Monday, July 28, 2014



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








Sunday, July 20, 2014


“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

Sunday, July 6, 2014

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