Author: Robert McBryde - page 3

Celestial Deception: A Tanka poem

  Even these stars, which seem so numerous, are as sand, as dust – or less than dust – in the enormity of the space in which there is nothing – Carl Sagan Celestial Deception: A Tanka poem Cocoon nebula Portending a butterfly To the naked eye… Our doors of misperception A cause for celebration?..

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Seething Seniors

Seething Seniors: a letter to the editor of the Ottawa Citizen newspaper Dear editor, I’m writing in response to the article headlined Ottawa seniors seething about massive hike in OC Transpo pass price penned by Ken Warren and published on November 14. Ottawa seniors shocked by big hike in OC Transpo pass cost | Ottawa..

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Elegy for My Grandfather: Remembrance Day 2024

Elegy for My Grandfather: Remembrance Day 2024 My grandfather, Thomas McBryde, physically survived the trench warfare of World War One, including the Battle of Vimy Ridge (1917), when Canadian forces triumphed at the cost of more than 10,600 soldiers killed and wounded. Thomas McBryde screamed in his sleep throughout his long life, a victim of..

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Female or juvenile ruby-throated hummingbird hovering by a dahlia

Female or juvenile ruby-throated hummingbird hovering by a dahlia A Haiku poem Fleeting equipoise Hush of regeneration Saved by art alone. How to Write a Haiku, With Examples | Grammarly Blog A haiku is a type of Japanese poem that always uses the same number of syllables in a three-line format: • the first line..

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The Pelican Nebula

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. Carl Sagan The Pelican Nebula Interstellar dream… Gestation…galactic spawn Nebulous frenzy Triumphant birth… illusion Pelican of lying eyes. Millions of years from now this nebula might no longer be known as the Pelican, as the balance and placement of stars and gas will leave something that appears..

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Terminal tartar

Terminal tartar When I was about five years old, growing up in Georgetown, Ontario, a first visit to the dentist yielded the most perplexing diagnosis: I was afflicted with terminal tartar. Now in our home, in honour of my mom’s vestigial Catholicism, combined with her ardent desire to be a contemporary 1950s housewife, we always..

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Tarpon Springs, Florida 1959…and 65 years later

Tarpon Springs, Florida 1959…and 65 years later When I was seven years old, our family made a trip from Georgetown, Ontario to Tarpon Springs, Florida, on the train. (My father worked for the CN railway, so we had a family pass.) Tarpon Springs, Florida – Wikipedia We made this odyssey to visit our mom’s favorite..

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Gender-bending for Halloween

Gender-bending for Halloween “Girls will be boys and boys will be girls It’s a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world…” – Lola, The Kinks Born in 1952, I grew up in what was then a small southern Ontario municipality called Georgetown, an epicenter, I decided later, of what has been dubbed the Southern Ontario..

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The Library saved my life

The Library saved my life: the chronicles of a brand-new denizen of the Ottawa public library scene Did you know that October is Canadian Library Month? Here’s a little story in honour of Library Month… “A room without books is like a body without a soul” -Marcus Tullius Cicero Growing up in Georgetown, Ontario in..

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