How Bizarre in Such an Incredible World of Wealth

How Bizarre in Such an Incredible World of Wealth

feb 2020

jp melville

Much to nothing to report

Yesterday I flew by aeroplane to Thunder Bay

Today, the next day, I fly back to Ottawa

Canada, that is.

In Thunder Bay

We talked about housing and beds and community for the poor to low to middle income people,

We talked about food and food banks and distribution of food,

We talked about streets and where are you from and why do you care….

I enjoy the streetscapes and housescapes of Thunder Bay.

I have a heart and soul there, somehow.

Open wide space and desolation…

And dull colours of poor economy, written over the households long ago painted…

Streets bumpy and rut ridden…

Wow!… store signs faded from years of too much sunlight down in Port Arthur.

I chatter with architects and managers, yes,

Everybody wants a better world.

Though less about improvement, my mind suspects,

And more about staunching an unravelled thread that bleeds…

Of housing too expensive for the old folks…

Or of no secure or consistent or even, really (!), regional food supplies.

My food comes from where?

For Goodness Sake, I exclaim helplessly…

… though absent of rancour

… yes hands thrown in the air

All of us, please…

How bizarre in a world of such incredible wealth

That we cannot dream of another economy,

That we have failed to roof our elders

And must feed populations hundreds of kilometres from any natural food source.

An absolutely fossil fuel  supply chain dependent economy

With neither nor without any thought to our ecology economy

Neither sister nor brethren we radicals are…

To the absurders of Adam Smith.

We are here you me now all of us Thunder Bay Wawa Sudbury Mattawa and Ottawa...

Dark forest
Hard rock
Deep rivers
Still lakes
Starry absolution night skies...

North Frontenac my home in between.