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.
Month: June 2021
We are Canadian.
We live on stolen land.
How should we celebrate that?
We have lived lies, unknowingly or otherwise, following blindly
in the firm footsteps of our forefathers. By default, we absorbed
their secrets and sins.
We have uprooted families, taken their young, and forced them
onto bleak lands without resources as essential as safe drinking water.
Still, to this day, in this country.
Canada.
We made gallant attempts to convert our ways into theirs by force
or by fraud, overlooking injustice, upholding our selfish direction.
Human rights denied: no; ignored.
We took what was not ours, without shame, without dignity.
Are we not savages?
Politicizing promises, ignoring treaty rights, we have elected
governments that allowed our First Nations peoples to be treated
merely as inconveniences.
Long shadows of colonialism cast further darkness onto lives
that will never know the daily freedoms only some of us enjoy.
Certainly not hundreds of souls secretly buried without account,
without honour, without names.
Once a rumour; do we now know the truth?
What else can we honestly learn about ourselves?
Who poses the questions? Who will answer?
If religion is this country’s strongest available excuse, will we now
question whether our moral compass has ever known a true North?
How do you celebrate that?
© 2021 j.g. lewis
Posted on June 29, 2021 by j.g.lewisLeave a comment
You know what you know
and you do what you do,
and you keep doing it.
It’s a commitment of sorts
to nothing but commitment
to what you know. You can
only do what you can do.
06/29/2021 j.g.l.
Posted on June 28, 2021 by j.g.lewisLeave a comment
Today will be sunny instead of
the rain that was promised. It
was supposed to rain, as the
weather app says it will (again)
for the remainder of the week.
I put off plans to paint last
Saturday as they had been
predicting precipitation.
No rain.
No progress.
I have an appointment this
morning that will take me away
from my project, and I won’t
see a pleasant day in the next
four (at least) if I am to believe
what I read.
All this talk of rain, again and
again.
Do I trust what they say?
Do I put off plans because
of a wet forecast?
Maybe my time is better put
to use on some other project
or plan?
Should I do what I do, or
do what I can?
06/28/2021 j.g.l.
