the cassandra pages

A Brief Comment on the Truck Convoy

First of all, I would like my US and international readers to know that the news about the truck convoy protest, as reported in Canada, is quite different than what I have heard is being reported through some other media, notably Fox News.

Second, a large majority of Canadians are appalled by the protesters and the support they have received from outside Canada, particularly the US far right. Many Canadians are baffled as to why it has taken so long for the police to clear the blockades.

The right to protest is enshrined in Canada, and especially in Quebec, where I live. In Montreal, there are protests and demonstrations all the time, and the city and police know how to handle them fairly peacefully. I'm sure that the initial hope was that the truckers would leave peacefully on their own. However, we should all realize that if this were a protest by Indigenous or other minorities/people of color who blocked city streets, transportation routes, or the supply chain for goods, action against them -- including arrests -- would have been much faster. And it is clearly true that, as in the January 6 2021 Capitol insurrection in D.C., some members of the police and military sympathize and identify with these mostly-white, mostly working-class, mostly-male protesters, some of whom were armed and ready for violent confrontation.

We must not close our eyes to this glaring example of inequality and preferential treatment, which is now typical of most nations in the West. And as Canadians, it's crucial that we see it and speak up swiftly against it, as well as condemning hate speech, far-right ideology, and the influence of foreign money in our domestic affairs.

 

Winter Night

Night settles over the park, shadows have rolled themselves up;

the sky, a flat translucence behind cut-out branches

casts a blue light on the snow.

 

In the hedge, little lights glow like forgotten fireflies,

the sparrow-flock has flown, a leaping squirrel

leaves sculpted waves of white along the rail.

 

Now, only furtive shapes move on the white path:

runner, skier, the eager dog

pulling his master further into the black trees.

The Consolation of Snow

My friend Jon Appleton died on Sunday evening at the age of 83.

Yesterday afternoon, a brilliant blue day, we drove to Mont St-Bruno and took a long walk around the Lac Seigneurial; it was the right thing to do. I may write more about this eventually, but for now, I'll let Tomas Tranströmer speak for me. Jon loved Sweden and poetry, and although he also spent a lot of time in warm places, such as California, Hawaii, Tonga, southern France, I always think of him in the north: Vermont, Sweden, Moscow. One of my most vivid memories of him is from a visit to us in Montreal some years ago, when there was an absolutely huge blizzard, one of the heaviest and stormiest I can remember. Being Vermonters at heart, none of us wanted to stay in, so we bundled up and decided to go out and see if we could find a restaurant that was still open. I can still see Jon, wearing his Russian fur hat, cavorting in the snow-filled street and laughing with delight: "This is aMAZing!"

He was a person who lived life as fully as possible, and who for many of his students and friends was -- as this poem says - "a half-open door leading to a room for everyone." Like Tranströmer, Jon suffered a stroke toward the end of his life. It affected his speech, which he gradually recovered, but he wasn't able to continue composing music. During our last visit to him, he showed us the art studio in his retirement complex, where he said he was enjoying doing some painting. And even in the last two weeks he was writing with great pleasure about a new recording being done by Yoshiko Kline of some of his piano works, and working with an editor on the final draft of his autobiography. The creative spark never went out, and the best way I can remember and honor him, and what he gave me, is to try to do the same.

Two poems by Tomas Tranströmer

The Half-Finished Heaven

Despondency breaks off its course.
Anguish breaks off its course.
The vulture breaks off its flight.

The eager light streams out,
even the ghosts take a draught.

And our paintings see daylight,
our red beasts of the ice-age studios.

Everything begins to look around.
We walk in the sun in hundreds.

Each man is a half-open door
leading to a room for everyone.

The endless ground under us.

 

Snow is Falling

The funerals keep coming
more and more of them
like the traffic signs
as we approach a city.

Thousands of people gazing
in the land of long shadows.

A bridge builds itself
slowly
straight out in space.