so i was drumming last night on the edge of a forest in North York with a couple from Zimbabwe who had only been in Canada for two months (i said, in two weeks, you will be Canadian) when their little boy, dancing, running around the fire, jumped and started singing

Shuba! Shuba! Shuba!

and this morning i woke up late and read douglas barbour on the lyric/anti-lyric and wondered about his sense of chronology, that this was something we were moving into, when in fact, it seems like most people still want to talk about themselves, but i opened charles olson's projective manifesto and suddenly coffee wasn't necessary -- USE USE USE! i felt like dancing, and singing, just like my young friend with his smiles

so we went to rouge park, 15 times the size of central park, and walked along the river, sweet lullabyes of orchard trail, vista trail, valleys and forests and an SUV of zookeepers sneaking off-site, looking guilty as they ducked into no trespassing, so we stopped ate protein bars and measured the scope of the erosion, 12 kilometres of walking in old big tree forests, the sound of the drums echoing through the woods -- some show at the zoo, i suppose, but we found no clue to its becoming, just walked in its soft echo

Will, he said his name was, Will and Olga, but her name was a cover for the one her grandmother gave her, which translates into 'that you remember to be ashamed' for she was born of a single mother (now she can dance, and sing praise to ancient spirits), and he was laughing quietly, to me,

I will cheer for Ghana, but I hope most for somebody whoever to beat the Americans. I lived in Texas before coming here.

but i was spilling guinness on my trip up the river, chant Shuba Shuba Shuba with my little friend, spell it in my mind, suba suba suba, and ask him one more time for his shy name, which he won't tell me, smile, it's evening, time to retreat down shepherd, i don't want to go to bed, i practice, the name of the goat whose skin covers my instrument, i practice listening, letting it come and act upon me

today sitting in the beaches drank a pitcher of cafferys, keeping the dirt on our worked over feet, and she said, the bartender won't do pitchers of guinness, he just won't allow it, though people ask all the time. a man was being videotaped on the white sand for balancing rocks atop one another. in the sunset, he was smiling into the camera, telling the story of how he learned to balance rocks on their skinny sides, let them grow into towers of fragility, let them fall when he turned his back; the waters are still cold, so he sits and lets the evening wash over him instead