What gets left behind
with our unmade minds
forever rushing?
What do we leave behind
if we did not take the
the time to notice?
What is no longer mine
because neither you nor I
could take our time?
12/02/2024 j.g.l.
look around
Be thankful
for what you have, for
what you have to let go of,
and for those who are still
with you. Gratitude comes
in many forms. Look around.
Be thankful.
j.g.l.
cloud songs
It is only silence and only
for now, a minute or three
but who is counting?
Enough, for now.
Slight Repose, a little grace,
enough until you have
found your place. Might be
morning, or the end of the day,
yet it is time to yourself anyway.
For now.
11/29/2024 j.g.l.
last night
I have heard it before;
shouting on the street.
Total darkness.
It could be
3:46 a.m.
in any other city.
The violence of silence
is not unique
to downtown Toronto.
When I hear bottles smash
in the night
I try not to think of
human bones.
Fragility, and
all of the pressure
we are under.
For what?
To live? I don’t know.
To try?
We are all trying
to live.
To breathe. To sleep
3:54 a.m.
12/03/2024 j.g.l.
preparing for change
I felt the chill this morning. I’d forgotten the gloves I meant to find last night after those first snowflakes starkly reminded me of a change in the weather.
Realistically, almost chronologically, we are on the cusp of winter here in Toronto; I’ve been progressively reminded over these past few days as the pleasurable autumn temperatures have waned. The festive music in the shopping malls kept singing of the winter wonderland that has not yet arrived, so I haven’t really been feeling it.
Until this morning.
I like mornings, even cold ones.
Mornings, daily, give me the opportunity to start afresh. Each day I am allowed to leave yesterday behind and get on with life. It’s like a new beginning, every damn day.
It is a change. Change is good.
Much like the weather, I am undergoing (or in) a period of change. At least, right now, I am preparing for change.
Next month, just after the calendar shifts to a new year, I will be moving back to a more familiar city; one I have lived in for a good chunk of my life. It will be a good move, I know it. I feel it.
It will be a welcome change and, in many ways, a new beginning. A new home, and a new attitude.
It will be, in so many ways, a new beginning.
New beginnings are all about change.
Change is good, even in the weather.
12/01/2024 j.g.l.
we do not know
Continually we check the skies.
It is the waiting for the waiting.
Plans we make become plans we made.
Opportunities forsaken or forgotten.
Unfortunately, it is always the way.
Anxiety distracts us from the days.
The uncertainty goes on, unnoticed.
We cannot avoid what we do not know.
11/26/2024 j.g.l.
I'm like a pencil;
sometimes sharp,
most days
well-rounded,
other times
dull or
occasionally
broken.
Still I write.
j.g. lewis
is a writer/photographer in Toronto.
necessary infrastructure
Posted on December 4, 2024
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Now in the third week, the labour unrest at Canada Post continues to affect this country financially and ideologically.
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) and Crown corporation are, apparently, so far apart in negotiations that government-appointed meditator called off the mediation process.
The strike is costing business — small business in particular — millions of dollars at a time this country cannot afford it. Yes, the big for-profit courier companies seem to be handling the sharp untick in traffic at the busiest time of year for package delivery, but Christmas day draws ever closer. It is more than an inconvenience as we all are readying packages for faraway family and friends. Many of us are now forced into making gift choices though online services like Amazon and the like.
For me it is personal. I do, and still, enjoy sending Christmas cards. While I have regular letters to reply to — a daughter in Winnipeg, pen pal in the U.K., cousin in Connecticut, and a couple of friends in other U.S. states and Canadian provinces — I’ve got another list of people that I, perhaps, only write to once a year. A Christmas card is always fitting.
I have news to share of next year’s travel plans, a new house and address, and all sorts of personal updates.
I’ve not been writing as much lately. Mentally it has been that kind of a year, so the cards to me, this year, seem a little more important. Handwriting a letter provides a necessary break for my online mind. I’ve got things to say and nothing says it better than a handwritten letter.
While the digital age has allowed instant communication, it is not the same. Email, fundamentally, will not replace the postal service that has become a necessary component of our history.
The postal union (with its 55,000 members) is seeking higher wages, better medical benefits and changes to the postal service’s use of temporary workers. Canada Post has said the CUPW’s bargaining table demands are challenging its “comprehensive framework for reaching negotiated agreements.”
At the heart of the labour strife is the unreal expectation that the crown corporation should make a profit. What seems to have been ignored is the fact that a reliable mail service is necessary infrastructure, like a sewer system or multi-lane highway.
You cannot derive a profit from the millions of kilometers of urban streets and rural highways, or national parks, but we all count on them to be there. Just as we count on the mail service.
Realistically, it never should have come to this. Agreed, negotiations with a strong labour union have been difficult historically, but Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Public Services and Procurement, is the minister responsible for Canada Post.
Duclos, as the representative responsible, has been irresponsible by allowing this to drag on so long. Labour minister Steven MacKinnon shares the blame, as does Prime Minster Justin Trudeau, boss to both elected officials. Now, I recognize the PM has a lot of other things on his plate (including his plans to get re-elected next time around) but he should be ensuring the mail gets through.
Word is the feds are not even considering binding arbitration. MacKinnon said deals must be achieved through compromise, but added it was necessary for the Crown corporation because it was at an “obvious pivot point” in its history.
Given that every labour contract has a fixed end date, the federal government and Crown corporation should have been working on these pivots ages ago and not waiting until the contract had expired. It was unfortunate, and irresponsible, not to do so.
Look at where we are and how much it is costing us as individually and as a country.
© 2024 j.g. lewis
regret
Posted on November 27, 2024
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Saturated in juvenile jealousies, raw emotions,
catastrophes, ever the mind considers shards
of a certain past.
Memories, like mistakes, cannot be avoided.
Not unlike prerogative, our tarnished views
contained within cognitive reality, blindside
everyday moments.
What were you thinking, at the time. Or now?
Held hostage, even today, by unearned feelings.
We deal with what we have done or what we
did not. Then. Or ever.
Regret has a way of overtaking the mind.
Clouded dreams, dogma, brittle curiosities,
conspiracy theories you only slightly believe,
forever captured.
What matters is how you accept the past.
© 2024 j.g. lewis
Only Structures
Posted on November 13, 2024
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The city has no direction.
Even the streets take you nowhere.
Sprawling. Stopping. Rethinking, recovering.
A destination as much as a distinction, home
to so many. Honoured by so few.
Only a place, only for a while, only to those
who wish to be somewhere else.
Identity. Community. Immunity for some.
Isolation within a population, advancing beyond
the imagination of so many.
To be a stranger is to remain present.
Loneliness. There is always a place.
This search for significance takes us
to inappropriate places: this city is full of them.
Each street. Every building.
The homes we pass by, the contents of which
we do not know; or understand. Only structures.
Will we find such a place where personal information
remains private property? Is it natural
or even possible?
Overlooking common sense, stigma, and the
interpretation of others, can we arrive at a place where
data does not exist?
How, then, will we document our days?
Who will keep track of our shortcomings?
© 2024 j.g. lewis
