A Confederate General in Charlottesville, Virginia
Where does the world end, and people begin? I can’t look at this now. As we shift, so too, our lens. An obelisk of uncommon shape. Why does this matter? We can’t pretend this is all past tense. Privilege: the luxury to ignore. When so many can’t. This isn’t about free speech. They came with clubs, with bats, with raised hands. Symbols imbibed with power. My heart was a weapon. How are you so unafraid. History belongs in a museum. We don’t want your hate.
Great Barrington MA
Is travel writing truly dead? We drive across the border, beyond which we neither write, nor look. When did the Mahican? When did the English? We are from a future world. The shutters lose their sheen, their black paint. When did the Dutch? Kills, those waterways. The creeks. Amsterdam, or Rome. What shines is the appeal. In the reflection of speech, several voices. When did the wealthy? With the arrival of the railroad. Hence, the day agrees with my step. We, who vow to exist. The impossibility of silence. You are a tourist. Whom do you love? The birthplace of W.E.B. du Bois. The rain was legendary. We drove, endless. Carpetbagged. There was a plaque. I had to remove my glasses to read it.
It’s still winter
The translation of ice, snow, slush. Territorial. We edit the driveway. Stand up. A sequence of criminal acts. Strikes, by their very action, are about value. Wise, joyous, tender. Occasional flourish. Once unmarked, or unremarked. This land overrun with mapmaking. Scars, sever bone. You dig? Hollywood always preferred me to be pretty. Not so. Permafrost bends at the rail. The tree line. We speak layers, executive orders. Bigly talk, and no action. Sad. The idea. The very idea.
Daylight savings
But first, coffee. What have we saved? Preschooler up with the dawn. Morning routine, chaos: oatmeal, newspaper, diapers. So much yelling. A mile or more in her red shoes, princess apparel. Such empathy. Exaggerated twirls. The baby laughs; claps her hands. A drop in the bucket. Snow White. Which socks, sweater, whither pants? A seemingly endless discussion. I count the minutes. We have no need for icons.
Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. The author of more than thirty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, he won the John Newlove Poetry Award in 2010, the Council for the Arts in Ottawa Mid-Career Award in 2014, and was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2012 and 2017. In March, 2016, he was inducted into the VERSe Ottawa Hall of Honour. His most recent poetry titles include A perimeter (New Star Books, 2016), A halt, which is empty (Mansfield Press, 2019) and Life sentence, (Spuyten Duyvil, 2019). An editor and publisher, he runs above/ground press, seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics (ottawater.com/seventeenseconds), Touch the Donkey (touchthedonkey.blogspot.com) and the Ottawa poetry pdf annual ottawater (ottawater.com). He is “Interviews Editor” at Queen Mob’s Teahouse, editor of my (small press) writing day, and an editor/managing editor of many gendered mothers. He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com