Art is everywhere, if you choose to look.
Lately, as the weather becomes a slightly more pleasurable each day, I am taking the opportunity to get back out on the streets of Toronto to observe what really happens here.
Last Thursday, on the way to an appointment, I was fortunate to notice something I had never seen before.
Just about any day you’ll find Ross Ward hunched over on Yonge Street tending to his art. The ‘Birdman of Toronto’ has been a fixture on these streets in various locations for well over a decade, and during each day he crafts, and sells, palm-sized birds.
Once only a hobby — this is now more than whittling — Ward carves out shapes of common birds from reclaimed wood. There is always a piece in progress, and always a small flock for sale on his concrete workspace.
Perhaps in our day-to-day journeys, we don’t look close enough at all the people. We don’t often observe enough to see art just happening here and there on our landscape. I’ve wandered this street how many times and only last week did I notice the man. I saw him again on the weekend.
Appreciating the beauty of his work, I bought a bird as a gift for someone . . . or maybe a souvenir for myself to one day remember my time in this city.
Couldn’t we all use more memorable hand-made art?
Versions Of The Truth
Even my name will carry forward
to years I will not touch. This certainty remains
as truthful as it is obvious. We exist
in this fractured reality.
We all will die.
Admit that and you will move
more freely in this world.
Journey or adventure.
Most of us, week to week, are not aware
of a destination or even our path.
This has been my familiarity.
No other person’s experience can be
compared to your own experience.
We know various versions of the truth.
Time is tactile.
My hand will cup a breast only while my lips
have a taste to be quenched by lust,
or temptation.
Others will touch, or wish not to be touched.
Morals coat any decision made.
Experience tells us so.
Any human connection is hard; even harder
is loss of connection. Emotions are a commodity
shared with few, expressed by even less of us.
Trust.
The mind is never vacant, but a room muddled
by darkness. This space hosts a scent
I will remember after I
am left for dead.
We will all die; most of us alone.
Admit that, and you will move
more freely through this life.
© 2019 j.g. lewis