Latest news with #Equatorial
The Guardian
03-08-2025
- General
- The Guardian
A poem by David Brooks: ‘Counting sheep is difficult for me – I try to give each one a face and personality'
I count to try to get myself to sleep the numbers backward from one hundred as someone told me was the way with sheep ninety-eight, ninety-seven, ninety-six…then if I reach zero, still backwardly begin to count forward againminus one, minus two, minus three … each exhalation a ewe or wether stepping from the exit planks, each one a whisper of breath across my tongue In a month, as I calculate, I'll unload three thousand or so, in a year at least thirty, and in two my ghost shipment could at last be free but something always happens the numbers oscillate exits turn into boarding ramps the ships always depart for the sweltering days at the Equatorial, dry heat over the Gulf the acrid water washing the baking deck the sea-mad crew, the dying lambs the bodies sinking in the fleece-white wake On a good night I'll count almost none or lose track after forty or so, my thoughts straying, or one or another of them wandering off to watch the kelp in the tide-flow On a bad night I'll count four or five hundred and get no sleep at all I'm a longtime insomniac. Almost nightly I 'count sheep', though it's more a case of counting breaths, as the poem suggests. Counting sheep is difficult for me. I live with rescued sheep and to me each sheep's a face, a personality. I've tried to give each sheep I count a face and personality, but that's exhausting. I can't get beyond a dozen or so. The repetition of faces I know becomes too distracting. Then there's the matter of point-of-view. To count sheep effectively they must pass a set point individually – follow a path single-file, say, or go one-by-one up or down a ramp. In the poem I've chosen the latter. I abhor live export; I want to save sheep from it. The ramp my sheep come down is an exit-ramp, before their ship departs. In effect I'm stealing sheep, each one an escapee. But it isn't so easy. The sheep are trapped. Save one from export and you condemn him/her to slaughter anyway. At least with live export there's a cruise first, though of course – again – it's hardly like that. The voyage is a horror worse than any the Ancient Mariner experienced. And live export's just an example. Count sheep any which way and you realise you're both in an awful bind, trapped in the messy guts of the human mind. The ships depart regardless. Exits become boarding-ramps. Numbers seem to progress but in fact move backward. All these things are in the poem one way or another. The exhaustion and frustration (insomnia) of animal advocacy, the hopes dashed repeatedly. The way you must keep going, day after day, night after night. But also ('kelp in the wave-wash') the glimmers of hope, of how things might be. Australian Poetry Month runs throughout August and includes festivals, events, workshops and a commissioned poem of the day brought to you by Red Room Poetry. Find out more here
Reuters
05-04-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Brazil's Equatorial sells power transmission assets to Canada's CDPQ
SAO PAULO, April 5 (Reuters) - Brazilian energy company Equatorial Energia ( opens new tab has agreed to sell its portfolio of power transmission assets to a firm owned by Canada's Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec (CDPQ), it said in a securities filing late on Friday. Equatorial said the deal to sell its Equatorial Transmissao subsidiary to CDPQ's Verene Energia had an enterprise value of up to 9.4 billion reais ($1.61 billion), with an equity value of up to 5.19 billion reais. The Brazilian firm said the move concludes a profitable cycle of capital allocation in the power transmission segment and allows it to advance in new strategic directions. "The proceeds from this transaction may be used to accelerate the deleveraging process as well as to pursue organic and inorganic growth opportunities, and to make possible distributions to shareholders," Equatorial said. ($1 = 5.8443 reais)
