Change vs. staying the same

 

I want to preface this by saying that I rarely write about politics although it is a lifelong discussion, but it is always a subtext to what is important here and that is poetry and writing about poetics. So, here is something decrying the loss of a bit more of our heritage, being critical of the metric system that was imposed on us, and it is probably tilting at windmills . . .

After this, it's mostly back to poetry and poetics, gardening and photographs, life and love, and the politicians can do what they do best, which is to screw the public and call it true love. 

1.

Whatever we change, we change at the loss of something else, and not every change is for the better. Some things we change, what we may have originally considered reforms, end up making life worse, or more complicated, or destroy institutions that have supported society for centuries. Not much thought is given to how change will affect us, what we are giving up, what we are replacing, or what we have lost. We are a society that believes in change for its own sake, that everything new is better than what is old, and people cheer for change as though all change is wonderful. What people are cheering for now may be what people will regret in the future.

The reason we adopted the metric system is that it was presumed it would make us more economically competitive with other nations, for instance the European Union. Of course, the young accept the metric system, it's all they have ever known for measuring and weighing things, and it is taught in schools. Others among us have never wholeheartedly accepted metrification; fruit and vegetables in grocery stores are weighed in both metric and the imperial system, in ounces and pounds, and measurement for building construction material is still in the imperial system, we buy a sheet of plywood that is eight feet by four feet, a two by four is measured in inches, and so on. Measure twice, cut once, is the carpenter's rule; and it is done in inches and feet.

Metrification meant giving up an aspect of our both collective inheritance and the use of words that pertain to measurement. But we didn't care, we accepted something that displaced centuries of our history, our way of life, and our language. Metrification moved us further from what is specific and historical, the Avoirdupois system, and into what was conceived in conferences and has very little connection to the everyday life of everyday people.  My concern here is not which is the better system of weights and measurement, it the loss of language, history, and our way of life; of course, we can't go back, that will never happen. 

The Imperial system is derived from the Avoirdupois system which originated eight hundred years ago, certain words are from Old English, the Romans, and earlier civilizations. An "inch" is 1/36th of a yard, from the Old English "ince" or "ynce"', and it is 1/12th of a foot. A "foot" is from the Old English, it is a linear measurement of a man's foot measured as twelve inches. A "yard" is the length of a man's belt but also calculated by King Henry I as the distance from his nose to the thumb of his outstretched hand, it is 36 inches in length. While a "furlong", a word still used in horse racing, is the length of the average plowed furor, it is 660 feet long. A "mile" is from the Romans and calculated as 5,280 feet; a "country mile" refers to travelling over difficult terrain over a long distance since it is not a straight line.

Meanwhile, the metric system dates back to around the time of the French Revolution, to 1795 and 1799, replacing other systems of measurement. The metre was determined by dimensions of the Earth; the kilogram or unit of mass was based on the volume of the litre. It was not long before France and then the rest of Europe had adopted the metric system. This system of measurement is a child of conferences, both the Treaty of the Metre (1875) and the Conférence générale des poids et mesures continued to invent and increase divisions of the material world according to the metric system.

If our previous system of measurement is ancestral and originated in a pre-industrial rural society, then the metric system is fairly recent, originating in cities, by intellectuals and academics, and based in measurement for science, business, and urban dwellers; it is not a system of measurement with a relationship with the natural world, with the earth, or with anything to do with forests, rivers, wild life, oceans, fish, coast lines, farming, small towns, hunting, and so on. Perhaps most urban dwellers don't care about forests, rivers, wild life, oceans, fish, coast lines, farming, small towns, hunting, and so on. The metric system does not spring from the earth that we walk on or from our ancestors or a belief in the importance of place or where we live; its origin is an abstract invented system of measurement.

How do we define what it means to be a human being and does this definition include a soul? The soul does not resonate to the metric system, the soul demands specificity, place, tradition, and history; the soul includes forests, rivers, wild life, oceans, fish, coast lines, farming, small towns, hunting, and so on. The metric system was imposed on us as so much else has been imposed on us; what is being imposed on us moves us away from tradition, our ancestors, and the ground on which we walk.  The metric system does not spring from place, or from our ancestral and historical place.  

Of course, after the fact this refers to what one becomes familiar with, and you can become used to anything. Metric displaced pounds, ounces, and Fahrenheit, it displaced what our ancestors knew and lived with, and it displaced words that were used every day by average people going about their lives. We can't go back to the old system but we should remember that change is not always for the best, that what changes displaces what we already have, and in retrospect what we already have may not be all that bad. Today's society is beginning to look very different from what we had, and were happy with, even just five years ago. I am not saying that change is not needed in society, but change and the direction in which our society is now headed is not a place some of us want to go, it looks to be dominated by the State, by globalism, by the end of the family unit, and the end of our way of life. So, this is about a symptom, metrification, and no doubt it seem ridiculous, but it is a symptom of a future that is already happening. 

"Mending Walls" by Robert Frost

 

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

"5 Poets Breaking into Song"

I really enjoyed, more than enjoyed! last night's "5 Poets Breaking into Song" (this is the link to a video of the reading), an event held in Toronto. George Elliott Clarke included one of my poems, commissioned by George and set to music and performed by James Rolfe, and this can be found at 1:37:00. Many thanks to George and James and everyone else involved in this event!

The garden's new fences

A few weeks ago I had fairly extensive landscaping done at our home, which included new fences for the garden. The old, collapsing, wooden fence that we had by the side of the house may have been countryish and maybe it had another ten years before it would have collapsed, but it needed to be replaced. There was another fence, in the back of the garden, and it had completely collapsed; it may have been sixty years old. 

Our Cape Cod Cottage, and there are many of them in this neighbourhood, were built in 1950, after the War, for returning veterans; they housed a family of four people, they are single family dwellings, they have a backyard, and the same design of house was constructed in many parts of Canada. Cape Cod Cottages are remarkably well constructed and quiet inside, if quiet is as important to you as it is for me. Only seventy-five years ago this area of Montreal was all farmers' fields, there were also apple orchards, and it was the country; that is all gone now and few people either remember how it was or know anything about the history of this area. 

There is one thing most old people would agree on and that is to prepare for the future. We know the future we don't want but it takes some effort to avoid it; we want to stay independent and to do this requires at least basic ambulatory health and some mental acuity; fortunately, the Quebec government seems to be working to keep old people in their homes for as long as possible, they pay to have someone visit the elderly everyday, and this is a lot cheaper, and better for the elderly, than having these old people institutionalized. We saw what institutionalized care for old people is like, it's something we all want to avoid, among other things it was also a breeding ground for Covid-19. So, the message is, Prepare now! That is one reason I had these fences built, so I can have a nice environment now and not worry about the place falling apart when I'm older and not able to look after it.

These new six foot fences may seem extreme, but they also make the garden feel private and enclosed. I told someone when the fences were being constructed that I didn't want the Berlin Wall and then I realized they hadn't heard of the Berlin Wall; ah, the young . . . I suspect that fences are what a garden needs, to be enclosed for privacy; I am also reminded of one of the greatest children's novels, The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson Burnett, well worth reading by yourself or to a child.  Fences enclose the garden and make it feel private, like a room, a place of flowers, birds, and being a little closer to nature, be sure to add a few chairs so you can sit for a while, and enjoy the garden you have created,  

"The Snow Man" by Wallace Stevens

 

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

The garden under snow

Yesterday's snow will probably melt, it's 0 C., moving between +1 and -1; just think, ten days ago it was +20 C. No wonder we're obsessed with the weather; before bed we listen to the weather report, then we'll know what kind of day tomorrow will be; upon waking we listen to the weather report, has it changed since last night? Where I live, so much of daily life depends on the weather.

You ask if I like snow and winter? No, I don't. But we are stoics here in Canada, we live with it, we say "You get what you get."

Here is the garden under snow.

"My November Guest" by Robert Frost

 

My Sorrow, when she’s here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.

She talks and I am fain to list:
She’s glad the birds are gone away,
She’s glad her simple worsted gray
Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so rarely sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.

The hidden trail in November

There are never many people on the hidden trail, perhaps one or two dog walkers, sometimes no one is there but me. Usually I am alone. We're moving along to mid-November and December and the inevitable, unwanted, winter months that follow; one faces them with a certain dread. What will winter be like this year? The forecast for eastern Canada has changed from more snow and colder than ever to quite mild, but our "mild" is most people's cold, long, winter. And that is the problem with winter here in Montreal, it's just too long; a month of winter, as they have in Vancouver, would be enough for most of us, but our winter stretches on from January (the coldest month of the year) to February (a short month so that is our consolation) to March (sunlight lasts longer but it is still very cold) to April (when April showers can be a last snowfall) to May (getting better). Even Toronto has one month less of winter than we do and the rest of their winter is milder than ours. Victoria has no winter, just more rain. Even Burlington, Vermont, just south of us has a milder winter than we do. And our winter can begin in early December, not all of us want a white Christmas, I prefer a green Christmas and an unlikely green January . . . well, that never happens. The thing is to get outside and walk, and it doesn't matter where you walk as long as you get some exercise, even fresh air is optional, we need to walk because it releases positive hormones and gives us a sense of optimism. Personally, I like the hidden trail but, all in all, I like walking anywhere; I like seeing people and their homes, I like walking by stores and restaurants, I even like cars shooting passed me, I like life and people. The hidden trail isn't for everyday walking, for daily walking I prefer the streets and places that are not special to anyone but to me.

 

The Eventide Home last week

Here is what is left of the Eventide Home, a residence for seniors that was run by the Salvation Army; the residence closed in the early 2000s. One day, no doubt, this will be the site of some nice new condos. If I want a longer walk I`ll visit the Eventide Home on St. Jacques and then walk down one of the streets in Montreal West where you have a view of the expressway; there are some interesting historical homes in this area. 

A busy day at the bird bath

I thought they'd flown south but here they are, the birds are back. It's been a mild fall so far, sunny, blue sky, great weather to go for a walk. Meanwhile, back at home, the birds are having a great time at the bird bath. Photos taken on November 8, 2022. 

"The Shepherds Calendar - November Poem" by John Clare

Photo of Meadowbrook Golf Course, November 2021

 

The landscape sleeps in mist from morn till noon;
And, if the sun looks through, 'tis with a face
Beamless and pale and round, as if the moon,
When done the journey of her nightly race,
Had found him sleeping, and supplied his place.
For days the shepherds in the fields may be,
Nor mark a patch of sky - blindfold they trace,
The plains, that seem without a bush or tree,
Whistling aloud by guess, to flocks they cannot see.

The timid hare seems half its fears to lose,
Crouching and sleeping 'neath its grassy lair,
And scarcely startles, tho' the shepherd goes
Close by its home, and dogs are barking there;
The wild colt only turns around to stare
At passer by, then knaps his hide again;
And moody crows beside the road forbear
To fly, tho' pelted by the passing swain;
Thus day seems turn'd to night, and tries to wake in vain.

The owlet leaves her hiding-place at noon,
And flaps her grey wings in the doubling light;
The hoarse jay screams to see her out so soon,
And small birds chirp and startle with affright;
Much doth it scare the superstitious wight,
Who dreams of sorry luck, and sore dismay;
While cow-boys think the day a dream of night,
And oft grow fearful on their lonely way,
Fancying that ghosts may wake, and leave their graves by day.

Yet but awhile the slumbering weather flings
Its murky prison round - then winds wake loud;
With sudden stir the startled forest sings
Winter's returning song - cloud races cloud,
And the horizon throws away its shroud,
Sweeping a stretching circle from the eye;
Storms upon storms in quick succession crowd,
And o'er the sameness of the purple sky
Heaven paints, with hurried hand, wild hues of every dye.

At length it comes along the forest oaks,
With sobbing ebbs, and uproar gathering high;
The scared, hoarse raven on its cradle croaks,
And stockdove-flocks in hurried terrors fly,
While the blue hawk hangs o'er them in the sky.-
The hedger hastens from the storm begun,
To seek a shelter that may keep him dry;
And foresters low bent, the wind to shun,
Scarce hear amid the strife the poacher's muttering gun.

The ploughman hears its humming rage begin,
And hies for shelter from his naked toil;
Buttoning his doublet closer to his chin,
He bends and scampers o'er the elting soil,
While clouds above him in wild fury boil,
And winds drive heavily the beating rain;
He turns his back to catch his breath awhile,
Then ekes his speed and faces it again,
To seek the shepherd's hut beside the rushy plain.

The boy, that scareth from the spiry wheat
The melancholy crow - in hurry weaves,
Beneath an ivied tree, his sheltering seat,
Of rushy flags and sedges tied in sheaves,
Or from the field a shock of stubble thieves.
There he doth dithering sit, and entertain
His eyes with marking the storm-driven leaves;
Oft spying nests where he spring eggs had ta'en,
And wishing in his heart 'twas summer-time again.

Thus wears the month along, in checker'd moods,
Sunshine and shadows, tempests loud, and calms;
One hour dies silent o'er the sleepy woods,
The next wakes loud with unexpected storms;
A dreary nakedness the field deforms -
Yet many a rural sound, and rural sight,
Lives in the village still about the farms,
Where toil's rude uproar hums from morn till night
Noises, in which the ears of Industry delight.

At length the stir of rural labour's still,
And Industry her care awhile forgoes;
When Winter comes in earnest to fulfil
His yearly task, at bleak November's close,
And stops the plough, and hides the field in snows;
When frost locks up the stream in chill delay,
And mellows on the hedge the jetty sloes,
For little birds - then Toil hath time for play,
And nought but threshers' flails awake the dreary day.

"Lines Written in Kensington Gardens" by Matthew Arnold

 

In this lone, open glade I lie,
Screen'd by deep boughs on either hand;
And at its end, to stay the eye,
Those black-crown'd, red-boled pine-trees stand!

Birds here make song, each bird has his,
Across the girdling city's hum.
How green under the boughs it is!
How thick the tremulous sheep-cries come!

Sometimes a child will cross the glade
To take his nurse his broken toy;
Sometimes a thrush flit overhead
Deep in her unknown day's employ.

Here at my feet what wonders pass,
What endless, active life is here!
What blowing daisies, fragrant grass!
An air-stirr'd forest, fresh and clear.

Scarce fresher is the mountain-sod
Where the tired angler lies, stretch'd out,
And, eased of basket and of rod,
Counts his day's spoil, the spotted trout.

In the huge world, which roars hard by,
Be others happy if they can!
But in my helpless cradle I
Was breathed on by the rural Pan.

I, on men's impious uproar hurl'd,
Think often, as I hear them rave,
That peace has left the upper world
And now keeps only in the grave.

Yet here is peace for ever new!
When I who watch them am away,
Still all things in this glade go through
The changes of their quiet day.

Then to their happy rest they pass!
The flowers up close, the birds are fed,
The night comes down upon the grass,
The child sleeps warmly in his bed.

Calm soul of all things! make it mine
To feel, amid the city's jar,
That there abides a peace of thine,
Man did not make, and cannot mar.

The will to neither strive nor cry,
The power to feel with others give!
Calm, calm me more! nor let me die
Before I have begun to live.

"Come, come thou bleak December wind" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

 

Come, come thou bleak December wind,
And blow the dry leaves from the tree!
Flash, like a Love-thought, thro' me, Death
And take a Life that wearies me.

Note: This is a fragment of a poem, never completed, by STC, and found in his notebook from when he was in Pisa, Italy. 

"Fortuna" by Thomas Carlyle

 

The wind blows east, the wind blows west,

And the frost falls and the rain:

A weary heart went thankful to rest,

And must rise to toil again, ’gain,

And must rise to toil again.

The wind blows east, the wind blows west,

And there comes good luck and bad;

The thriftiest man is the cheerfulest;

’Tis a thriftless thing to be sad, sad,

’Tis a thriftless thing to be sad.

The wind blows east, the wind blows west;

Ye shall know a tree by its fruit:

This world, they say, is worst to the best;—

But a dastard has evil to boot, boot,

But a dastard has evil to boot.

The wind blows east, the wind blows west;

What skills it to mourn or to talk?

A journey I have, and far ere I rest;

I must bundle my wallets and walk, walk,

I must bundle my wallets and walk.

The wind does blow as it lists alway;

Canst thou change this world to thy mind?

The world will wander its own wise way;

I also will wander mine, mine,

I also will wander mine.

Thomas Carlyle (4 December 1795 – 5 February 1881) 

"When Death Comes" by Mary Oliver

 

Cote des Neiges Cemetery, July 2022

When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn; when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse   to buy me, and snaps the purse shut; when death comes like the measle-pox   when death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,   I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering: what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?   And therefore I look upon everything as a brotherhood and a sisterhood, and I look upon time as no more than an idea, and I consider eternity as another possibility,   and I think of each life as a flower, as common as a field daisy, and as singular,   and each name a comfortable music in the mouth, tending, as all music does, toward silence,   and each body a lion of courage, and something precious to the earth.   When it's over, I want to say all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.   When it's over, I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real.   I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument.   I don't want to end up simply having visited this world