By “easy” I mean today’s free fall writing is not the stuff to make one concentrate.
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Writing Prompt- blue
Have you been to the blue, blue sea
I sail in my imagination, as I sip my tea
My tea is by a lake, in the middle of the prairie
A rather serious place, only children see the fairy.
Have you ever seen a lake under a prairie sky?
Where waves, like waves of grass keep rolling on by
The lake is blue, bluer than the sea
As blue as the sky, soaring far as I can see.
The air tastes of dust, and grass and “must”
It blows across the miles carrying Egyptian dust
We know because we all attend a little church
Down a coulee past the graceful friendly birch
I think of West Germans, how awed they would be
To see the cowboys riding up, so they can have their tea
There is something about tea away from your own home
Coffee is for the kitchen, tea for when you roam
Farmers know commodities, always changing on the web
Ranchers have their satellite phones to call their buyer Jeb
Children know their cars, and look to contrails in the sky
They will fly away and leave us, in the sweet by and by.
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Prompt- snow and ice
Of course like snow and ice. I live here, don’t I? What’s not to like? To dislike it, well, that would be like living in Kelowna and not liking dust. That would be like living in Victoria and not liking the nice pretty rain. That would be like living in the maritimes and not liking the gentle cries of the seagulls, the surf or the showers rushing in off the sea. That would be like living near Disneyland and not liking tourists and flowers.
No, no, bloom where you are planted. Rejoice in snow and ice. Just think of the poor children in India who never get to see snow. Poor kids. Just think of the poor guys in Afghanistan who never get to slide on the ice. Poor guys. If only they could be toughened up by snow and ice, well, maybe they would be tough enough to fight for democracy over tyranny.
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Prompt- picture of Yukon’s Captain Dick
So there was a captain who flew one of Ward Air’s bush planes, another captain who ferried people along the marge of —no, not Lac Labarge—Great Slave Lake, and there was Captain Dick, all within the environs of Yellowknife.
Sometimes I tossed back liquor with the bush plane guy, talking of crazy tourists, some times with the ferry guy, talking of crazy denizens of the territory, and many’s the time I tossed back with Captain Dick.
He shared with me his philosophy that explained the people of the marge.: Humanity in civilization, he said, is like stones in a sack. Over time, they get their rough edges smoothed off, they blend in, they cause no looks of consternation on their fellows. But then there are the people out of the sack, very rough and individual. Nice people, but you wouldn’t want your sister to marry them.
I considered his words. Here in the territory, most of the whites were from somewhere else, most had escaped the sack. Which explains how we got along so well with the indigenous: their sack was their reservation, and when we met them they were predictable.
Not Captain Dick. When you socialized with him, and others with rough edges, you had to replace any reflexive consternation with laughter, warm laughter, laughing at how you, and I, and the world, was such a joke.
“Once,” said Dick, leaning over his beer, “I would talk about how if I ruled Canada, as the prime minister… now I just think thank God it’s not me in Ottawa.”
Just then, wearing his usual windbreaker, our Member of Parliament pulled up a chair at our table. In those years that was Joe, always trolling for votes, always worried that some guy on the dole would have more time to troll.
After hello, Dick turned a bleary eye to Joe and said, “You’ve got my vote. Go give those other MPs heck. Because you are the only MP that will go into a Chinese restaurant and use a knife and fork. Chopsticks for whites are an affection.”
I hung out with Dick because he used words like ‘affection’ when many of us were merely talking about the incoming cold front.
Joe said, “I’m happy to have your vote.”
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Prompt going to the mountains
On the mountains off we go
Less on heels, more on toe
Watching creeks and rivulets flow
This is living, this I know
Over on the prairies in a copse of green
Flanking a gorge of animals unseen
Southern exposure and a latitude mean
Foxgloves and cowslips and soup tureen
Big rocks provide a place to rest
Browns, rust and black, like daddy’s chest
Warming in the sun, over gophers blest
I can stand, shout hurray, over a land so blessed
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Sean Crawford
Calgary
May
2025
Footnote: Some days, I just can’t get serious. Forgive me, as I sensed we could all use a break, just now.
