scribblings
april 9&10
the writing
the weather report advises an umbrella: raining frogs, again
~
He waited as the sun went down, as the temperature dropped, as the town behind him went quiet and dark, for the devil to pass through Blind Man’s Gate. He waited with a crossbow in hand, to either make a deal or kill a demon dead. He waited knowing his soul was already doomed, so what did he have to lose?
~
she speaks in forests seedlings caught between her teeth forever thirsty
~
She stood before the grave as the clocks struck the witching hour. Surrounded by a salt circle, she began to sing. And the bones buried there began to stir, and the skull coughed out what was left of its soul, rising from the dirt to join in the chorus. Any question she sung, the spirit would answer.
~
an overgrown heart thorned stems & blood-red petals her garden, ransacked
the reading
Poem: “Tulips” by Kevin Young (from “Darkling, Part 2: Werewolf Hill” in Night Watch)
“What the dead want— shelter—opposable thumbs—to quit being compared to taxes, as if they can be evaded. Each April sadly, sadly wiser, & alone they push up like tulips from the earth, perennial as pain. Trouble me again.”
Essay: “Intolerable Beauty” by Mark Kingwell (from Best Canadian Essays 2026)
“Do not assume you know what you are looking at, or what it means. Do not look to the image for moral guidance, but do not condemn it either for its supposed malignant effects. Forbear from final judgment. All that happens, happens in our own open minds. Do not deplore your own eyes when it is you who wants to look.”
