It is the summer when they are missed the most, I suppose, when you count on the shade from the heat or shelter from the rain. We often take trees for granted.
Until they are gone.
Then you notice.
Before the spring, trees were cleared from a nearby park I’d often walk through on the way to here or there. Under the pretense of progress, 61 trees were struck from the local landscape to further underground construction of another subway line to further connect this city.
They clear-cut the park.
The 70-year-old healthy, mature trees were removed from the scenery. There was less noise than the protest efforts that went into trying to save eight 200-year-old trees further down the street for the same subway line. Those too, after a session in the courts, were also cut away from our environment.
Sadly.
We count on trees.
We benefit from the shelter and shade, the carbon dioxide exchange trees naturally provide, and the continued beauty through the seasons. We marvel at the canopy of leafy greens in summer, and the brilliant shift into vibrant autumn colours. Then, as the foliage leaves us when temperatures drop and the winds pick up, we anticipate through the winter the colour that returns with spring.
It is a cycle that repeats itself again and again.
Until they are taken away.
Trees are not temporary.
Trees are not a convenience or an extravagance. From seedlings to saplings and as they evolve further, each year of growth, another ring, another year; it was a thing you counted on. Growth.
Growth is measured differently in downtown Toronto where cranes and condominiums and office towers steal away more of the street-level sunlight. Already lacking green space, there are fewer and fewer trees to break up the patterns of concrete, steel, and glass.
This is the era of progress we live in. Each time a tree is removed we are left with a little less beauty.
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A Little Less Beauty
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this eighth month
It stops.
Dreams, planted and paid for, dissipate with the season.
The eighth month,
forever a period of turmoil.
Imbalance.
Injustice.
Always.
The heartbreak of August. Always endings, always there.
Goodbyes believable, stories told from sixteen onward, a laundry list of sorrows, added items along the way from a boy to a man, to whomever I struggle with now and again. I don’t know.
I live with it. This eighth month. August. I have naturally learned to accept. My prescient nature, not always accurate, but available, should I choose to pay attention to the whispers or my conscience.
Often choices are made for me, although I continue believing you are where you are because you ended up here. Can you know?
This is not the season to hide, this eight month forebodes.
Always.
August. As quickly as it comes. As quickly as it goes.
Unhappiness fades away, with flowers, with memories, with that freedom that comes from shorter midnights.
Soon to change. September soon.
Calendars need not remind of weeks, or years gone by. Each month has a purpose.
The sky sits lower.
It waits. It knows.@ 2018 j.g. lewis
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In Recent Memory
I have been working from memory these past few days. Not the random access memory built into my once-trusty laptop, but the dates, details, and descriptions folded into the crevices of my mind.
It is a daunting task, brought on by a recent technological issue.
I have a project I’ve been working on for about a decade. Not all the time, mind you, it is a manuscript I have fiddled with when the mood (or muse) moves me. It’s one of those projects you dip back into when nothing else is inspiring, or a random thought takes over.
I work on this story when I can, or at least when I could: until recently.
Last summer I purchased a new desktop computer with an obscene amount of RAM and a glorious large monitor. At the time I transferred over a number of manuscripts and information related to projects I have on the go.
With the new desktop, my writing routine changed. I became more grounded.
I no longer took my laptop with me for my coffee and writing sessions at the local coffee shop, but only carried a notebook and pencils to jot down thoughts, or poems, as they occurred.
I began doing my serious writing (or editing) in the comfort of my home office with that magnificent monitor.
Only recently, when one of those random thoughts occurred, I realized this one decade-old project did not make the transfer to my desktop.
Even worse, I discovered – perhaps through lack of use or recharge – my laptop had seized up to the point where a trip to the Apple repair depot was involved. It was then discovered that my laptop’s hard drive was “fried” (yes, that’s the exact technical term word the technician used).
I can’t tell you my disappointment.
I thought, or believed, I had almost brought this story to the point where it was completed, or completely readable. And it was now lost forever (and, as Price once said “that’s a mighty long time”).
The only version of this particular story that I now have is a version that an editor had gone through a few years back. In the years that followed this review, I had acted on some of the editor’s suggestions, rethought characters, motives and events, and introduced new elements to make the work stronger than before.
All this additional work had been done over time, as I was moved, and when I took a break from one of the many projects I seem to have on the go.
All that additional work is now lost.
I can’t even describe my frustration or the depth of my thoughts.
Last week, I even took a few days off my writing to think of this mess I had gotten myself into. I could blame the computer all I wanted, but the true fault sat squarely on my shoulders.
I had not been diligent enough when transferring data to the new computer. I had not been careful enough to ensure my work was saved. I had put too much trust into the technology and not enough trust in my habits.
Over the past week I have searched the cloud, searched an even older laptop, and scoured through random notebooks looking for those critical pieces I had added to the story at one time. While I found a few of the immediate pieces, it was not all that I needed to keep moving this story forward.
I now have to trust my memory; the only memory I can count on.
I’ve always thought I had a good recall, but it is now being put to the test.
In the process of reconstructing this story, I am now examining the style, the voice, the details and descriptions to make the work stronger than it was. I need to make it the best work it can be.
I cannot think about the hours and words lost in the mishap (more than unfortunate and not quite devastating), I can only work in the now and find the words to allow this story the trajectory it needs to see me through completion
I have to count on my memory in the present to get past all of this.
My state of mind, lately, has been a little off. Maybe this is what I need to get me thinking constructively again.
Hopefully, soon, this will only be a memory.© 2023 j.g. lewis
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Pencils in past tense
I keep all my pencils, I have for years. I keep not only the long, skinny colourful delights, I save what remains; the nubs and mere shadows of the pencils that have served me well.
A pencil’s life is determined by usage, the firmness (or softness) of its graphite core, and measured by the number of words written on the page. Pressure is always a factor.
I prefer the efficiency of a pencil with an eraser attached. The pencil shows you how you are progressing, its eraser always a sign of how many (or how few) mistakes you have made.
When a pencil gets to a certain length and are no longer comfortable to use, I begin afresh with a new sharp tool.
I used to toss the dead pencils into a box, and then a larger box when it was required. At some point I realized my little friends deserved more than to simply be stowed away in a dark closet.
I now display pencils suspended in past tense in a series of glass jars. An artful display, perhaps, but more a reminder of what the pencils have done.
Don’t we all have a collection of things that matter?
I know many people collect pencils. They keep them whole and proudly marvel at the colour and design, but what’s the point of that?
Pencils were created to create and communicate. If they are safely kept in a drawer they are nothing more than potential.
I believe a pencil is more than that.for a shadow
dead pencils
still leave a mark
salvaged from the litter bin
gave most of their everything
from within
now surrounded
by cigarette butts
salad oil tuna tins phone
messages hydro bills coffee
grinds orange peel
rotting spinach or kale
broken
shoelaces leftover pain
a sad refrain
still saving a few scant lines
of sentiment
for a man
and a night
and a poem
for a shadow© 2015 j.g. lewis
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sullen circumstances
This is a city. These are the streets; a bed for some, deathbed for another. Another sister or another brother. Mine may well sleep in comfort, as I will when I stop thinking about economic uncertainty, global recession, personal depression, unconsciously random gun violence, the ever-escalating opiod crisis and the apparent absence of humanity. Yes, I try to give enough (or live enough) yet between unkempt obligations and the finality of it all, my patience is such that I mainly look on, voyeur-like. Even the shame has found a place I can comfortably live with. Guilt is such a useless emotion; I have convinced myself of such, thinking deeply and distractively of the ambivalent imbalance. There are those unhoused and incapable of making it on their own. Have we the time, or the means, to dig a little deeper, even lessen the extremes? How can we when most of us know these sullen circumstances are maybe a paycheque or two away from a reality most of us refuse to acknowledge. Will you, can you, imagine what it feels like to go without? Are you comfortable with that? This is the air we breath, the toxic humidity of greed and misfortune forced upon a society entirely unsure of its way, ushered on by politicians entirely missing the point, incapable of imagining a city beyond their beliefs. This is a city I feel I no longer belong in. These are the streets I only walk on, stepping through people discarded along the way like tainted needles and dog shit. This is a sadness I feel I only know is there. There is the certainty of shame.
© 2023 j.g. lewis
