Each morning you rise feeling slightly off, like someone pushed you out of their dream. This is more true than you will acknowledge during the waking hours. It takes a moment, but you remember the sequence: fold your torso to 90 degrees, swing your legs out from under the perfectly warm sheets, and find your slippers (“house shoes”, to sartorial pendants). Often you wake without need for an alarm, and “sleeping in” usually means getting up at 7. You never remember at what time you drifted off. You enter the bathroom to prepare your shower, and you flick the lights on and off – is the season right for ignoring the light fixture? Is it time to let the bath window do its job? You track the seasons by these small rituals. The water is just right and in the middle of lathering your hair, you suddenly remember the name of that photographer that you used to love eight years ago. There is no paper in the shower, so you are forced to repeat her name again and again until you exit, and with a soaking towel around your waist, water dripping, you write the name and it is a relief. When you leave for work, you notice the phantom print of your foot in the hall.

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To volunteer is to serve. To serve is move beyond your petty self and do something that helps others, and, ergo, the world at large. You cannot become all that you must without being of service to others.

The Edmonton Poetry Festival is calling for volunteers. We need drivers, info table and book table hosts, and people for set up and tear down support. We also require a ticketed blacksmith, a skilled horseman/horsewoman, and a female/male pair of giraffes. (kidding – ed)

If you can help us, and god love you if you can, please contact our voluteer coordinator, Joe Gurba: