As I gazed out the balcony window from my desk early this morning a tiny bird propelled itself not far from where I sat directly outward across the open field, swooping and sailing up then plunging down to a large wavering tree on the far edge of the tilled soil where it disappeared into the mass of towering greenery. It was a cloudy day, the rising sun disrupted by a mixture of grey and white bundles, fluffy streaks and hints of clear blue patterns among the beshevelled curtains. A cock crew, birds chirped and sang. The sun, unblotted, suddenly glistened hot then vanished cool again.

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Whether it’s Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet or Salvador Dali, I’m sorry, but, “You’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all!”  Same applies to Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludvig van Beethoven or Ludovico Einaudi. Their style, their singular character, their resonance, the product of each of them is invariably the same. And without overstating the obvious (that is, that they’re all fabulous in their own right), I too am the same as they in that whatever I am, whatever it is that distinguishes me, however moderately I may express myself – and more specifically – whatever it is about which I express myself in my highly qualified manner – is (in my case certainly) sadly repetitious.  I need for example only repeat (as I have so often done before) that I am placated in this unshackled admission of limitation by the majesty of the view from my desk as I type these words upon the face of my MacBook Pro and glance ever so casually (and ever so thankfully and ever so gleefully) upon the wind-blown face of the sapphire river and the underside of the windswept jade-coloured leaves of the silent bountiful trees in the distance across the burgeoning farmers’ fields. This is my Paradise!

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Post ofs Box 63 9 pm
Dorchester NB
Jany 28 1952

My Dear Nephew

If you will excuse Mr. Webster for differing with me in some of his spelling as I find it sometimes necessary I will tell you something of your grand father Bunetts 94 years of life.

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Sitting in my car by the grocery store. Waiting for things to be done. It’s been a while since I’ve done anything. But sitting there, waiting, in my mind I traveled back and forth across the North Atlantic, up and down the coast of the Ocean from here to Key Largo and briefly onto the South Pacific. Reminiscing about where we have been and what we have done and where we might go one day. All the while asking, what‘s the difference being here or there? Does one ever escape the inner circles and thoughts, the deathless yearnings and limitations, the need to expatiate and promulgate and exasperate? What do I need to buy, a house, a car or a costume of clothes; a ring perhaps, another gold ring to compete with a bishop or a football player, an accessory or an article of solid hardwood furniture with a polished veneer, maybe another ship’s bell? Precision for me is my French leave (filer à l’anglaise). Have I already been there? Have I already done that? Was it ever any different, then or now? Is it too late? Does it even matter? Will I only pine to come home again? Home to watch the plateau of the dreamy river magically flow upstream with its circular twists of shiny calm? And the streaked fields of burgeoning green and yellow and magnificent flourishing trees diminished by the immense azure dome above?

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Most people couldn’t care less whether Trump or Hunter Biden goes to jail.  Nor apparently does either England or Europe.  The issue is far more personal for much of the population throughout the Western world.

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While driving home from Stittsville today along the Appleton Side Road I told Siri to play “Hey Jude”.  Instantly the audio of my car produced the famous song by The Beatles. I’m listening to it again now on my headphones as I write this account.  I searched for the song on Apple Music which immediately produced a selection of 21 albums from which to choose, including a piano instrumental that reminded me of my own expression of the piece not long after first hearing it. In addition to playlists there were a number of videos of Paul McCartney, one recorded live at Hyde Park in London and another at the Estadio Unico de la Plata in Buenos Aires. There is also a Spanish rendition by the Brazilian country duo brothers Zezé Di Camargo & Luciano.  In the end however I prefer the original recording (with the orchestral involvement notably beginning at the 4th repetition of the refrain).

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Over thirty years ago I traveled to one of the islands in the Caribbean.  It was so long ago that I cannot recall specifically which island.  I do however vividly recollect how I came to acquire the recipe for what I now call “Caribbean Pasta”.  There is nothing Caribbean about the pasta dish other than that I acquired it while there.  Here’s the story behind it.

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I cannot recall the last time I attended church. I wager it has been three decades or more since I bent my knee upon an historic pew and repeated the Latin rhetoric of my youth at St. Andrew’s College (that haven of the Church of England and the Scottish Presbytery’s “Burning Bush”). Nonetheless I stoically confess and defend my lack of approbation of organized religion by accounting that, seemingly by entire accident this morning, I found myself absorbed in a report of the “cruci-fiction”.  It is not a new corruption of the Crucifixion; it has various expositions, some approaching research and scholarly enquiry, others clearly irreligious and unprincipled. I believe my descent into this Hell-hole of mockery and inquisition derived from an image of the Crucifixion I had seen last evening while reading the latest edition of Country Life intermingled with advertisements of real estate, paintings, jewellery, furnishings and cruises.

“If Christ be not risen from the dead, then our preaching is vain, and your faith is also vain.”

(1 Corinthians 15:14)

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We don’t get out a lot. It’s apparently not an uncommon affliction of aging. Or maybe it’s just a preference for doing otherwise.  But today’s congregation was much anticipated.  And it proved to have been equally rewarding.

Smiths Falls is a town in Eastern Ontario, Canada, 72 kilometres (45 mi) southwest of Ottawa. As of the 2021 census it has a population of 9,254. It is in the Census division for Lanark County, but is separated from the county. The Rideau Canal waterway passes through the town, with four separate locks in three locations and a combined lift of over 15 metres (49.2 ft).

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It was a Seagram’s bottle bag which I used to store my marbles when I was a child. Not surprisingly (to those who know me well) it was not the game of marbles which attracted me; rather, the marbles themselves. I liked the variety of colours and sizes, their universality, weight, endurance, singularity and ambivalence. Some were exceptionally beautiful. They were perhaps my first noticeable introduction to art. Storing them in the bottle bag may also have been my initiation to a developing need or desire for accumulation and its corollaries of segregation and demonstration. It amuses me that to this day I haven’t a single marble.  I’ve literally lost my marbles.

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