Christopher Bernard is an award-winning poet and novelist. He is the author of two children’s books, If You Ride A Crooked Trolley . . . and The Judgment Of Biestia – the first in the “Otherwise” series.
Haibun Highway
[This is an excerpt of a travel journal I wrote in 2017 while walking 160 kilometres (100 miles) from Vancouver, BC, up the Sunshine Coast in the Northwest Pacific, to visit my friends Haedy and Ed in Powell River, BC. I mostly stayed with friends along the way. Using the haibun form (known most famously through Basho’s Narrow Road To The Interior) each day has a description of the writing, followed by a haiku, as well as a haibun with impressions during the rest times.]
September 6
I walk for 14,000 metres along the highway, along the highway, along the highway, past a sign that reads Smugglers Cove, until I reach Secret Cove. There’s a change in plan and I stay at Elizabeth’s, who lives right on the beach.
lizzy’s couch:
i dream to the water drum
all night long
the ocean’s waters gurgle gently against big rocks, lying there like sleeping hippopotamuses from the river nile. so much more water than land! the islands, the rocks, the coast are all here at the sufferance of water. it all exists surrounded by what we call air, suffused today as in the last days by the smoke created by the wildfires.
water, earth, air, fire. water. the water people can be felt – seen? – everywhere. watermen and waterwomen, and watercreatures i can never understand, not equipped to grasp. i see a watercreature hailing a seagull and know that somewhere near, humpback whales are on the move. the sleeping hippopotamuses allow me to sense not only the nile but also the great okanagan lake, creeks in kamloops, the mighty fraser in its canyon. the waternet is everywhere.
i am of land and water. we’re all of land and water.
transfixed
is sit in this
fairytale puddle
September 7
13,000 metres today, from Secret Cove to Madeira Park. I am taken by signs on the roadside: an announcement of “Visitors Info – 400m” leading to a row of ten or so billboards arranged in a quarter circle; a barn advertising it’s a mink farm, right beside an old “Drink Coca Cola” sign; donut circles screeched into the road with smoking tires. Mario greets me and takes me to his home on the hill.
highway full of curves
wouldn’t wanna walk this way
drunk and in the rain
tonight i sleep in a library. all the books are bound in hardcover, some standing neatly side by side in series – agatha christie, for example, or jane austen. photographs of lovers, mothers, long-dead dogs look down on me. videos beside a tv, respectfully stacked. a dog pillow lies on the ground. of sounds i notice hardly any, none from the outside on this quiet wooded hill, only a few from inside the house. before i fall asleep i read a little in a book called sointula island utopia, full of names like linnoila, kurikka and honkala.
the scent of books
how can i not
have a magical night?
September 8
This is my last full day on the Southern part of the Sunshine Coast. I walk 16,100 metres along a highway with less and less traffic, towards Ruby Lake. A woman stops beside me on the opposite side of the road.
“I’ve seen you on the highway before. Where are you going?”
“I’m walking from Vancouver to Powell River.”
“Where are you heading today?”
“To the Iris Griffith Center.”
It turns out she works there but the center is closed today. Very generously, she decides to let me in anyway – “I’ll just put the key under the mat.” Her friendliness bowls me over.
trees, rocks, blackberries …
joy bubbles from my heart
as i walk
And another night at Elizabeth’s. We have a hoot!
at the iris griffith centre. i have benefitted from so much generosity. sitting here in this beautiful space, i feel it everywhere. the generosity of air and soil, so much unfathomable abundance. the generosity of these strong tree trunks that hold up the roof. the generosity of billions of cells that grew the ten-point antler of the deer skull on the wall. the generosity of the cookies and tea on the table beside me. the generosity of the woman who gave me the key to the centre, just like that, without knowing me. i am grateful. and wish i could be feel the gratitude even deeper, right in my blood, to honour the generosity that has been thrown my way, a tidal wave, a sandstorm of generosity.
can’t repay
all the wealth tossed at me –
not meant to
September 9
It rains. I walk to the ferry and it rains. I dry out, just a little, on the ferry, and it rains. I walk from the ferry, and it rains. For 10,200 long metres I get very wet, then suddenly Haedy and Ed show up. I am confused; I was not planning to see them until I arrived at their doorstep, a good 30,000 metres from here. I am wet. It rains. I get into their car. It rains. Disappointment over not walking today’s allotted stretch, gratitude, and confusion tumble about in my head. Haedy and Ed drive me to the B&B I had arranged for the night and the day after, a day of rest. The place is stunning and luxurious.
wet rat
tumbling through the landscape
the cackle of a crow
turn on the water in the shiny sink. add shampoo, the next best thing if there is no laundry detergent. dunk the socks – the socks must go first, they are the dirtiest. their former white is grey and black in most places although clean spots shine through like the clouds behind a sudden gap between trees.
turn the water off. we finally, finally had rain today but there will be no reason for a long time to waste water. add underwear, bra, t-shirt. squeeze it all a bit and let it soak. check the rain-drenched jacket – is it drying? look at the alice munro book. i like the really short stories and the really long ones. “wild swans,” – yes, i’ll read that one.
return to the sink. the socks need soap – what do we have here today? lavender. the time for lavender bloom is over; we’re heading into autumn. as am i. this 62-year-old remembers washing laundry by hand as a given, not something done with tender nostalgia about archaic times.
the owner of this luxurious place has cushion covers embroidered with the same colours and deer motif as my grandmother’s. embroidered by hand.
and suddenly
summer’s over
… one squishy step at a time …
September 10
Stillwater Creek B&B
A Day of Rest
i wake up at the earliest dawn, sensing it’s not completely dark anymore. first i hear nothing but quiet. the tide has gone out. then crickets. when a few moments later the seagulls start their screech, i know night is over. out of the dark gray-blue, a growl. it seems to come from the porch or … no, not the porch. farther down, by the water. then another growl and a whole chorus. this is not what bears sound like. bears are forest animals, quiet, they don’t talk like drunks in a pub. and then i understand – sea lions! they growl and bellow and gurgle, throaty voices unmistakably carried by their large blubber bodies.
then – a swooshing and rushing from the same area where i believe the sea lions to be – no, farther away.
a night of sensing but not knowing the sounds. not fully awake, i think of hurricanes, and i’m a little afraid. the rushing gets louder and nearer, not fast like a plane but moving inexorably, directly, without obstruction, to this beautiful house.
sea lions –
amid the surround sound of rain
a canticle of growls
Vollmann’s Poor People slightly altered
Soot covered woman of the burned land, Madagascar
Homeless camp under the freeway, Miami
People and streetscapes, Riverton, Oregon
Office cleaning lady just off work with Colonel Sanders
(life-sized statue) Bangkok
“I think they are poor” venerable white-haired man begging,
Beijing
Congolese beggar boy, dressed in filthy rags
Unknown street sleepers
Man in rubble of destroyed home
Man with photo and deed to his destroyed home
Garbage lady, Nanking
Panorama of box houses, Tokyo
Beggar in full body burqa like an angel of death, Yemen
Streetwalker in burqa approaching a rickshaw, Peshawar
Homeless man reading a newspaper in park, Tokyo
Three drunks, Nome, Alaska
Beggar girl with deformed nose
Beggar pretending to be armless, Bangkok
Family in front of their bullet pocked house, Congo
Snarling beggar, Bogotá
Man with crooked face, Bogota
“Donate here to get me out of your neighborhood” placard,
Oregon
Afghan boys playing in wrecked Soviet plane, Afghanistan
Afternoon on Ave de la Mort, Brazzaville
Operation Crossroads 1948: Bikinis, a journal, extractedAs culled from the journals of forward observer
Of Bikini Island tests, Dr. David Bradley, in
his book , NO PLACE TO HIDE
“In the three years of the “atomic age,” five bombs
(or is it six?) have been exploded. On only these last
two or three have men been prepared to study and
record the findings under anything like controlled
conditions.”
“This morning the surface (of the ocean) was
scattered over with tiny floating jellyfish, or baby
men-o-wars. Delicate, diaphanous creatures, they
look like blown cherry blossoms on a windy lawn
of the Pacific.”
“By the nature of our work almost everything we know
is potentially dangerous.”
“Actually, of course, there will never be any great control
of ideas concerned with atomic energy, the principles
have already spread like an epidemic.”
“Lectures on physics have given way to the practical
business of the detection of radioactivity.”
“It will be difficult to convince people of the dangers
of radiation.”
“The persistent power of the bomb after it has exploded is
its greatest menace.”
“They(the old and wise) doze a moment in the sun and
wake up on fire.”
Sante’s Evidence
“Traces of innumerable human beings lost to history
once and for all, without monuments or descendants
or living record.”
“A copy of a Black Hand threat letter, decorated with
obscene drawings.”
“An enigmatic set of shots, from various angels of
a man’s right hand with two thumbs.”
“Magnified views of pieces of jewelry and barely
decipherable snapshots.”
“Studies of urinals at different (police) station houses.”
“Locations: bedrooms, bars, back alleys, vacant lots,
storerooms, hovels hallways”
“You do not have to be glamorous to meet a violent end.”
“Objects of interest, at least momentarily, taken together,
they become stills from a film, a nightmare, ride from room
to room in the small hours.”
“These subjects are constantly in the process towards
obliteration.”
“These photographs-as evidence, they are mere artless
records, concerned with the details…they are the book-
keeping entries, with no transfiguring mission, and serve
death.”
“We are breaking a taboo as old as the practice of shutting
the eyes of cadavers and weighing down their lids.”
“Photography like death, interrupts life.”
“The more empty the photograph, the more it will imply
horror.”
“Empty photographs have no reason to be except to show
that which cannot be shown.”
“Evidence is a magnet for the random.”
“You do not have to be glamorous to meet a violent end.”
Julia Solis’ New York Underground: the Anatomy of a City,
in text and photographs with occasional commentary
Inside the Croton Aqueduct (like The Thing from Outer Space)
Roots (like veins) inside the long-abandoned Croton Aqueduct
Rebuilding the foundation of 7 World Trade Center
A manhole cover leading to a branch of Croton Aqueduct (like
a portal to the outer circles of hell)
Sealed water pipes to a branch of Ridgewood Reservoir
with graffiti, Brooklyn
The gate chamber on the Bronx side of High Bridge (with
standing water and garbage)
Inside a storm drain Queens
Ghost Stations:
City Hall station abandoned retaining some of its former glory
Abandoned 91st street station with elaborate graffiti
Sealed staircase lower-level City Hall station
Remnant of obsolete trolley station Essex and Delancy
Long abandoned Croton Aqueduct well on its way to being
reclaimed by nature
Virginal track segment, never used
Ghostly staircase eastern end of Lexington Ave. station
Ground Zero October 2001
Long after last transport, a gurney in a tunnel, Seaview Hospital
Mattresses piled in deteriorating heaps in basement of a mental
hospital
Obsolete freight track, Hell’s Kitchen
Long forgotten abandoned burial crypts
The central aisle of the crypt of St. Patrick’s cathedral
A Plague of Souls: Contemporary (Mostly) Japanese Noir
Devotion of Suspect X
Tokyo Nights
Hotel Lucky Seven
Sleeping Dragon
All She Was Worth
In the Miso Soup
Coin Locker Baby
The Devil’s Flute
Slow Fuse
Three Assassins
Bullet Train
Crossfire
Grotesque
Real World
Out
Winter Sleep
Almost Transparent Blue
The Memory Police
Village of Eight Graves
Freud
On Aphasia
Interpretation of Dreams
Secret Memories
The Future of Illusion
The Ego and the ID
Jokes and Their Relationship to the Unconscious
The Psychology of Everyday Life
“Civilized” Sexual Morality and Modern Illness
The Most Prevalent Form of Degradation of Erotic Life
Mourning and Melancholy Civilization and Its Discontents
Beyond the Pleasure Principle
Medusa’s Head
Totem and Taboo: Resemblances between the psychic lives
of savages and neurotics
Reflections on War and Death
A Case of Paranoia Running Counter to the Psychic Analytic
theory of disease
Case Studies: Dora
Little Hans
Rat Man
Wolfman
Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious
Brutal (Soviet) Bloc Post Cards“Ideas are more powerful than guns.
We would not let our enemies have
guns, why should we let them have ideas?
Joseph Stalin
Monument to Builders of the Volga Power Station 1967
Worker and Collective Farm Women (statues) circa 1960’s
(Literal) Flower of Life (concrete sculpture) 1968
Monument to the Conquerors of Near Universe 1988
Monument to the Conquerors of Space (glass ellipse) 1964
A Special Sign at the entrance to the city, Brest,
(indescribable) 1987
Memory of Military Glory, Moldavia 1983
Karl Marx Monument, Tashkent, 1980 (Flyaway concrete hair)
Kulpenberg TV Tower (“beehive” on concrete tower)
Avala TV Tower, Belgrade (pointed as a needle)
Slovak Tower Building, Bratislava 1983 (inverted pyramid)
Brotherly Mound, Hillock of Fraternity Memorial Complex,
Bulgaria 1980
Museum of the revolution, Lithuania SSR 1980
Obelisk of Glory, Modavic, 1972
Concrete arch known as Andropov’s Ears, Tbilisi, Georgia 1983
Museum to the Defenders of the Caucasian Mountain Passes,
1983 (Concrete henges rising)
Monuments to the heroic Sailors of the Black Sea, 1971
All-Terrain Vehicle Monument to the Pioneers 1987
Broken Ring Monument, Lake Lagoda, 1966
Monument to the Communists Who Died in September
1923 Uprising, Bulgaria
Alyosha Monument to the Defenders of the Soviet Arctic,
Murmansk, 1986
Armenian Genocide Memorial Cemetery Complex 1967
The Sash of Glory, Odessa 1975 (glorious silhouette carved
From concrete)
The Constinesti Obelisk-Constinesti Beach, 1970 (White
Polished marblesque, whatever on the beach front)
Star Monument Kharkiv, Ukraine 1975
Monument to the executed partisans, Yugoslavia
Arch of Diversity, monument dedicated to the unification
Of the USSR and Ukraine 1982
From Bad to Worse
He remembers
When they
Were about to
Get married
And he remembers
His soon-to-be
Mother-in-law
Sharing that
She wasn’t sure
That she’d
Be able
To attend
The wedding
And he remembers
Learning that his
Soon-to-be
Brother-in-law
Would not
Be attending,
At that point
He knew
Quite a bit
And wasn’t surprised
By this behavior,
Things would only
Get worse
From there.
Taylor Dibbert is a writer, journalist, and poet in Washington, DC. “Rescue Dog,” his fifth book, was published in May.
“Clear a path,” cried Stacy, spreading wide her arms. “Here comes Shamu!” As if by magic, the students in the grade school corridor parted like the Red Sea. Lori, the object of this derision, gritted her teeth and said nothing. She walked past the taunting students, wincing in shame at each smirking face. Some of the children hooted or made other ugly animal sounds.
“Be careful what you say to Shamu,” cautioned Stacy. “She might morph into Carrie!” The girls giggled, and the boys guffawed. Lori passed out of their sight. Stacy smiled contentedly.
ii
“Students,” said Ms. Black, the fifth grade teacher, “today we’re going to get your vital statistics.” The children stared back at her blankly, perplexed.
“I mean,” Ms. Black went on, “that I’m going to measure your height and get your weight.” Lori had a sinking feeling. First, the teacher measured their heights, and that went off without incident, but then came the weighing. The children lined up before the physician’s scales, each taking their turn to step onto the platform while Ms. Black balanced the weights. At length, last in line, Lori stepped on the scale and Stacy didn’t remain idle.
“Hey, Shamu, don’t break the scale,” she barked. Several children chuckled. Lori felt her cheeks burn.
“That’s not polite, Stacy,” scolded Ms. Black. “I mean, how would you like it if…?”
“If I were fat?” Stacy finished the teacher’s sentence.
“Now, that’s enough, students!” Ms. Black spread the guilt over the entire class, inasmuch as Stacy Shelton was the daughter of Bruce Shelton, the superintendent of schools. That made him Ms. Black’s boss. He was known to dote on his daughter. None of the teachers were eager to get her in their class.
As Black maneuvered the weights on the scale, Stacy remarked, “They’ve got a special scale down at the stockyards.” The children erupted in gales of laughter. Even Ms. Black, in spite of herself, chuckled into her fist, then tried to hide it. Lori felt her betrayal keenly.
iii
At noon, the children scattered for lunch. Although it was a closed campus, Lori ran home, tears of humiliation streaking her eyes. When she arrived, she crept silently through the house and into her father’s den, where she found the gun cabinet, unlocked as usual. Lifting out a heavy, ugly black pistol, she then rummaged through the ammo drawer and extracted a box of bullets she knew would fit the handgun. Her father had instructed her on how to handle firearms safely.
Arriving back in class before the lunchroom let out, Lori sat silently in her seat in the back of the classroom. Students were assigned their seats alphabetically, and Lori felt lucky to be situated in the rear, where she’d garner less notice. Stacy’s keen eye and needling voice always seemed to find her, however. The gun sat hidden under the folds of Lori’s billowing dress.
iv
Finally, students began filing back into the classroom. Stacy, as per usual, was last to enter, making a spectacular entrance, of course, arriving as if onto a stage. The other girls giggled in appreciation. No one dared cross the girl. Lori frowned darkly. She hated that girl! When class commenced, Ms. Black instructed the students in social studies until two o’clock, at which time the children exited the school for the final recess. Lori remained in her seat, the gun cold against her thigh. When class reconvened, Ms. Black told the students there would be a test of their ability to write creative fiction. Pencils were turned up, and blank sheets of paper were passed out. Lori bent to her work, and SNAP! Her pencil broke cleanly in two; she had been pressing on it so hard, in frustration, that she ruined it. That was Lori’s last pencil. She looked up; the teacher had left the room, probably to take another smoke. Everyone else was busily scribbling on their own sheets; besides, no one would help the fat kid. Lori sighed. Then she thought: maybe this is the time to make her move. What did she have to lose?”
Stacy, observing what had transpired with Lori, turned to the girl and said, “Wanna borrow a pencil?” At first, Lori expected her to snatch the pencil out of her reach and taunt her some more. But no. Stacy was serious, and Lori accepted the small token of kindness.
“Thanks,” murmured Lori.
“Sure,” acknowledged the other girl, at last taking pity on her nemesis.
v
By the time Ms. Black collected the papers, the final bell rang, indicating it was time to leave for the day. Soon the classroom was deserted, except for the teacher. Ms. Black rifled through the thirty completed essays and began correcting and grading them. When she came to the last essay, her mouth fell open in surprise. She sat up straight in her chair and murmured, “Oh, my God!”
Here’s what the final essay said:
I almost killed a girl today. She made fun of me one time too many, and I had a gun, and I was going to shoot her dead. My dad taught me how to shoot, and I’m a good shot. But she let me use her pencil when mine broke, so for now she gets to live. This is, naturally, only make-believe fiction, as Ms. Black said.
Fadwa Attia from Egypt wonders, do the arts now in all fields need identity?
Yes, it is the difficult equation from ancient times to the present time. We need identity with its features.
These features were formed by different cultures, which It started from the ancient civilizations of the ancient Egyptians. Until we reach the present time, all of this, as I said in my previous articles, made identity formed from ideas and culture, so it became a cultural reference.
The identity thesis became important in theatre, cinema, fine art, and others.
But after I presented solutions to preserve identity, which is one of the basics of heritage, cultural heritage and other things, we need a lot to know the importance of our identity that we have missed, and to continue our dialogue.
About the solutions necessary to preserve identity, after training cadres and developing systematic plans for the coming years through strategic planning by specialists and researchers in these various fields, various seminars to introduce identity, in general.
Then, there is a taste of identity from the receiving audience, whether it is trainees from the cadres who carry out strategic planning.
As well as the public that we educate through cultural and artistic seminars, producing short and documentary films about identity.
As well as holding conferences from which it issues,
Books and exhibitions calling for the preservation of identity, its elements and features.
Also, the media coordinates with him through the responsible state’s channels through various programmes.
Which demands the preservation of identity, its history and culture.
Through the Internet and also through satellite channels and television programmes.
This makes the preservation of identity continuous and never-ending.
Which brings us to one truth: Identity is a homeland that we cannot do without. My identity is from within my homeland, from within the cultural and artistic heritage. From within our features, our art, and our heritage are like an inexhaustible river. We need a lot and a lot so that our identity from which our art emerges is not lost, and so that there is not a crisis in the loss of our identity. We are peoples with civilizations that have roots. We cannot dispense with our civilizations and our history. We need to support ourselves by preserving identity by all possible means.
Therefore, we continue our simple, enjoyable dialogue about identity through true, sincere art, and we have a new dialogue that we will continue in new articles later, with you with love and respect from our beloved Egypt.
My Lifelong Lover
I have waited for you so much, my beloved, and I have hope that your love will be like the sea whose waves do not calm down. Your love has become the focus of my life. Do you feel me or not? Your distance has increased a lot, and my days have become lost to me and I have become no longer the one who loved you.
Come back, beloved of my life, to my warm heart with your love. Come back. You will find me waiting for you, wandering in love during your days, and getting lost with you in the moments of my life, my lifelong lover.
There is the sky and the clouds, a long and straight passageway below, beside a hill. It’s dark and shaded but not so much that one can’t see. Wind visits and makes the branches to sway back and forth. Previous storms have strewn leaves and branches around on the earth. Back and back, far and far, the largest mushroom waits untouched and unknown on a broken tree surrounded by reeds tall and then still. Just outside the trees is the open place, and on the feral summer growths are butterflies, spiders, and dragonflies. There are ants and grasshoppers. Blooms yellow, blue, and the open air is cleansing, refreshing. A pastoral scene. What is beyond the end of that place, where there is no passageway and the trees, the shrubs and chaparral become too thick? What would William Golding or Joseph Conrad think of that place? In the winter the snow is like infinite tiny crystals or other-worldly grains of sands. Agate, chaga, a large snake looks at me. Kundalini symbol and sign. I pause and it goes away at which point I look to the sky. I want to understand the clouds. I vaguely remember dreams of the night where I was in the desert and walked to a city at night with metropolitan lights and infrastructure and populace. But I wanted to go back to the desert. I couldn’t remember the rest. Something runs in the tall grasses. Fast. Determined. Magical. I see clover, bee, ladybug. Whitman wrote, -You road I enter and look around, I believe you are not all that is here, I believe much unseen is also here.- Whitman only travelled far and far once, to Canada, to visit his friend a doctor interested in consciousness. I breathe as deeply as possible. I’d say there is a bird but there is no bird then. But the clouds are enough. They are something, colloquially speaking…they are really something then beautifully bloated, numerous, each a little different and content in their difference. The clouds are confident then.
