I think it was the winter before you turned 10 the winter of 53 when you contracted polio and learned the beauty of cigarettes after a storm. Rather than having the Christmas plague deliver paralysis throughout your tender limbs you were like a rootless tree growing upwards only. A birch traveling towards heaven as you sat in your hospital bed belting carols/belting them louder when nurses walked by. I first saw you perform at the Louis Riel coffeehouse in Saskatoon (after one rejection two) then at The Depression in Calgary. I followed you from art school to Toronto like Toronto was New York where you were going to make it as a folk-singer. Everywhere you touched I was always two moons behind. Train tracks you rode across began to rust before I ever reached them. The rivers were dry like you had taken all their might and drunk them into heartbeats of a song.
I know I've already posted this, but a song this swell ought to be posted twice. Plus, well, it is the season. He is my dearest → El Corazón is a perfect album → this is is my favourite track on it.
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