Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
These seemingly grim lines may be the most optimistic in modern literature: life feeds into life, change is constant, and the spring’s rain helps complete the cycle.
Author: Milan
In the spring of 2005, I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in International Relations and a general focus in the area of environmental politics. Between 2005 and 2007 I completed an M.Phil in IR at Wadham College, Oxford. I worked for five years for the Canadian federal government, including completing the Accelerated Economist Training Program, and then completed a PhD in Political Science at the University of Toronto in 2023.
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T.S. Elliott’s vision in the poem is a collection of images of broken things. Very interesting about the windows in Hart House Chapel; they were pieced together from broken windows from Churches in England after the Great War.
There is a wonderful Wayson Choy story set in Vancouver in which a Chinese grandmother who feels out of place in Vancouver takes her grandson through the alley ways and a burned down church to collect pieces of broken glass. Out of these she ties together beautiful wind chimes that sing in the wind.