter. Lifting up the skirt of my new coat, I step over and around the snoring forms -an awkward Saturday morning dance in my new, authentic, Northern parka.

Janelle Ross, Gravelbourg, Saskatchewan