Uniquely Me

I am
a confusion of cultures;
uniquely me.
I think this is good
because I can
understand
the traveller, sojourner, foreigner;
the homesickness 
that comes.
I think it is also bad
because I cannot
be understood
by the person who has sown and grown in one place.
They know not
the real meaning of homesickness
that hits me
now and then.
Sometimes I despair of 
understanding them.
I am
an island
and
a United Nations.
Who can recognize either in me
but God?

Alex Graham James


classification:  social commentary

Something Told the Wild Geese

"I looked back and shed a tear,

To see it in the rear view mirror.

I said I'd just be gone a couple months,

And now it's more than 30 years."      From   Hymn of the Exiles

Something told the wild geese
it was time to go,
Though the fields lay golden
Something whispered, "snow."


Leaves were green and stirring,
Berries, luster-glossed,
But beneath warm feathers
Something cautioned "frost."


All the sagging orchards
Steamed with amber spices,
But each wild breast stiffened
At remembered ice.


Something told the wild geese
It was time to fly,
Summer sun was on their wings,
Winter in their cry.

Rachel Field
classification:  The Good Earth

It's been more than 30 years since I lived where I could hear the Canada Geese migrate.
In Virginia, I sleep with the window open above my bed, snuggled under the quilts
and I hear the geese honking as they fly overhead.  I'd forgotten what a pleasure it was to hear them.

A Moment's Indulgence

A poem for Kris

I ask for a moment’s indulgence to sit by thy side.

The works that I have in hand I will finish afterwards.

Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest nor respite.

And my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil.

Today the summer has come at my window with its sighs and murmurs;

And the bees are plying their minstrelsy at the court of the flowering grove.

Now it is time to sit quiet, face to face with thee,

And to sing dedication of life in this silent and overflowing leisure.

Rabindranath Tagore    1861- 1941, Calcutta India

classification:  home and family

This Was My Brother at Dieppe

"Don't worry men, it will be a piece of cake!"  Canadian Maj-General "Ham" Roberts, briefing his officers on the night before the Dieppe Raid.

This was my brother
At Dieppe,
Quietly a hero
Who gave his life
Like a gift
Withholding nothing.


His youth...his love...
His enjoyment of being alive...

His future, like a book,
With half the pages still uncut.

This was my brother
At Dieppe,
The one who built me a doll house
When I was seven.
complete to the last small picture frame.
Nothing forgotten.

He was awfully good at fixing things,
And stepping into the breach when he was needed.

And that's what he did at Dieppe;
He was needed.
And even Death must have been a little shamed
At his eagerness.

By Mona Gould
written after her brother's death at Dieppe 1943


Headlines from Toronto Daily Star "Dieppe Raid "Spine Chilling"   "Dieppe Raid "Model of Skill" "Grand show, you Canadians!" "Until more information becomes available, there is every reason to believe this is a noble occasion, a day of high honour"  H Rooney Pelletier CBC Radio London.
Headlines and Quotes from CBC Digital Archives.

After 3 years of waiting and training in Britain, 5,000 Canadian troops joined British troops and were sent to the French Coast at Dieppe, August 19, 1942.  (Operation Jubilee, The First Dieppe Raid) The Germans were ready for them and the attack became a massacre.  3,000 Canadians were killed or taken prisoner and another 907 died later from their wounds.  To this day opinion remains bitterly divided.  Was it an essential "trial run" for D-Day or a shocking waste of life?

Maj-General Roberts became the official scapegoat and never commanded troops in the field again.

This I Believe

I really believe that every man on this earth is my brother.  He has a soul like mine, the ability to understand friendship, the capacity to create beauty.  In all the continents of this world I have met such men.  In the most savage jungles on New Guinea I have met my brother, and in Tokyo I have seen him clearly walking before me.

In my brother's house I have lived without fear.  Once in the wildest part of Guadalcanal I had to spend some days with men who still lived and thought in the old Stone Age, but we got along together fine, and I was to see those men in a space of only four weeks ripped from their jungle hideaways and brought down to the airstrips, where some of them learned to drive the ten-ton trucks which carried gasoline to our bombing planes.

I believe it was only fortunate experience that enabled me to travel among my brothers and to live with them.  Therefore I do not believe it is my duty to preach to other people and insist that they also accept all men as their true and immediate brothers.  These things come slow.  Sometimes it takes lucky breaks to open our eyes.  I had to learn gradually, as I believe the world will one day learn.

To my home in Pennsylvania come brown men and yellow men and black men from around the world.  In their countries I lived and ate with them..  In my country they shall live and eat with me.  Until the day I die my home must be free to receive these travellers, and it never seems so big a home or so much a place of love as when some man from India or Mexico or Tahiti or Fiji shares it with me.  For on those happy days it reminds me of the wonderful affection I have known throughout the world.

I believe that all men are my brothers.  I know it when I see them sharing my home.

James Michener  July 1954