Tag: love

The Circle

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excerpt

“Iraq is very hot place, Jennifer, but it is a beautiful. So far, everything looks
good, although one can see all the destruction still in a lot of places. It’s so sad to see
how some people live, so sad.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Are you having a good time, though?”
“Well, yes, I suppose. We’ll be going scuba diving in the gulf in the next couple of
days. I will not be able to talk to you from there, I suppose; however, I’ll talk to you
when I get back, okay?”
“Yes, Mom. Take a lot of pictures, remember?”
“Yes, Jennifer. Bye for now; I love you.”
“I love you, too, Mom.”
Hakim hugs her and says, “There you are. They’re doing fine; my uncle also
sounded good, and Talal sounds good, too.”
“Why do you wonder how Talal is doing?”
“I have always worried how he would feel returning to his home and how he
would find it after all this time.His house has been uninhabited for a long time, the
same as mine.However, Talal hasn’t gone to the old house yet; he saw his sister and
young brother, though. His sister will be getting married next summer.”
“Oh, that’s nice. What are the weddings like there, honey?”
“It all depends, sweetie.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, for the people who follow religion, it’s different from the ones who do
not follow it as much like us; my uncle and Mara have been quite liberal when it
comes to religion and we just don’t follow strict church rules of any kind.”
Jennifer looks him in the eyes and asks, “Have you ever thought of getting
married, honey?”
He’s silent for a while. This is a question he hasn’t thought about before, and
now he must answer her.
“No, I haven’t thought of it, sweetie. Have you?”
“No, I haven’t. But now that the subject of marriage has been brought up, it
made me think of it.”
“Maybe one day, sweetheart. Maybe one day, I’ll think about it.”
Jennifer gets up and makes their breakfast; they sit quietly and eat their toast
with marmalade. She thinks Hakim probably has too much on his mind right
now to think of marriage; he’s worried about his uncle and he has to get together
with Peter before their important meeting.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562817

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978186524

Still Waters

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excerpt

calling from Emblem. So Tyne was surprised and cheered to hear
Cam’s voice.
“I’ve been trying to reach you ever since Moe called this morning,”
he said, sounding relieved. “Why didn’t you call me right away, Tyne?
Dad would have driven you to the Hat.”
“I couldn’t put him out, Cam … well, to be truthful, I never even
thought about it. I’m so used to riding the bus. But it seemed to take
forever to get here.”
“I hate to think of you making that trip alone as worried as you
must have been. How is your dad?”
Tyne repeated what the doctor had told her, her mother and Aunt
Millie only minutes before – that Jeff stood a good chance of surviving,
but that he may have partial paralysis of his right side. “He has
some movement and feeling in his leg, and his speech is slurred, but
Doctor Sanger thinks the speech will come back in time.”
“I’m glad to hear that, honey. When Moe called me, I feared the
worst. How long will you be there … or is it too early to know?”
“It is too early, Cam.”
“Where are you staying? Is there some place I can call without
bothering the hospital?”
“We’ll be with a family friend. Aunt Millie has obtained permission
for us to take it in turns staying with Dad around the clock.” She
pondered a moment. “Tell you what, Cam. I’ll call Moe tonight and
give her the phone number.”
“Good girl. We’ll talk again tomorrow. And Tyne?”
“Yes?”
There was a brief pause. Then he said clearly and firmly, “Remember
I love you.”
Before she could respond, he hung up.
Tyne stayed at her father’s bedside for a week. Because she was
used to working odd shifts, she insisted that her mother and Aunt
Millie get their normal rest at night while she stayed in the hospital
room. At the end of seven days, the doctor assured them that,
although Jeff ’s recovery and rehabilitation would probably be slow
and tedious he was, at least for the present, out of danger. Tyne,
with ambivalent feelings, returned to Calgary under the care of her…

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763068

Swamped

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excerpt

Day after day, page after page, Eteocles devotes all that summer,
fall, and winter, and almost the whole of the next spring, before he
finally has the book totally transcribed. During that year, he hardly
goes out to play and only just manages to find time for his homework.
This is his last year at the elementary level, and next year he will go
to high school.
When he has completed the last page of his hand-written version
of Erotokritos, he takes all the pages he has written and proudly shows
them to his mom and dad and to Nicolas. They don’t say a single
word. What could one say in such a situation? His parents don’t even
congratulate him. Only Nicolas says “bravo” and that is all. No fanfare,
no balloons, no cheers, just a smile from his dad and a smile
from his mom. Perhaps they don’t understand the enormity of such
an accomplishment. Perhaps the value of such work escapes them,
or perhaps they are just too tired from the daily struggle to find food,
to find work, to procure the necessities, to pay the rent. Eteocles’ family
has no house of their own at that time. They left Crete almost penniless,
and the daily labours of the father provide all they have.
Eteocles’ family has never owned properties, neither olive groves
nor grapevines, like most of their relatives had, nor any other income-
producing assets. Eteocles’s father grew in an orphanage, discarded
by his mother, who conceived him when she was seventeen
years while was working as maid in a rich man’s family in the neighbouring
village. As for Eteocles’s mother, his angel, she at least had a
dowry from her father, a Cretan who knew how to look after his
daughters, but he had five of them and could only give each one a
small part of his estate. And even that bit of property Eteocles’ mother
received from her father had been taken over by an auntie, who used
the old house in which Eteocles and Nicolas were born and lived during
their childhood years as barn for her animals.
What does anyone need in this life? It takes Eteocles many years
to understand how to measure his needs and how to decide what
comes first and what comes second and what people must do to have
what they wish for— and what they may miss in the process.
What does Eteocles’s family need at this juncture of their lives?
A house, perhaps, since having your own house is considered …

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562976

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08WP3LMPX

Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

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sexual gratification of a bunch of perverts. If this happened to your family,
wouldn’t you want someone to care? Wouldn’t you want someone to
raise a stink? Wouldn’t you want someone to help? That’s all I’m trying
to do. Apparently, to my surprise, it seems this painting was the two by
four needed to apply to the side of your head to get you to pay attention.
My job is to announce to you what has gone on and what continues to
go on. I’m robbing you of your innocence. I’m not going to give you the
chance to say, ‘If only I had known’. Now you know. What are you going
to do about it?”
The mood of the public changed. People began calling to agree with
him. Battle lines were drawn and half – or perhaps even the magic fiftyone
percent – agreed with him.
Ken spent an hour or more each day, at the Columbus Centre, talking
to people who lined up to see the painting and talk to the artist. Thousands
of people came – far more than had attended his opening night.
Ken finished each of his stories with a plea for help. He urged people
not to simply believe his stories, but to investigate and make up their own
minds. And if they discovered that what he said was true, let the government
know how they felt. This was what democracy was about – and he
was appalled at how lightly most people took the democracy they lived in.
“No one that is born here really takes it seriously,” he told them. “Do you
know how many rivers of blood were spilled to have what we have here?
How can we pretend to be this thing that we say we are when you can’t
bother to inform yourselves about what goes on in your own country?
How can you be a nation without knowing what goes on in your own
backyard?”
Ken received a phone call from Wayne Morrison, the executive director
of the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting and the stepson of Northrop
Frye. Could they meet, he asked? Ken invited him to the studio.
Wayne was a dapper and polished gentleman who expressed fascination
with the furor caused by the flag painting. The CBC was about to
suffer large financial cuts, which would seriously endanger its existence,
he said, and he wanted Ken’s help. He wanted to reproduce the flag painting
in full page magazine advertisements with Ken standing beside it
holding a paintbrush with the quote, “I haven’t been this mad in twenty
years.” Below that would be the story of the CBC cutbacks.
Ken said yes, but he was not prepared to use the painting. He would
create another similar one instead. When Diane asked why, he said, “I’m
going to give it to Canada and I don’t want it reproduced. It’s going to go
to the country pure.”
“You’re going to give it away? Good lord, we don’t have enough money to
do what we’re doing and you’re going to give paintings away! Why are you
going to give something to the government? They already take too much!”

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562830

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073573

Prairie Roots

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excerpt

ridiculously low prices; even the children may not have fetched
much, being offspring of immigrants. Life was indeed a struggle,
as the first four boys arrived into their care.
My initial memories of that farm include a vague vision of a gray
two-storey frame house and chickens all over the yard. The chickens
I remember looking at in some puzzlement, from an upstairs
bedroom window, and wondering as to their relationship to me. I
also remember the big blocks of “relief” cheese which mother sliced
on the kitchen table; however, I do not remember whether or not I
liked it. It seemed to me that the weather was always sunny, perhaps
because we were only let out when the sun shone.
My most vivid early memory is associated with the 1938
Beeston school Christmas concert at which time I was three and a
half years old, having been born in May of 1935. I remember not
the concert itself, having slept through most of it, but being awakened
in my Uncle Mike’s arms by the noise of Santa’s arrival. Obviously
my name was called and my Uncle hastened forward with
me to see Santa, who scared me half to death before presenting me
with a red toy truck. I have liked trucks and have been leery of
long-haired men ever since!
We lived in our home until the spring of 1940 at which time my
parents bought a 320 acre tract of virgin land from the Hudson Bay
Company, seven and one half miles north of Hubbard. Where is Hubbard,
you ask? Half way between Goodeve and Ituna or, to locate it another
way, about 100 miles northeast of Regina. The new land had not seen a
plough. The neighbors had pastured cattle on it over the years, otherwise
not a tree had been cut nor a stone picked. All this was about to change.
But first a house had to be built to …

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562900

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0980897920

Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

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so that the next morning there they would be – mysteriously having arrived
out of nowhere.
Salvador thought it was a marvellous plan, but his reason for the visit
was to arrange a meeting with Albert Reichmann. It had to be planned
several months in advance, but it could be done.
At last! Ken stipulated that the meeting take place at the Reichmann
home on an afternoon when Salvador and his crew were working in the
garden. “And this is what I want you to say: ‘Mr. Albert, there’s the man
in the garden – the man I told you about. He’s been sent.’ Just use those
words.”
“Why would I say that?” Salvador asked.
“Because that’s what I want you to say.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to tell you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I promise I’ll tell you when the meeting is over, but those are the
words that have to be used.”
“Give me some idea about why those particular words.”
“Right now I can’t, but I just know that those are the right words.
They’re magic words. Merlin put them in my ear.”
Salvador promised to say the exact words, but as Ken got up to continue
painting and looked back at him, smiling enigmatically, he admitted
to himself that he had no idea whether he would say those words – or
indeed, what he would say or do.
The fundraising campaign was a flop. Most of the corporations sent no
reply and the two that came were gracious refusals. “Send more letters,”
Ken said.
“But they’re not working,” Diane protested.
“It doesn’t matter. Send more anyway!”
The Canadian Cancer Society sent a letter asking for his help in their
own fundraising campaign. Would he donate a painting of an Inukshuk
for a raffle? He and the Premier of Ontario, David Peterson, would pick
the winner at a large media event. Ken saw an opportunity for more publicity
and cheerfully said yes.
On the last day of the campaign, he met with Peterson, an affable, witty
man who was also an art lover. He told Ken that he and his wife had attended
his show at the Columbus Centre, but by the time they had arrived
every painting was sold.
Ken invited him to his studio for a private showing – and a guarantee
that some paintings there would not have a sold sticker. A few days later,
Peterson and his wife arrived and lingered in the studio, taking in the
large paintings and the sketches of Isumataq. They picked out a canvas
and, while Diane and Peterson’s wife selected a frame, …

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562830

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073573

The Circle

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excerpt

13


IT’S FRIDAY, the last day of September, and Emily and Talal’s flight to
Baghdad is scheduled for four in the afternoon. They have to get to the
airport two hours earlier to check their bags. Emily hasn’t flown for a few
years, and the thought of the long flight makes her nervous. Even though she
knows Talal will be beside her, she has been jumpy since morning. Talal was
up earlier, so he prepared the breakfast then went back to bed before she was
up, and even his intention of a fun morning of lovemaking was turned down
by Emily.
“What is it, my love?” he asks her when she gets up.
He notices tears in her eyes, takes her in his arms and asks again, “What is it,
my love?”
“I’m scared. I don’t know why I have such a bad feeling this morning. I’m
thinking about the long flight, and it is making me paranoid. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize, sweetheart, for being apprehensive; most
people are, although they don’t like to talk about it. However flight security has
improved so much over the past several years, we’ll be very safe. Please don’t feel
bad; we’re going to have a nice flight, you’ll see. And don’t forget I’ll be with you
all the way, so don’t worry.”
They sit and have a light breakfast but Emily has a hard time getting her food
down. She tries to relax and her mood improves only when Talal comments on
how pretty she looks this morning. Her shoulder-length hair is done up and held
with a clip, her eyes are the brightest he has ever seen them, the skin on her face is
so smooth and balanced; he is mesmerized by a feeling of love and caring for this
forty-seven-year-old woman whose body he has explored to the innermost detail
during the time that they have been together. Talal is extremely happy he will be
able to introduce her to his motherland as well as to his brother and sister and
grandfather. Yet, he wonders how she is going to see Iraq, sincel the war and its
aftermath.
Emily takes her watering can around the house to water the plants before
they go. Talal’s phone rings; it is Hakim.
“Hey.”
“Hi, are you coming to pick us up?”

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562817

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978186524

Still Waters

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“I know, but I suppose because he’s a classmate’s big brother I
thought of him as a brother, too.” Moe spooned cocoa powder into
a mug and turned the gas on under the kettle. “Enough about me.
How was your evening, kiddo?”
“Unsettling.”
Moe jerked her head around to stare at her roommate. “Why?
What happened?”
“He proposed.”
Moe, her mouth hanging open, plopped onto a chair facing Tyne.
“Wow! And?”
“And what?”
“And what? You know and what. What did you say? Did you ….”
Tyne put her mug on the table with a definite thump. “Oh, come
on, Moe. We’ve only been seeing each other for what – four months?
I hardly know him. Besides, I’m not ready to make that kind of commitment.”
Moe raised her eyebrows. “I see. You hardly know him, do you?
Four months of dating at least four times a week, dinners at his parents’
home, picnics in the park, walks by the river, long drives in the
country, dinner in classy restaurants ….”
“And not so classy restaurants.”
“Okay, sometimes not classy, but dinner nonetheless. Late night
coffee, early morning breakfasts, lunches in the hospital caff. I estimate
you’ve been together, let’s see … four times four times four … at
least sixty times.”
“You make it sound like we’re practically living together,” Tyne
huffed.
“Pretty close.” Moe got up to pour boiling water into her chocolate.
“Tell me to mind my own business, if you like, but do you have
that kind of a relationship?”
Tyne looked up, fully alert. “If you’re asking if we’ve slept together,
Moe, the answer is a definite no.”
Moe shrugged as she stirred her chocolate. “Well, if you like being
a twenty-two-year-old virgin, I guess that’s up to you.” She turned to
the door, carrying her steaming mug. “Well, goodnight, kiddo, I’m
off to bed. But if you want my advice … and you probably don’t …
think seriously about Cam’s proposal. You sure could do a lot worse.”

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763068

Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume II

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A Little Sleep
The distant voice of the lottery vendor. The swaying of the tree.
A canteen steadied in the sand.
The west is burning. A purple reflection over the seashore.
The few houses painted crimson, silence and sundown.
You have a summer handkerchief in your pocket,
a sorrow you left behind on the ledge
like the ripped shoe of the spring that was left on
the rock
when the last group grabbed three meters of sea
and left stooping among the tents of the wind.
How fast the sun goes down in your eyes;
your coat is already smelling of moist,
you put your hands in your gloves like the trees
get in the clouds.
Where the tempest stops your glance is re-ignited
where the sky ends your song and your whole face
are reborn.
There is a yellow star in your silence
like a small daisy on the side table of the sick man
a little warmth on every yellow leaf that turns
the pages of time backward.
It is enough that you know. The other communication
doesn’t end at midnight.
The line is continued from deep inside and from afar
with a few stops, interruptions, accidents,
it continues
and autumn finds shelter on the railings of the station
or the fence wall of the Orphanage,
it listens to the call for silence on the damp roofs and
to the gramophone of the seashore bar,
that the moon turns,
a scratched vinyl, a very old tango. No one dances.
But you, turning the moon to its other side,
beyond midnight, further from the ledge,
you listen to the great music while you saunter
in the harbour with the twelve boat masts
like a speechless restaurant server who cleans
the autumnal tables
folding carefully the napkins of the night,
gathering the stack of plates with the leftover
fish bones.
The sea and the songs continue.
All these that the locked people left outside
belong to us:
the hurrah of the wind in the darkened rooms,
the music that descends in big waves and hits
the window shutters,
the silence that opens its purse and looks at itself
in her square little mirror,
and the woman who wraps herself with the army blanket
and sleeps next to her bag
and you too, as you light your cigarette with a star
over the calm plain of your soul
like the guard who stays vigil over the sleeping soldiers
and thinks of his woman
of the sea
the city with the flags
the trumpets
the sun-dust and the glory of men.
And next to you, you know it,
this big smile
like the circular alarm clock next to the asleep worker.
It’s time to sleep a little. Don’t be afraid.
The clock is properly wound up. It’ll get you up on time
with the bucket of dawn that draws water from the well,
with the crawl of a proclamation that noiselessly sheds
light under the door of your silence. Be assured.
It’ll wake you up.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562968

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851M9LTV

Arrows

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excerpt

Although she had suffered terrible humiliation at the hands of
Gregorio, and possibly Baruta, there was nothing weak about her.
She was undefeated, strong. Like the jaguar, I thought, bold and
proud. Perhaps Tamanoa found her independent spirit was
unbecoming for her sex.
As she bathed, Apacuana told us more. The night before,
apparently Baruta had gone to the river looking for her in vain.
When she returned, they argued, for she had told him she was going
to get water; instead, she went to feed me. That night she had cried in
my arms because Baruta wanted to take her with him to Suruapo,
Guacaipuro’s village up in the mountains, as his woman. Apacuana
had refused and ended up telling him she did not want to marry
him, at least not yet. Baruta had reached for the macana, intending to
hammer some sense into his betrothed.
As I had guessed, Baruta had pressed Yulema into talking. She
sang like a nightingale, telling him everything except the precise
whereabouts of the cave. Instead she had led him off the track,
thereby allowing time to forewarn Apacuana. Fuming with his
inherited hatred of white men, Baruta had set off to find me, but he
had looked further east of the river.
“Will Baruta keep looking for us?” I asked.
She thought not. Guacaipurowas anticipating Paramaconi’s answer
with the greatest urgency, and so Baruta’s duty to his father would
have to take precedence. It was very important business, Apacuana
told us. Paramaconiwas being summoned to a war council in Suruapo.
The meeting would take place very soon, in a matter of days.
All the principal caciques of the region were being called upon to
unite forces in a major attack against Losada in the valley of San
Francisco.
I waded further downstream where I might discreetly disrobe
and wash my privates. I was obliged, by my race, to warn Losada,
but Apacuana had just run away from her betrothed because of me,
she had been raped by Gregorio, and I couldn’t possibly take her
back to the valley of San Francisco.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073522