Last year Fredrick, Caroline, and Sue Passmore spent a lot of time secretly putting together a compilation of songs that I sang on three of our records. On my birthday, November 16 (2025), I could tell by the looks on everyone's faces that the box being carried into the room must contain something special. I was speechless when I opened the box to see a 100 copies of an album with my name as the title. I was overwhelmed…
Fredrick and I had been talking about what we would like to leave behind when we take the big sleep and I had said I wanted something of my own - a whole album of just me. It wasn't a self-centred request, more like a fulfilment. So he made it come true and I could not be more thankful for Fredrick taking my wish from a dream to fruition. /Joy
(PS I don't know why I've waited so long to upload. I have a hard time promoting myself. I hope you enjoy.)
This weeks prose, Ottawa River, is from my Remnants collection. It’s a road trip that weaves through Bancroft, Palmer Rapids to Pembroke. It’s here along the shore of the Ottawa River I find the most unique vibrant sky, as the slow living water of this great river passes.
<Click here to listen to Joy Palmer Brooks>
© Joy Brooks/Fredrick Brooks
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OTTAWA RIVER
I came here for the sky
The charcoal and grey light
The deep red fire of sunset
How the night wakes to the whir of wings,
A murmuring of a thousand night swallows
That follow the curve along this dark river
Only to disappear into the mist
Slowly, deep and powerful
The living water passes
This place,
Its pulse,
Brings each day to its feet
The root that binds all here.
© Fredrick Brooks