Which is as thin of substance as the air
And more inconstant than the wind...
· Mercutio, in Romeo and Juliet

this ice,
eyelid-thin, rises drowsily off of rock
as if furtively roused, like a loose tooth
one swallows while asleep. weakened
in midmorning sun, this ice
languishes, loosens fingers, relinquishes
nocturnal grip on rock, allowing light
to slip into its gap. restless,
anticipatory, erogenous, this ice
shifts in its sleep, furls itself instinctively
as a snail will when touched, withdrawing
at sudden warmth. this ice
sips heat from my fingers
sleepily, chokes up
cracks and craters, tiny accidents
of thirst and anxiousness. finally
awakening far too late, this ice
finds itself fallen out of bed
in broad daylight, disgracefully displaced
and unexpectedly alone,
the dwindling remains of rain.

I awaken to a sunny sky, and am soon walking through the park again. Mont-Royal is noticeably untidy after recent messy weather, snowbanks sunk and crumpled with the weight of rain, trails littered with fallen branches and the last of the leaves. I take the long way to the lake, walking slowly, collecting little thoughts and phrases that I find curled between the shadows of trees, or poking out of snowbanks. I press these between the pages of a notebook, soon to be threaded through my ballpoint pen, sewn slowly into poems.

Near the lake, sunlight glints on a thin veneer of ice that clings to several rocks, needling my eye. I crouch with my camera, photographing closely (see quicksilver, above).

I always notice the lowness of the snow immediately ringing trees, and wonder if this is because roots soak up its moisture, or because trees cause a kind of shadow around themselves when wind distributes snow, or because they produce enough heat to melt it.

I think of Margaret Bowater park in Corner Brook, and how it is the inverse of this one. They have opposite heights and hearts, Margaret Bowater concavely surrounding (for the most part) a small pond, while Mont-Royal is convex, and spirals around the side of a hill.

I write most of this at a table in the grand chalet, water and salt melting off my boots, pooling under the table. The last of my hot chocolate goes cold while I read Thoreau. This is my epigraph lately:

Many a forenoon have I stolen away, preferring to spend thus the most valued part of the day; for I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days, and I spent them lavishly....
· Henry David Thoreau, Walden

It's been a while since I put pencil to sketchbook, but I have been experimenting with my graphics tablet lately. Tonight I attempted a self-portrait.

I wake up absurdly early, e-mail several friends over breakfast, and decide to climb the mountain. I pack my pockets with a notebook, a ballpoint pen, and a book (Thoreau's Walden and Other Writings), and carry my camera case over my shoulder. An icy blue sky, sunlight pouring through the streets like melted snow. Smoke clings to chimneys like my breath to my mouth. I migrate up the mountain, an animal with a magnet in my head.

I'm writing this on Mont-Royal, from a table in the Grand Chalet, on a monday morning. I passed about three people on the walk up here, the fewest I've ever seen. For a few moments, mine were the only eyes observing the city from the Kondiaronk Belvedere. I'll have to come here early more often; this place is best when it's full of emptiness. Statues of genuflecting squirrels in the rafters lend the chalet the air of a sylvan temple, and columns of sunlight tilt in through tall windows. While I write, a puddle of sunlight floats onto my foot; I can feel the heat of it through my hiking boot.

High on the walls of the Grand Chalet are a series of paintings illustrating the history of Montreal. Some of them are reproductions of old maps, and Newfoundland is included in a few, its outline occasionally misshapen. I love maps from an era when there was still terra incognita, the offending emptiness of uncharted land sometimes embellished with fictitious mountain chains or a strategically-placed cartouche. A time when cartography still had space for imagination.

Fortunately there is still uncharted territory in the map of Mont-Royal I keep in my head; I can explore here. I turn a corner I haven't turned before and find myself on a narrow trail, ski tracks threading a silver river between trees. I've brought a small mirrored ball with me in my camera case, thinking I might photograph it outside somewhere - I like the distortion of the spherical mirror, like a fisheye lens. It is a chime ball, and if I listen while I am walking I can hear it distantly jangling. I don't take many photos on days like this, as bitter air bites my fingers whenever I take my mittens off, but I like having the mirrorball just in case. I sometimes imagine that certain pretty passers-by will hear the faint sound of bells as they pass me on the trail, and wonder if perhaps there is something charming about this person who makes bells chime in their heads.

I am attuned to sounds today: the creaking of ice-rusted trees, or of my boots on the snow. The scrick, scrick of cross-country skis as someone passes me on the trail. Later, in the chalet, the rumble of sun-loosened snow sliding off the roof. A radio plays faintly in the canteen behind me, interrupted by the whirr of a cappuccino machine. The rustle of winter jackets, and the yips and yaps of clasps and velcro as other folks come in from the cold and unfasten their coats. I imagine sunlight must have a sound too, a frequency so high or low we cannot hear it - a kind of humming, or else the blustery sound a fire makes when you blow on it. The sound of something falling at the speed of light.

The sunbeam has climbed up to my face while I've been writing; I am illuminated. Alone at a table with an empty cup of cappuccino and an open notebook. There are a few other people here now, and as much as I enjoy my solitude, I sometimes wish one of them would venture to ask me what I'm writing.

Thoreau lived alone in a cabin by a pond, went for long walks in the woods, and spent his life writing notebooks and journals. I browse Walden for a while, and find this:

When I return to my house I find that visitors have been there and left their cards, either a bunch of flowers, or a wreath of evergreen, or a name in pencil on a yellow walnut leaf or chip. They who come rarely to the woods take some little piece of the forest into their hands to play with by the way, which they leave, either intentionally or accidentally.

When I return home I have four new e-mails; these are my walnut leaves. On the walk back I heard a knocking sound, and found a woodpecker with a red-feathered head - it let me get close and take photos, then eventually flew farther off. I spotted a cardinal, too, round and crimson, like a living Christmas ornament flitting from tree to tree. I photographed my hand holding a fallen leaf up to the sunlight, a latent map illuminated in its veins, its skin as pale as parchment.

My head feels clear, flush with fresh air. I come to the park to slow myself down, to walk and think, to collect thoughts and photographs, to listen to the sound of sunlight on snow. My brain, I think, is solar-powered.

The Montreal launch of Shift & Switch: New Canadian Poetry happened last night. I read some poems, along with five other contributors to the anthology, four of whom had travelled bravely from Ontario despite messy weather. Editor Angela Rawlings introduced the book, then Max Middle started us off, followed by Jon Paul Fiorentino, Mark Truscott, me, Angela, and Rob Read. It had been proposed that we jointly host the event, each reader introducing the following one, which suited the spirit of the anthology, and worked well.

It was great fun. Café Esperanza was fairly crowded, in a cozy way, and the audience was warm and appreciative. The room was brimful with comfortable couches and chairs, and colourful lamps hung randomly around - plenty of ambience. Max remarked afterwards that it was quite a different setting from the Ottawa launch the night before, which had been in a bookstore.

It was wonderful to hear (and get to meet) the other contributors. Max was astonishing, from his charming opening poem dear jc to some startlingly guttural interpretations of his visual work. Jon Fiorentino cracked open the crowd with his sardonic wit - I loved his poem about "boring people holding hands." Mark Truscott was enthralling, flipping intently through his books and dispensing quick, subtle poems (and a "grammar joke"). I read four poems, and probably looked a bit nervous, but didn't feel it. I was glad to get to introduce Angela, who I'd heard once before, at Casual Jack's back in Corner Brook. She gave an equally engaging performance this time, with an acrobatic voice that leapt from one syllable to another, her poems from wide slumber for lepidopterists interspersed with gasps. Rob followed, reading some of his quirky Daily Treated Spams - his bellowing "O Amazon Dot Com!" was one of my favourite lines of the night.

I hadn't read my work publicly in quite a while and had forgotten how refreshing it can be to read aloud. It's something I should do more often. I love hearing laughter at a reading, and there was plenty last night. Audiences sometimes seem unsure whether it's appropriate to laugh at poetry, but this crowd showed no hesitation, and really warmed up the room. Overall the evening was immensely enjoyable and rewarding. I'd brought my camera but didn't take any photos, not wanting to interrupt anything. I know other people did, and if I am sent any (hint, hint) I shall try and put some up.

Added March 2, 2006: Here's one of Angela reading (thanks, Wanda!):

Here is one of the poems I read at the launch (the others were excerpts from answers, stewed heads, and midnight ode to typewriter).

South Brook Area No. 7 (found poem)

All that area of the Island of
Newfoundland beginning at the
Humber Canal Spillway Crossing;
thence following the south bank of
the Humber Canal to Main Dam;
thence following the northern shore
of Grand Lake; the railway bridge
over Main Brook (near Howley) and
the eastern shoreline of Grand Lake
to its southeastern extremity; thence
following the Camp 33 Road to the
TCH; thence following the TCH, in a
generally northerly direction to the
mouth of Humber River; thence
following the southeastern bank of
the Humber River and the
southeastern shoreline of Deer Lake
to the point of commencement.

I grew up in Newfoundland. I've never lived by the water, but nonetheless have always been conscious of being an islander. I imagine I would feel a little lost living somewhere that wasn't an island... the disorienting vastness of a house without walls, or a map without boundaries. There's a certain comfort and closeness to be found in a place surrounded and defined by water... islands naturally incubate culture. I feel lucky to have such a distinct idea of where I am from. I know the shape of home.

Now I live in Montreal, on an island in the St. Lawrence river. Most of the places that I would like to visit are also islands, or archipelagos: Japan, Ireland, Iceland, Saint-Pierre & Miquelon (which I've wanted to revisit since high school). I am drawn to the romanticism and isolation of islands, to their distance and mystery. To walk along a beach is to tread the edge of something deep and mysterious: the slow, merciless mechanism of the sea. I retrieve driftwood and beachglass the waves have churned up, like weathered relics from another world. I skip rocks, and ponder how long it will take them to wash back onto shore. I think about perimeter - if I walk along this coastline long enough, I will circle back to where I began.

Though Montreal doesn't offer easy access to the shore, I love the wide vistas of the Old Port, and the river's reminder that, though trussed with bridges, this is undeniably an island. I find similar solace in Parc Mont-Royal. Recently, I read:

Contrary to popular belief, Mount Royal is not an extinct volcano; however, it is the result of magma intrusion during the Cretaceous to Tertiary time. It is a site where magma was emplaced into the Earth's crust and crystallized into gabbro; subsequently, the surrounding earth was eroded, leaving the mountain behind.
· Wikipedia

I like that: the mountain is an island, too. An island in the middle of the city. Montreal is as rushed and busy as the St. Lawrence River, and Mont-Royal rises above it, quiet and isolated. No doubt that is why I feel so at home there, in the park. An island on an island, my home away from home.

As a child, and later as an adolescent, André enjoyed wandering on the mountain which rose like a camel's hump in the heart of Montreal.
· Mordecai Richler, The Acrobats