Edmonton's End of Steel Park in a wintry mood

Once a railway ran between Calgary and Edmonton, passing through the southside neighbourhood of Strathcona. This lone car now sits on the rails at End of Steel park, where the old lined ended, just south of the North Saskatchewan River.

Crossword hijinks

I've often heard it said that doing crosswords keeps the aging brain sharp.

And it's well-known that the codebreakers of Bletchley Park were recruited for their fascination with crosswords as well as for their mathematical skills.

But this mug's claim is a new one on me. Still, the idea that the crossword is an attempt to create order out of chaos has a certain appeal.

Should have bought that mug as a kind of amulet. Maybe drinking coffee from it while doing crosswords would have helped me organize the chaos of my writing...

Salmon seem to swim on pavement

On the site of the future Vancouver Art Gallery, someone has painted some lifelike salmon.

Glimpsed on a shortcut from Stadium Station to the Vancouver Public Library, these iconic fish seem to be swimming in a blue stream.

Life is a river of change. The classical stone building that presently houses the Vancouver Art Gallery was once the Court House.

Long live the arts; long may the salmon run.

A light dusting of snow clings to the roots

The tree remembers the lightest dusting of snow, just as we humans retain faint but accessible memory traces of all we have experienced in our lives.

Fallen glove keeping its fingers crossed

As I walked along the chilly sidewalk, I looked down and overheard this glove speaking softly to itself. This is what it said:

"Of course I'm not superstitious, but I'll keep my fingers crossed for luck anyway."

"I hope the weather is chilly enough that my owner notices my absence and returns to find me. Can't wait to slide back onto that warm hand. Besides, I want to be within shouting distance of my mate."

Up in the air between Abbotsford and Edmonton

The aircraft tips into the takeoff turn, revealing Fraser valley farms dusted with snow. Above Edmonton, snow covered fields, frozen lakes and rivers. Even the North Saskatchewan is a solid white. Between, we traverse the blue sky and white clouds all earthlings share.

Inspiring words by Lozan Yamolky

Last week, local poet Lozan Yamolky visited my class at Simon Fraser Continuing Studies. This poet speaks Kurdish, Arabic and English. Growing up in Baghdad and northern Iraq, she witnessed war and other human atrocities at first hand. Lozan has been in Canada for over twenty years and she arrived as a refugee.

In spite of the difficult topics she writes about, her poetry is full of wisdom, tolerance, love and light. With three books of poetry out, she's just been commissioned to write a poem that will be set to music a Toronto orchestra creating a special performance on refugees.

A favourite line of her poetry is from a poem entitled "Go Back Where You Came From." After enumerating all the reasons why she cannot go back, the narrator addresses the reader with these words of innocent encouragement:

"But you, you can go back. Go back to the time before you learned how to hate."