Many times I get comfort from poetry, get strokes to the part of my mind or heart that needs it. Many times I open a cover seeking new or expecting distraction, or a shift from restless into steady focus, but it’s been a long time since I had that poetry sensation, of opening a cover seeking comfort, and expecting it to be there. Longfellow’s The Builders was in W.J Alexander’s Shorter Poems, a Ministry of Education of Ontario text for secondary school for 1924. (40 cents at Eaton’s Co.) It fit the hollow made by finding out an elder of my old community died. 6 weeks ago, her death off-handedly mentioned in passing to me today. We must treasure the beauties, the abiding, the transitory and those while they are still with us.