Twenty-fourth May, Two Thousand Sixteen
tin angel troubadour ages
intrepid bar-stool bard weakens
tambourine tackle
dolefully
downcast
this the news
twenty-fourth may, two thousand sixteen
**
Bleary-eyed, I took my work station this morning, booted
up my PC, logged into my email, and then promptly tuned into Tom Power on CBC
Radio 2. It’s my morning ritual. No deviating unless I’ve got something to pop
in the toaster or I need to set the kettle to boil for tea. It was a few
minutes before 7am, the news was on when I heard in two separate breaths, today
was Bob Dylan’s 75th birthday (I smiled as I put myself to work) and
Gord Downie had brain cancer (I stopped smiling). It took a second for me to absorb what had
just blasted me through my rutty speakers. I burst into tears and sent a text
to my best bud, in shock, in horror, gut-wrenching heartsickness spreading all
through me. It has lasted all day. It will last forever. My poet love, my
literary comrade, my rock ‘n’ roll sweetheart: brain cancer. Incurable.
Unbelievable.
The Hip are set to tour this summer, for Gord, for
themselves, for us. It was hard to keep the tears in listening to their music
peppered through Power’s show this morning, a show is going to be both
extremely joyful and painful all at once; knowing it will likely be the very
last time any of us will encounter he and his microphone.
A beautiful mind is being taken from us. Not today, not
tomorrow, not even next month: but when they say incurable, well … it is an
injustice to the world. I can’t understand in these instances, what kind of God
robs the world of a person who delights with their talents and doesn’t steal
the evil-doers.
It is difficult to imagine a world without him in it and
for now we don’t have to. We give him our love, our prayers, our courage, our
voices. For as long as we are able.
Courage, for Gord.
In propinquity,
Nic
