1

Sometimes in the open you look up

where birds go by, or just nothing,

and wait. A dim feeling comes 

you were like this once, there was air,

and quiet; it was by a lake, or

maybe a river you were alert

as an otter and were suddenly born

like the evening star into wide

still worlds like this one you have found

again, for a moment, in the open.

2

Something is being told in the woods: aisles of

shadow lead away; a branch waves;

a pencil of sunlight slowly travels its

path. A withheld presence almost

speaks, but then retreats, rustles

a patch of brush. You can feel

the centuries ripple generations

of wandering, discovering, being lost

and found, eating, dying, being born.

A walk through the forest strokes your fur,

the fur you no longer have. And your gaze

down a forest aisle is a strange, long

plunge, dark eyes looking for home.

For delicious minutes you can feel your whiskers

wider than your mind, away out over everything. 

Atavism by 

William Stafford

My first photos of one of the beavers that are

denuding our property of aspen. Also as a species

an animal which played an enormous role in shaping 

our country. The photos were taken from our screened 

in porch and therefore a bit fuzzy.

Shaun and Whateley prepare for the long journey home.

Traveling thru parkland and prairie we meet fellow travelers. 

  

"There are rooms in a life, apart from the others, rich

with whatever happens, a glimpse of moon, a breeze.

You who come years from now to this brief spell 

of nothing that was mine: the open, slow passing

of time was a gift going by. I have put my hand out

on the mane of the wind, like this, to give it to you."

                                        

 from Little Rooms

                         by William Stafford

“I dreamed that I floated at will in the great Ether,

 and I saw this world floating also not far 

off, but diminished to the size of an apple. 

Then an angel took it in his hand and brought it to 

me and said, ‘This must thou eat’. And I ate the world.” 

                                      by Ralph Waldo Emerson 

This post contains photos taken during one canoe trip on the Banana 

slough a crescent shaped body of water in front of our cabin. Sloughs 

or glacial potholes are feed by snow melt and groundwater infill rather

 than actual streams. This means the level fluctuates during period of 

high rainfall or drought. At present it is as high as anyone in the family

 can remember. This has meant lots of waterfowl, this trip, more a one 

hour meander was in early June so we encountered a glaring goose mother,

 and a pair of blackbirds determined top distract us from their nest.

Why does this written doe bound through these written woods?

For a drink of written water from a spring

whose surface will xerox her soft muzzle?

Why does she lift her head; does she hear something?

Perched on four slim legs borrowed from the truth,

she pricks up her ears beneath my fingertips.

Silence - this word also rustles across the page

and parts the boughs

that have sprouted from the word "woods."

                          from The Joy Of Writing

                                       by Wislawa Szymborska

" Stand still in the middle of the world,

 let it be Missoula,

 any crossroad in the west.

 You are here, alive in this place,

 touching with sight

things that are smoke tomorrow." 

                     from Alive in the World

                                by John Haines

I am still chewing thru the photos from our trip

to the cabin. What struck me about the photos I took 

on this day was the vivid colours the green, yellows

 and blues and how the birds seemed posed in

intricate sets like actors awaiting their cues.

  

 

"we become at last like trees 

 who stand within themselves, thinking. 

And when we wake--if we do--

we come back bringing the images 

of a lonely childhood: the hands 

we held, the threads we unwound 

from shadows beneath us; 

and sounds as voices in another room 

where some part of our life 

was being prepared--near which we lay, 

waiting for our life to begin."

                  from Sleep

                         by John Haines

"Through miles of shadow and soft heat,
Where field and fallow, fence and tree,
Were all one world of greenery,
I heard the robin ringing sweet,
The sparrow piping silverly,
The thrushes at the forest's hem

And as I went I sang with them. "

from After Rain

                         by Archibald Lampman

The Phoebes as I have said in earlier posts are the first

birds wee see at the cabin surveying any movement

ant change from some high vantage point, always watchful

always busy. I think they have taken to nesting under 

the cabin which is raised above the ground on posts.

They strike me as very cheerful and make good neighbors.

" The sky so blue things must have trembled

and sunsets burned at the world-edge

-tiny three-toed horses without riders

and stone listened to stone

wondering whether to take a chance

or else remain stone forever

birds like red bonfires plunge thru trees

flying reptiles flap leather wings

attack water reflections of themselves

which are not less unreal than they are."

     from On The Bearpaw Sea

        by Al Purdy

"Midway upon the journey of our life

I found myself within a forest dark,

For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

 Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say

What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,

Which in the very thought renews the fear.

So bitter is it, death is little more;

But of the good to treat, which there I found,

Speak will I of the other things I saw there.

I cannot well repeat how there I entered,

So full was I of slumber at the moment

In which I had abandoned the true way."

                                from  Inferno Canto 1

                                      Dante, Longfellow's Tran.

Some dour quotes hopefully the birds
will brighten this up.

We had a couple of rarer visitors to the

cabin this year and although the photos

were not great I thought I would post them.

We had lots of White Crowned Sparrows and

the Phoebes are always around keeping an

eye on things. 

" Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer

linked with life, the less man has to do with

aught that looks like death. Among sea-commanders,

the old greybeards will oftenest leave their berths to

visit the night-cloaked deck."

                                                             from Moby Dick

                                                                  Herman Melville

Back at the farm this pine has been dying by

inches for years but it is such a popular roost

it has not been removed.

“Were this world an endless plain, and by sailing eastward

we could for ever reach new distances, and discover sights

more sweet and strange than any Cyclades or Islands of King

Solomon, then there were promise in the voyage. But in pursuit

of those far mysteries we dream of, or in tormented chase of the

demon phantom that, some time or other, swims before all human

hearts; while chasing such over this round globe, they either lead us

 on in barren mazes or midway leave us whelmed.”

                                                                  from Moby Dick

                                                                           Herman Melville