Coming home from Vancouver on the bus I was happy to spot, in among the ads for everything from real estate to debt relief, this poem by Michelle Brown. 

It's part of a long-running series called Poetry in Transit, a program whose name I am sure must have been inspired by a song from long ago, "Poetry in Motion". Oddly, Johnny Tillotson, the singer who popularized that tune, died at the beginning of this month--the month when we in Canada celebrate National Poetry Month. 

I was doubly glad to have found this particular poem on 'my' bus, as the

book it's from Swans, a book 
that's currently on my reading table, a nice way to close off this year's National Poetry Month celebrations. 

Celebrating the Earth

The miracles that nature delivers continue to amaze me, though you'd think after so many years on earth, I'd be getting accustomed to them. 

Still, looking at the photo above, it's hard to imagine that at least some of those flowers will sometime in August be ready-to-eat peaches. 

But miracles aside, it seems odd (a polite term) that today should be the day when our own "Mr Drill Baby Drill" should finally be releasing details of his party's platform, one that will no doubt include plans for more pipelines, more reliance on fossil fuels, more pretending that climate change isn't a critical issue. Am I the only one to notice the irony of these announcements on Earth Day? 

As I'm finding my own ways to observe this year's Earth Day, I'm happy to think of it as an event we should be celebrating every day!

Low-rent accommodation

Once again, the birds have taken up house in one of the lanterns that hang outside. Luckily, there wasn't a candle in there, or there wouldn't have been room for the three little eggs currently inside. 

Other years, they've gone to a different lantern, one that allowed them to see outside, even though they were quite protected, nearly invisible while inside. 

It will be quite a trick to get the nestlings to perch up on the rim of their 'house' when it's time for them to learn to fly. It's something they always seem to manage though. We'll keep watching. 

And if only it were that easy for people to find themselves with such a thing as low-rent accommodation. 

A different sort of celebration

According to T.S. Eliot, April is the cruelest month, but that's not a sentiment I share. 

As someone who loves poetry, I'd have to counter by saying that April is the coolest month, as that's when we celebrate National Poetry Month in Canada. 

One of my plans for this month is to give away a book of poetry every day in April. For one thing, it's a good way to cull my (admittedly too large) collection of these books. After all, two bookcases full probably means more books of poems than I will be able to reread in the remainder of my life. 

I did something along similar lines back in 2011 when we travelled across the continent of North America. Considering that most of that trip was through the US, I'm sorry to say we won't be repeating that journey this year (and I guess not until 2028). Like so many other Canadians, in conscience we're just not able to cross the border for now. 

The League of Canadian Poets has selected Family as this year's theme, and that's a word that means different things to many of us: blended family, adoptive family, nuclear family, extended family. Or, to interpret it the way that makes the most sense to me: chosen family, those people we hold dear as friends, a new kind of family, chosen at that. 

The books at the top of this page each offer a very different take on contemporary poetry. For more suggestions click here to see a list compiled by the brainy folks at The Tyee.