Volume 23, Number 136, December 2020/January 2021 WINNER OF THE 2020 FICTION - THE ALVIN ENS PRIZE Angels We Have Heard by Alexandra Shea
The morning Baby Jesus went missing from the Christmas creche was the beginning of astonishing changes in the One, True and Apostolic Church, as it was then commonly referred to among the faithful. Word in ecclesiastical circles was that it was Vatican Two that brought it all about, but we the alumnae of the convent school of the Sisters of Divine Bemusement know better. Or at least we know what events on a snowy, post-Christmas morning in a girls’ school in the nation’s capital set the ball rolling.
Volume 23, Number 136, December 2020/January 2021 WINNER OF THE 2020 POETRY - THE MARJORIE MCINTOSH PRIZE - RHYMING An Old Athlete’s Lament by Royden McCoag
Oh, the night was white and snowy,
and the wind a little blowy
When the cops shut down old highway twentyone
But me and Sal and Mort were playing hockey in the Port
So we didn’t know a blizzard had begun.
The year 2019 will forever be remembered by my husband Ted and I as the year both he, and our two cats, slid into the bottom of our empty swimming pool on the very same day - and could not get out!
It was a very chilly Spring morning and our concrete swimming pool had just been re-painted. The beautiful sea-blue paint had now dried, and it looked marvellous and we were looking forward to refilling the pool with water, ready for the hot weather ahead. During the night it had rained a little and at least a foot of water had accumulated in the bottom of the pool.
Volume 23, Number 135, October/November 2020 Moonlight Ride by Harold L. Webber
I rode out in the moonlight, trying to still my troubled mind
Maybe, to forget the terror of the battle, I had left behind
Dad and I had gone around, just like two angry hounds
The hurt that hid deep inside, seemed to have no bounds
I’d only tried to tell him, there may be a better way
But could we ever mend the tears, could I even stay
The ranch had been his home, and his Pa before my time
Mom was gone, just but a year, the loss still on his mind
Volume 23, Number 134, August/September 2020 The Silent Season! by Richard David Briggs
Dedicated to those who are still searching
Jolt awake!
Happy heart flutters!
Smile gratefully at the bright rising sun!
Seventy-seven-year-old-calcified kneecaps bend.
Legs lug me to familiar servant-kitchen.
Cataract fuzzy eyes find hot water kettle.
Fingers fumble to plug it in.
Actually, do hear water boil!
This is the story of courtship between my maternal grandparents, Kuan Long Wing and Otilia Bagsican Gurdiel. Their decision to marry came about because of the most lowly but important footwear - Pantuflas - Spanish for slippers.
My grandfather, Kuan Long Wing,
was born in a small village in
Canton, now Guangzhou, China on
December 6, 1898. Specifically, Ah
Wing, as he was fondly called,
hailed from a farming village in Kai
Ping. This village was located near
the Pearl River, an important port
during the Manchu Dynasty. This
was the dynastic era that saw the
decline of what was once a glorious
China.
As a child, growing up post World War II in outport Newfoundland, I thought I lived in luxury. I was never hungry or cold, I needed no money, I was loved and disciplined fairly. I was excited to get hand-knit socks and mittens and my older sister’s hand-me-downs.
My first new dress came from Simpson’s catalogue when I was 14 years old. I distinctly remember that dress. It was green candy-striped, with a big flared skirt and a belt and I wore it to my first garden party that summer. When I danced the Lancers and the boys swung me round and round, I felt like a princess in a Fairy Tale. One Sunday that summer, I ruined that dress when I teased a squid and it squirted its ink all over it. I knew it had cost my mother more money than we could afford.
If it weren’t for the Second World War, I wouldn’t exist. I was born because a Canadian man went to England to be part of the war effort, and found a lady to love.
My father, who grew up in Stony Mountain, Manitoba, joined the Royal Canadian Air Force and was shipped to England in 1942. My mother, a native of England, served in the WACS (Women’s Auxiliary Corps Service). They met in Southampton, my mother’s hometown, where they started their relationship
Volume 23, Number 132, April/May 2020 I Remember by Victoria Biggs
I remember when the smell
of fresh baked bread filled my head...
my tummy would growl in delight.
Or when you baked sweets and special treats...
how I savoured every bite.
When there was a storm you would keep me warm
and show me the sky so bright...
the thunder would crash... the lightening would flash.
You woke me to show me the sight.
You would point out the skies on the morning sunrise
or the sunset that came before night.
Immediately upon turning onto Rivers Edge Dr., I glanced into the back seat of my car and put down the rear right window like I used to when Mackenzie King was alive. He’d shove his twitching nose out and inhale the scent of getting closer to home with the Grand River flowing next to us as we traveled away from the noise and nose pollution along Highway 86.
Stepping out of the car on that early March evening, I gazed into the moonlit sky and asked him if he was galloping across the galaxies like he did on the snow crusted fields of winter and the freshly plowed corn fields of spring when he’d run so fast his blurred feet appeared to never touch the ground. Before moseying into the house I reminded him,”You can come around anytime.”
