Oh Canada
We are proud Canadians but as Canadians we are Canada, a sovereign nation, strong, vast, and free, stretching proudly from coast to coast to coast. We are known on the global scale as peacekeepers not warriors. We are known as champions of human rights, as defenders of democracy. We are the stewards of breathtaking natural beauty. We are a multicultural nation blending our Indigenous roots, French and English heritage, into global diversity, a mosaic of resilience and compassion. As a humanitarian nation, Canada, we, stand tall with quiet strength, firm values, and open arms. United, we echo one voice of freedom, equality, and peace. Oh Canada, so proud to be Canadians.
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The German cruise boat waiter lives all winter alone in a cabin in the woods and he asks me why is it that no one likes my work his writing has such style such attention to style where all the work is in the style the oh-so fastidious style the lifeless style the trim and bloodless style with the cruel precision of a well-cut suit where rock-of-eye is everything to the bodiless cloth the Hugo Boss of bodiless cloth that almost clicks its heels or drops the glint from the blinded light of a monocle on the sharp lapel
“Why is it that no one likes my work?” he inquires of me “You don’t want to know,” I say to him this self-isolating man
“You who lives in winter solitude crafting your cold stories in a cold retreat,” a hermit living alone in the empty compass
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of bird song and paperwhite snow where the winds come hissing in the pine like the spirits of the dead “You don’t want to know,” I say, “But I do …” and so, I tell him your stories are cold reptilian cold, and you seem to hate mankind there’s a lack of life in every studied line and he confesses having been the son of Nazis parents in the war raised as a Hitler Youth incapable of loving anyone or anything he’s been hollowed out by hate and only when the ink is cold does he dare touch the purity of paper with his pen while words emerge in frosted breaths from frozen bones he writes where nothing thaws and the streams lie snaked with shedding skins of ice and snow like linen set with silver shade of shadows in a vacant dining hall made all the emptier for his presence there where he folds and sets the serviettes and he measures the plate from the spoons.
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It was not a sigh in the wind, nor a fleeting promise.
It was the thunder tearing through the silence, the cry of Love nailed to rough beams. His body, already given in great pain, each wound, a name of yours, a name of mine, written in iron and tears. The Blood, not a faint dew, but a warm torrent, flooding the drought of centuries of sin, washing away the dark crust that blinded us.
Who can measure that abyss of pain?
The weight of all guilt, the absolute loneliness, the bitter rejection, the cold of a borrowed tomb… He bore it all. Because Love does not calculate, does not retreat, does not seek shortcuts. It gives itself.
To the last breath, to the last heartbeat, to the "It is finished" that tore the veil. And in that total surrender, in that unfathomable sacrifice, our freedom was born.
Not an empty freedom, but a mighty liberation. Chains broken, Debt forgiven, Death itself defeated, We are free from the shadow that stalked us, free to lift our heads without shame, free to run into the open arms of the Father. Today I gaze upon the Cross no longer only with sorrow, but with infinite awe.
How could I not love, with all the fire of my soul, with every grateful heartbeat, the One who gave everything just to see me free, just to call me His own? This Love, so high, so deep, so wide… is the only possible response: To love You, always. To love You.
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Alfredo Sarabia, was born in Havana 1986. He entered the San Alejandro School of Fine Arts, Havana, Cuba, in 2006 and continued studies at the University of the Arts (ISA) in Havana, graduating in 2012. He has obtained several national and international awards, among which are the Raúl Corrales Creation Grant, Fototeca de Cuba, Havana, Cuba, 2009. The residency for young artists "Kunsträume Michael Horbach Stiftung," Cologne, Germany, 2015. First National Prize for Landscape, Salón Leopoldo Romañach 2016, Matanzas, Cuba. The residency for young artists "Along the Paths of Coffee," Malongo Foundation, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba, 2016. The shared award from the Michael Horbach Stiftung Foundation, Cologne, Germany 2017. Award for the best photographic work in the 41st edition Certamen D´arts Plástiques i Visual, Vila de Binissalem, Mallorca, 2019. Photofest Portfolio Review for Cuban Photographers, Houston, Texas, 2020. His work has been exhibited in major art centers, including Histories of Maps, Pirates and Treasures, II Latin American Photography Forum, Itaú Cultural Center, Sao Paulo, Brazil, 2010 and Fotoquai III Biennial of Photography, Quai Branly Museum, Paris France. "Double Play" Collective exhibition of Cuban photographers, Cuatro Caminos Museum, Mexico City, 2017. "The Image Without Limits," Anthological exhibition of Cuban photography, Museum of Fine Arts of Cuba, 2018.
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By Alfredo Sarabia
Take my word for it we're falling in love. I can tell by the dryness in my throat and the dampness in your eyes. So, here's the caveat: I don't want to be loved madly again. Mad men can't be trusted. Love me casually, the way you long for a quarter pounder. Relish me, onion me if you like, but don't forsake all others. Man cannot live on burgers alone.
Love me warmly, the way you cherish a lively terrier. Take me for walks if you wish, pet me and brush me, but don't chain me up. I'll always need to run with the pack. Love me the way you adore your favourite song. Listen in ecstasy, but don't learn to play me. I vanish when pinned down. In return, I promise a love that treasures your voice that always manages to sing off key, your laughter, even when it slips into hysteria, and your crooked smile that warms me to my toes.
What bliss to wake beside you, your arms entwined in mine. My lips still moist from yours, my ears attuned to your heartbeat. Like Juliet, I fear the lark's song and softly hum to cover its tune. If I knew a conjuring trick, I'd seal your lids to hide the garish sun that will divide us. Bolt the doors to keep intruders out, Silence the voices calling us to day. Hold you forever, in our hideaway.
The image of a jetty outlined by clouds at the moment of the sun’s best colour; or a gull, grey against the bright gold and reflected in the pale blue shadows deepening with stippled navy in the waves that edge over the smooth sand shimmering beneath a chain of alto cumulus crescendoing into the eastern darkness drawing on their blood; a looking-glass incapable of being fickle, a retina that photographs and stores outlines and instants that are selected from others like an anthology of bon mots for the good eye; the pen on paper retains what the sea cannot. A dogfish surfacing in ballooning rings and heaving a bubble up to replace the sun; or a sandpiper picking at a sand hopper; or dune-grass stroked like a good beard is here, set down, for later use, put in cold storage, preserved, memorized, catalogued and shelved. In a city not far away, there is a warehouse full of theatrical props, a clown mask, swords, unfinished rooms, doors that lead nowhere, tables, chairs, pictures that say home sweet home for houses of no fixed address and the inventory goes on like a list of cherished necessities that house one when they are absent. Words worth stood on a hillside above Tintern Abbey and recorded the Welsh valley tree by tree for later use such is the purpose of Cold Storage Beach, named, accidentally, for an old warehouse which stood at the mouth of Jesuit Harbour and vanished, timelessly, into nowhere but a word written down, part of a memory, but otherwise lost.
