ooh, the french continues! i`m so busy though. i`m searching the internet, doing a bit of research for a presentation. i came across a poem i like, which resonates with me today, somehow. it`s just damn hot outside, and the winter was so cold, maybe that`s it. y`know, having grown up in vancouver, where the weather is mild all year round, where we don`t have these insane extremes. i was shocked by the extremes i experienced in montreal this year, seriously. shocked. as well, we`ve been reviewing all things weather in french class and learning a few new expressions. one can never know too many words in foreign languages that can be used to talk about the weather. these words are value-added, i tell you, value added! anyway, poem:

THE WEATHER

I'd like to live a slower life.
The weather gets in my words
and I want them dry. Line after line
writes itself on my face, not a grace
of age but wrinkled humour. I laugh
more than I should or more
than anyone should. This is good.

But guess again. Everyone leans, each
on each other. This is a life
without an image. But only
because nothing does much more
than just resemble. Do the shamans
do what they say they do, dancing?
This is epistemology.

This is guesswork, this is love,
this is giving up gorgeousness to please you,
you beautiful dead to be. God bless
the weather and the words. Any words. Any weather.
And where or whom. I'd never taken count before.
I wish I had. And then
I did. And here
the weather wrote again.

John Newlove