Today,
two majestic Japanese maple trees
side by side for long life
full with deep red leaves
adorning the garden
spread over the entryway
to the Rosaria Student Centre

It seems like no surprise
when Nanny Mo
passed away that year
that our own Japanese maple
the centerpiece of the garden
died that same spring

And I hear the echoes
of the lama teachers words that
if I thought about interdependence
I would see
in this very piece of paper
my own grandmothers face

Lorraine Munro's Garden

 

This is the way I plant my garden,
Digging, digging in the ground
The sun shines warm and bright above it
Gently the rain comes falling down.
This is the way the small seeds open
Slowly the shoots begin to grow
These are my pretty garden flowers
Standing, standing in a row

–Unknown author

Home of the Munro Family of PEI, Whim Road, 1977. We are not
sure of the date the house was built, but during recent renovations, Sandy Munro found a piece of old newspaper dated 1875. So it is presumed the house predates that.

 

This view of Muskrat Falls is looking easterly from the south side of Churchill River, September 2010

Muskrat Falls, Labrador, Taken from a helicopter in1984

The Northern Ranger, Goose Bay

Alex With Fish

Last summer he was six years old and Alex, on holiday in Newfoundland from Nova Scotia, wanted to go camping. Not just camping, but “real camping”.

I assumed I knew what real camping was but I didn’t. I thought he meant sleeping out in a tent, so I took him up to my brother’s cabin at Terra Nova Lake. It was perfect. There was a nice patch of grass out front where we could set up the tent. If it rained a lot or got cold, or we got scared, we could just go inside.

In the tent, we lay down a nice sponge mattress, spread out the sleeping bags and had everything ready for the night. It was still afternoon and of course we had to go fishing. Alex had never caught a fish. We had tried a few times last year when he was only 5 years old, but didn’t have any luck. I knew I had to deliver the goods, or more exactly the fish, this year.

that hot afternoon
a small group of us
left the river swimming spot,
the pier with the plank diving board,
hiked past the boom sticks
and scaled the steep bank
to the railroad tracks above

we made a house in the forest,
surrounded ourselves with trees
and shyly got to know them
by exotic latin names

abies is so verdant
as is picea too
while larix laricna
emits a happier hue
acer is a flaming witch
betula is a bride
populus ochres the fallscape
in it’s trembling yellow pride…
and by the restless ocean
from prehistoric lines
with her needles aching skyward
sighs a lonely strobus pine

we cut some pathways through them, and
lines of shambhala warriors came
on silent meditations
raising windhorse in their pain…

John Munro
Port Blandford, Nfld & Labrador
Feb. 2000

I have an early morning friend
Whose wakeful just like me
When the big round ball of orange
Rises dripping from the sea

If the weather gods are smiling
And my clock has the means
I hike on the streets of dawning
Through a hundred thousand dreams

When I get to the apartment
I have boiled egg on a tray
And an amber cup of coffee
brewed from grounds of yesterday

We chat in easy phrases
While the other serious word
Flows silentlly between us
Through an old unbilic cord

For this friend was my first friend
On my journey through the ways
And I can’t begin to thank her
For all my happy days

John A. Munro
St. John’s
March, 1986

Corporal MacIntosh Frew 1898-1917

We found your name there
on the monument at Beaumont Hamel
among those with unmarked graves
Corporal
Frew M.

but you’re not really there
you’re miles away
somewhere in the fields
near the monument at Monchy-le-Preux
where your company was trapped at Infantry Hill
April 14, 1917

on June 11, 2005
I can’t weep and mourn
never to see your face again at the family table
like William and Catherine
when they read the message
that day in Grand Falls

I do have the photo
of you in uniform
and being here
seeing your name on the wall
and finding your picture with
the “Missing at the Somme”, at Thiepval
helps me awaken to your loss

but the trenches are green now
with grazing sheep and trees

I can only try to imagine how alone you felt
in no man’s land
in that storm of bullets
in those final moments
that cold morning

John A. Munro
West Malling, England
June 13, 2005