"The older we get, the deeper we dig into our childhoods,
Hoping to find the radiant cell
That washed us, and caused our lives
                                                                       to glow in the dark like clock

hands
Endlessly turning toward the future,
Tomorrow, day after tomorrow, the day after that,
                                                             all golden, all in good 

 time"

 

                                from Archaeology

                                                   Charles Wright

 

 

Photo Winter 2011

 

 "There's a certain Slant of light,

Winter Afternoons―

That oppresses, like the Heft

Of Cathedral Tunes―"

 

                    from Slant of Light                          

                             Emily Dickinson

"as north as north can go,
nothing beyond
but a pig-iron heave,
a sky clawed bare by the cold"

 

                    from The Last Lighthouse

                               Lynne Wycherley

 

After several frosty days we had  our

first long spell of  cold days.

 

 

But with the cold weather the birds

retuned to the feeders.

 

A Yellow Shafted Ficker

 

 

A handsome male House Finch

 

A peaceful scene?

 

Not really the House Sparrow will not share.

 

 

Not even with a beautiful Red Poll.

 

 

The poems quoted on this post were found at the

great poetry blog, fifty-two poets, a year of reading poetry.

 

"What I miss is gravel
crunching under foot or wheel,
wide sky above
the road straight into horizon.

I want to walk the crease
of a prairie book, lines of wheat
as even type, all one size
the word gold over and over."

 

                 from Maze

                            Nancy Mattson

 

 

"And the only poet is the wind,

a drifter

who walked in from the coast

with empty pockets

 

He stands on the road

at evening, making a sound

like a stone harp

strummed

by a handful of leaves...."

 

from The Stone Harp

John Haines

 

Irruption?

 

Thursday I went out on my lunch hour to photograph the

white tailed jackrabbits that have loped through my dreams

recently. While I encountered some, it was a flock of birds in the

spruce that spoke to me. I was initially uncertain if they

were Grosbeaks or Crossbirds but Red Crossbills they were.

One thing that confused me was that I kept seeing

Red Breasted Nuthatches in my camera. I had always

considered them the immobile resident birds of our front

yard spruce. Upon returning home some research told me

that they did indeed irrupt regularly moving about the

countryside, often in mixed species flocks. We do not see a

lot of bird species in the winter so these irruptions of birds 

 whether they be Snowy Owls, Mountain Ash seeking

Waxwings, or the flocks of Snow Buntings skittering across a cold

countryside are welcome additions to the prairie landscape.

The Crossbills are residents of the foothills near Calgary but I have

not seen one the the city for a couple of years perhaps they

are in town for dinner and a movie.Or a visit with their city cousins

the Nuthatches. There were perhaps 30-40 Crosbillls and

5-10 Nuthatches so I am not sure if that constitutes a true

irruption but it was fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I found this nest at the base of a spruce

in the mountains some years ago. There was a large flock of

Crossbills in the trees so I have assumed this in a Crossbill nest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

" the seasons pass

just outside their hearing

but what they died for has faded away

and become something quite different

past justice and injustice"

 

        from The Battlefield at Batoche

                            Al Purdy

"He has fled like electricity down the telegraph wires into

prairies of distance where the single bird sits

small and black against the saffron sky,

and is itself"

 

from He Has Fled

            

Robert Penn Warren

 

 

 

 

" We must learn to live in the world."

 

from Loss, of Perhaps Love,

in Our World of Contingency

 

Robert Penn Warren

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"All things lean to you, and some are

Trying to tell you something, though of some

The heart is too full for speech"

 

from Trying to Tell You Something

 

Robert Penn Warren

 

“Just as a lamp waved in darkness creates a

figure of light in the air, which remains for as long

as the lamp repeats its motion exactly,

so the universe retains its shape

by repetition: the universe is Time's body.”

from Little Big

John Crowley

 

After a few days of melting, we began to get

new snow, it got a bit colder as well.

Nothing too bad especially when you

see what other people have dealt with. But

today the young dog wanted to bounce in the

belly deep snow and the old dog wanted to be

carried home. The birds have disappeared, huddled

together in some winter bush and are ignoring the

feeders. I did see as gull go by yesterday it must

be confused.

 

I took these pictures Friday. I always think of

these snowy days as a day for the little worlds

within worlds, I find it hard to photograph on a while

canvas so the details become everything, as I enter

the tiny worlds of nature. My camera does not allow

me to enter the mysterious worlds  of Fitz James O'Brien's

The Diamond Lens, Cummings' the Girl in the Golden

Atom, or two favorites, Crowley's Little Big or

James Blaylock's The Land of Dreams but there

are lots of details to sink into even at this scale.

 

 

“The further in you go, the bigger it gets.”

from Little Big

John Crowley

 

 

“What you learn as you get older is that

the world is old, and has been old for a long time.”

from Little Big

John Crowley

 

 

“The things that make us happy make us wise. ” 

 

from Little Big

John Crowley

 

“Their laughter rose to the ceiling and

shook hands there.” 

 

from Little Big

John Crowley

"And, all about, the vacant plot,
Was peopled and inhabited
By scores of mulleins long since dead.
A silent and forsaken brood
In that mute opening of the wood,
So shrivelled and so thin they were,
So gray, so haggard, and austere,
Not plants at all they seemed to me,
But rather some spare company
Of hermit folk, who long ago,
Wandering in bodies to and fro,
Had chanced upon this lonely way,
And rested thus, till death one day
Surprised them at their compline prayer,
And left them standing lifeless there."

                 In November

     Archibald Lampman

I had been considering a posting on the

beautiful fall colours we were having when

a few weeks ago it snowed and stayed and

stayed. Then last week I was going to take

some photos of the lovely frost we were having

and it mostly melted before I got any photos.

But while I was taking these photos it occurred to

me that everything I came across seemed trapped

between seasons.  There as the last remnants of

the bright summer green, leeched to paler pastel

shades and finally to the rustling grey white pages of

winter.  The reds are bleeding to brown amid the

faded blue greens of the spruce.
 

And it was not just the plants that were caught

in the net of the seasons.

 

" I cannot ride this wind into summer.

Still, it is doubtful who is encaged: all

the bigger trees are bare; black

they reach into grey sky

like ornamental ironwork-

against which blow the belated birds"
 

                   From My Window: Late November

              D.G. Jones

 

 

"Earth take away
Make away sorrow,
Bury the lark's bones
Under the turf.
Bury my grief.

Black crow tear away
Rend away sorrow,
Talon and beak
Pluck out the heart
And the nerves of pain,
Tear away grief."

from Spell Against Sorrow

      Kathleen Raine

 

A house with Helen and I, two dogs and a cat

still seems empty.

 

It is a wintry day in Calgary and in

a peaceful albeit snowy backyard

Shaun is enjoying a quiet moment.

 

Did someone say " Release the Kraken "

 

 

 

The Clash of the Titans begins

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And ends, with no one actually bitten

 

 

"I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light."

 

The Peace of Wild Things

Wendell Berry