Eyewear is very glad to celebrate Canada Day in London. Apparently, there will be hockey and rock and roll music in Trafalgar Square all day. Blue Rodeo, who I first saw at the McGill Ballroom a quarter-century ago, take the stage at half-nine tonight. Meanwhile, the young newly-wed Royals are in Canada itself - that brash young nation, filled with natural resources (not least of which are its rugged optimistic and fair-minded people). Storm clouds hover over the Rockies, though, and peril not even the Mounties can arrest lurks, in the news that the CBC mandate is up for review, and that venerable corporation, Canada's BBC, may be slashed ruthlessly by Conservatives, twirling their mustachios.
A poem for my mother, July 15 When she was dying And I was in a different country I dreamt I was there with her Flying over the ocean very quickly, And arriving in the room like a dream And I was a dream, but the meaning was more Than a dream has – it was a moving over time And land, over water, to get love across Fast enough, to be there, before she died, To lean over the small, huddled figure, In the dark, and without bothering her Even with apologies, and be a kiss in the air, A dream of a kiss, or even less, the thought of one, And when I woke, none of this had happened, She was still far distant, and we had not spoken.

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