{"id":12540,"date":"2026-05-31T01:30:36","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T01:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/?p=12540"},"modified":"2026-05-31T01:30:36","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T01:30:36","slug":"of-windovers-and-all-things-magical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/?p=12540","title":{"rendered":"Of Windovers and All Things Magical"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Windover To Christ Our Lord<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding<\/p>\n\n\n\n

High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stirred for a bird, \u2013 the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

   No wonder of it: sh\u00e9er pl\u00f3d makes plough down sillion<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today was a magical day to live a poem, so I had to find a magical poem to live. I didn’t set out with any poem in mind, however, as the day progressed a poem emerged. This is how it happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I left about 10:30am to walk to a protest against our provincial premiere. If I’m going to complain about him, I have to show up or shut up! It was a short 6.5kms walk some of it through the cemetery, where I recited the rosary to help with Pope Leo’s day of prayer for world peace. I’m not particularly religious, but I love this new pope and I’m willing to help in anyway I can to stop these wars!! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was early for the protest so I stopped at Balzac for a coffee and a vegan muffin – delicious. I had always planned to stop at a fabric store near the cafe\u00b4to buy a pattern for a vest to sew and embellish once I have finished at least one of my two unfinished projects. I popped into Fabricland, spent sometime looking through what was left of their patterns, bought nothing and left. Not really that poetic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This stop left me a little short for time to arrive at the protest on time, however, I felt that I could at least add my body to the throng, whenever I arrived. Well by 1:00pm the protest was over; I managed to see one person with a sign and failed to see any significant horde chanting “Go Home DoFo.” Even if I had arrived on time, my body would not have tipped the balance in any significant way to stop another takeover of our public places…. alas!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had to be back for a scheduled phone call by 3:00pm, so I disappeared down some stairs in the park which lead to the “Museum” subway stop. This was a first for me and I loved the pillars in the station built to resemble museum artifacts – totem pole bears, sarcophagi, Doric columns etc. There is magic underground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I transferred at the next stop to the Bloor-Danforth line and two stops later, exited to the Yonge line. Riding the rails is a magic unto itself. At Eglinton I left to walk to the library, return Walking the Woods and the Water and picked up Landmarks, a book about our disappearing language. On the walk back home, I met neighbours and had a wonderful chat – the magic of a community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So why this poem? Well, in the book Landmarks there is a passage about the Curlew, a bird in decline. Its other names are Kestral and Windover. I immediately thought of The Windover to Christ Our Lord. It’s a favourite poem by a favourite poet, Gerard Manly Hopkins who was a Jesuit. Today was a day of prayer, of protest, and of persistence. It was also a day of words, of loss and of discovery. I think that this poem captures the magic of the day!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Windover To Christ Our Lord I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-     dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding     Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12540"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12541,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12540\/revisions\/12541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}