Shelagh Rogers Poet Laureate

NS PGI 2009 Shelagh Rogers Poet Laureate

To sum up this day in a poem
Would really take more of a tome.
For it was a day that was blessed
And perhaps should be left UN-expressed.

But that would be such a big cop-out
So no, I will not do an opt-out.
But this poem WILL not rhyme, don’t get your hopes up.
Because I’ve tried and I’ve tried, but nothing rhymes with Gzowski.

Except—a word I apply
To our new team “NSBI”
Whose chugging contest, put real skill to the test
And ended with two team-mates Soss-ki.

Oh, now I can’t help myself, here come the rhymes
But I know they only pale with the crimes
I saw on the course, as some made great big “grass-holes”
And you know what rhymes with that, and I won’t go there.
The earth that flies when some strokes are just too passionate.
My friend and former Alberta Chief Jason Goodstriker says:
At least we are getting our land back: …one divot at a time”.

I think I’ll start my poem and it’s called:

The Fog Has Lifted

Though that wasn’t what we thought would happen at 7:30 this morning.
But I’ve been to enough PGI’s to know
It’s never about the weather.

It’s about teams so in synch that everyone’s name can be Brad
And the Brad team sings a Barbershop song called “My name is Brad” in five-part harmony.
It’s about the other NSBI team singing Take it Easy by the Eagles (perhaps a bird they didn’t see much of today on the scorecard)…
With their lead singer Kevin Hamm putting real meaning into his last name.

It’s about Andy Beliveau and his pals on the Agenda Managers foursome
Singing “Daisy, Daisy” the song he sings to his beautiful daughter Danielle with Kathy and Lynn and yes, another Brad providing back-up.
Or the Minute Man team’s Kevin Maher doing the Running Man.
Or Harvey MacArthur doing his Elvis impersonation, for the second year in a row.

Wise men say, only fools rush in.
But that didn’t stop Ian and Stephanie on the Canada Post team.
They were bickering when I met them and I asked how long they’d been married. Turns out they met this morning and went from dating, getting married, getting divorced and dating again all in the course of the tournament. They even have nicknames for each other.
I wonder what Wedgie and Noodle really mean?

There were limericks and lyrics, hip hop songs from “the Delta”…
slaps on the back and some good jokes, some off-colour, more than made up for by the colour of Kendal McPhee’s John Daly pants.
Really, Kendal out-panted everybody.

And then there is the woman whose name is both a river and a giver—depends on the spelling and the story you’re telling. THE MYRA.
Talk about spunk and soul and generosity of spirit.
Myra told everyone that Peter Gzowski wanted this day to be fun. And it was.

Peter he loved golf. His cottage backed onto the first fairway of a golf course.
He loved to hear the dimpled ball, driven from the first tee then smacked and thwacked and thwacked, chipped, kicked and putted into submission.

And how he would have loved this course, as far as the eye can see
Unfurling like a great crazy quilt of forty shades of green.
Summer arrived around noon, the sky looked as it does in the opening credits of The Simpsons and the world looked a whole lot brighter.

And what you have done is help the world look a whole lot brighter for people you don’t even know. Or maybe last night you met Janie and Daniel, the Learner Achievement Award Winners.

If the definition of courage is “the attitude of facing and dealing with anything dangerous, difficult or painful instead of withdrawing from it”
They have faced what made them leave school as kids. They came back and they are going to share their knowledge and learning with others.
They are living their courage. And the root of courage is Coeur, the French word for heart.

This is a day about heart.
And unlocking a room for someone who didn’t have the key to get in.
Today you’ve been part of something very personal but very big.
Today you’ve helped someone have a better life, and better chances.

Today, you’ve helped lift the fog.