Moonlight, for loss and love

Birches in Summer, paper collage, by Baye Hunter
www.bayehunter.com

This week reminds me that my lovely sister-in-law has been gone for almost two years now. It's gone so quickly, and so slowly too.

Here is the song I wrote for her, this time last summer: Moonlight

I hope you give a listen and remember those you've loved. If you've ever wanted to hear me sing (and channel my inner hippie), now's your chance!

Many thanks to my editor, Allister Thompson, who sings with me and added all the other lovely instruments to the track.

Here is Allister's Bandcamp page (he's a wonderful editor and a fantastic musician).

If you'd like to hear the entire album, (with thanks) you can download it free or pay whatever you like: Birches. 

All posts on this BLOG about BIRCHES

The Costumer is Always Right

I've been to a few funerals lately. It's the time of life, I guess (middle-age kind of sucks). This month my family said goodbye to the costume designer in our lives. My sister-in-law, special Aunt to my kids, she was full of life, hilarious, generous, creative, successful. Every year at one regular family event we went go-carting, and she was always a notorious speed demon. She didn't care whose life she endangered, child or adult, or how fast she took the corners. An apt metaphor for her life.

And like the Bad Auntie in the poem below, she always won. Rather than remember her with a lament, I share the sweet children's poem she inspired me to write a few years ago, a tribute to our favourite Bad Aunties, everywhere...

My Bad Auntie

My favourite aunt is very bad!

"The Costumer is Always Right"
A sign that has hung for years in my
sister-in-law's costume shop in Toronto

We creep downstairs so Mom and Dad,

Won’t see us sneak cookies and cake,

Or march the dog around on skates.

We dance the hoola in our socks,

We spin tall glasses and change the clocks.

My auntie likes to startle crows,

And make a mess wherever she goes.

She plays the drums in a rock’n’roll band,

And chases donkeys along the sand,

She’s a go-cart fiend and always wins,

She plays in leaves, and spins (and spins).

My auntie blows bubbles in shapes like cats,

And bowling balls and baseball bats.

When she’s a magician I never know,

How she does it, or where she goes.

My auntie plays the flute sometimes,

And writes me poems (they always rhyme).

She climbs the trees, hangs upside down,

And chases dogs ‘round and ‘round.

We go to plays and symphonies,

And both try hard not to sneeze.

At the county fair she swan dives,

From the tippy-top of the scariest ride!

At the swimming pool, she’s a shark,

And a dinosaur at the park.

When we walk by she always stops,

For rainbow fudge at the ice cream shop.

When she’s tired she cuddles with Ted,

And falls asleep in my bed.

If I asked right then I think she could,

Change for me, from bad … to good!

Here's another POEM about loss on this Blog: PATIENCE

All Poetry on this Blog

Update 2022: my sister-in-law has also inspired a book. Read about FIREFLY on this blog.

The Strange Gift of Gwendolyn Golden is a Middle Shelf pick!

So totally honoured that The Strange Gift of Gwendolyn Golden is a Middle Shelf magazine "Cool Reads for Cool Kids" pick in the January/February 2014 issue.

You'll find the excerpt on p. 23 here

Go and check out some great middle grade reads, and sign up for a free subscription, too.

Many thanks Middle Shelf, can't wait to see what you pick for March 2014!

For loss, a poem in May

Patience

Paris Street, rainy day, 1877: Caillebotte

I dined at last, with

your death today.

It waited at the corner,
I tried to send it away.

Tried hard not to notice
it sidling up,

at the magazine stand,

at the bank, at the hub

of all that I did

on my way.

But there it stood,

patient as rain

looking in when I looked out,

again, again.

It took form in all that

I passed,

the happy, the first,

the indifferent, the last.

Through doors I fled and

sheltered in vain

it found me, endured,

and longed to begin.

It shivered and smiled and groaned
and grinned.

I tired, relenting,

and raised my hand:

Welcome stranger,
from a strange land

Over dinner I sighed,

then invited it in.


PD/May/2013
Paris Street, rainy day: Caillebotte