Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
rhyming couplets
on friday i received a housewarming package that included poems by two of my favourite east van children – jacob and kira. i share their poems with you here since i think they display the fine raw talent of young anarchist poets….. 🙂 (and you should see the crayon drawings on the pages… very nice indeed).
Oh pickles and lies
oh smelly old flies
put them together
and you have a pie
and to make milk
you have to gather some silk
cause a cow is too dirty
so is a gote
as for a drink
blend up some stink
from jacob
for a megin you must be a pagin
for a tristin you must be a christian
for a sum blue you need sum glue
for sum sun you need to run
love kira
weekend chores
besides stacking a cord of firewood and turning 25 pounds of apples into applesauce this weekend i have also managed to redesign this blog. what do you think?
salmon soup
salmon and shitake soup
for grey days on the west coast
ingredients:
one red onion
2 carrots
some stalks of celery
10 shitake mushrooms
1 lb of deboned salmon filet
2 cups cooked brown rice
boullion cubes, soy sauce or veggie stock for soup base
spices as desired
instructions:
- first of all, go for a long walk by the sea until you are cold and in need of warming. go by yourself and think about someone you haven’t seen for awhile.
- come home, and light a fire in the woodstove or fireplace, hang your wool sweater up to dry by the fire and then get your ingredients together for cooking
- start by sauteing the onion in olive oil until it is soft and translucent and your kitchen smells like cooking is taking place. if you want, add some cloves of crushed garlic and stir those in too
- add the sliced shitake mushrooms and stir them around a bit in the oil to release their flavour – put a bit of soy sauce over them and make them sing in the fashion of a chinese cook
- add about 7 cups of water and bouillon cubes and or 7 cups of veggie stock – if you have planned your life around eating well, you should have some homemade stock in the freezer
- throw in the sliced carrot and celery – make sure they are organic and you can leave the skins on the carrots
- put on a low, rolling boil until the veggies are getting towards done
- throw in the diced salmon filet, skin and all (make sure the bones are out first) – chinook or sockeye are the best because they have the strongest fish taste, make sure the pieces aren’t too small so you miss them when eating the soup
- when the salmon is cooked, add the brown rice and heat through – simmer the pot on a low heat for awhile so the flavours can marry
- soy sauce to taste
you can also add garlic, dill, oregano, bay leaf, celery seed, ginger, white wine, and/or barley (instead of rice) – i have made this soup all manner of ways. it is best if the salmon is of a piece given to you by a friend so you can think about that person as you are warming yourself up with the finished soup – this is nourishing for the body and the heart. on the west coast there are many fishermen (and women) – these are good people to befriend, and i am lucky to have a couple in the circle of my aquaintances (even luckier that one of these people regularly bestows me with gifts of salmon).
a bibliography anew
it has been a few months since i published the last biblio of my recent life, and since i do read a fair amount, the books to be shared have increased in number and i am pressed to spit out at least a short descriptor of each. looking at the books in the to-read pile growing in a stack beside my bed, or those shelved along the living room wall – it is clear there is no one theme or subject that occupies my literary imagination, but over time there are groups of subject-interest that emerge as life unfolds, making for a library both diverse and practical in addition to being reflective of the person i have become.
Beyond Remembering – Al Purdy
the collected works of Al Purdy – a legendary canadian poet who died in 2002 – i haven’t actually read this whole book yet. Purdy is my favourite canadian poet, and his works are redolent of the land, culture and politics of bc and the north particularly (although he was born in ontario, he spent much of his life in the west). two of his works that have moved me particularly are “say the names” and “trees at the arctic circle” – which are evocative of the land-base from which they rose. there are also several poems in this collection about purdy’s time in cuba in the early 60s, his chance meeting with che guevara and reflections on hearing castro speak. purdy drank and travelled and chain-smoked – and wrote poetry that reflected travels both sublime and ludicrous. if you like poetry and haven’t read purdy – this is the best collection of his works to date. (by the way – chapters carries almost no canadian poets – i had to go to people’s co-op books to find this in the city)
standing by
new desktop picture – cedar and creek
i am blogging in the break between frenetic activity and the possibility of more activity not yet confirmed.
today was supposed to be the first general strike day of federal workplaces across the country, a date that i and other co-ordinators have been working feverishly toward – talking to people, getting their picketing materials out to them, and just generally *organizing*. i worked out of the union office for two weeks and just came back to work this week to find a mountain of my “real” job waiting for me, but i haven’t touched it much because i have been beseiged by union-related phone calls leading up to the anticipated day.
but yesterday we got a reprieve as the employer (Treasury Board) has called our negotiating teams (for all TB, Parks and CRA employees – 120,000 people in Canada) back to the table and said they have a “revised mandate” – which essentially means they will offer us more money. our guys are flying back out there today and bargaining is to resume tomorrow and go through the weekend. if it doesn’t go in our favour we will be walking picket lines next week – but i am hopeful that the minority government has enough fear in them about the majority of federal employees refusing to work that they will be motivated to settle.
i stayed in town last night at any rate and had drinks with the girls (and a coupla boys) – am a little burnt out and not very eloquent this morning.
Red Cedar 
