Friday, April 13, 2012

After another afternoon and night of snow
I went out this morning to fill the feeders,
the difference from previous mornings was not
so much the robin in the tree but the absolute
riot of exuberant birdsong that heralds spring
and the return of light.







" For winter's rains and ruins are over,
And all the season of snows and sins
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;"

                     Atalanta in Calydon
                                                  Algernon Charles Swinburne

  
 

Saturday, April 7, 2012





As it snowed again Thursday and you were about to
be treated to more pictures of the frozen trees
it the yard, and birds or more likely squirrels at the feeders
as they are cleaning me out, when I received my Easter
present. Just as well, the snow is melting fairly quickly.
But we will doubtless have more snow so your not off
the hook yet.



But my Easter present generated a new subject. It was a copy
of Charles R. Knight The Artist Who Saw Through Time
by Richard Milner, Abrams, New York 2012
ISBN 978-9-8109-8479-0. ( Thanks sweetie )

"Charles Robert Knight
(October 21, 1874 in Brooklyn – April 15, 1953 in Manhattan)
was an American artist best known for his influential paintings of
dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. His works have been
reproduced in many books and are currently on
display at several major museums in the United States."

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I mentioned in an earlier post Sunday, November 13, 2011
how much I loved dinosaurs as a child,and this interest in dinosaurs,
early mammals, and early man has never really disappeared. Knight and
Zdenek Burian (I posted several photos from his work on my poetry
site for a poem called Lost Things,Friday, January 21, 2011) created
the images that fed the  wonderful world of my childhood imagination
( too late I realize I have to thank my parents for supporting this interest )
and played an important part in my first career in Archaeology
( great memories but no money there ).


by J . Augusta illustrated by (the great) Zdenek Burian

So this was a great present. I have quickly scanned the book
and found a wealth of information on Knight's career and the
many struggles he had to present his version of the past through
his murals and sculptures. The new information that
we have received on dinosaurs in the past few years, especially
the many finds in China mean the images shown in my books
and my beloved collection of Papo dinosaurs could well be wrong
and that Tyrannous may look more like a Secretary bird than
a Monitor lizard. But truth be told it is the images of Knight and Burian
that still roam the Jurassic plains of my imagination or peek out
of the stories of Ray Bradbury, the films of Ray Harryhausen
roaring defiance down  through the years.





Figures from the Bronx Zoo



Papo Dinosaurs



 "Out of the debris of dying stars,
   this rain of particles
   that waters the waste with brightness...

   The sea-wave of atoms hurrying home,
   collapse of the giant,
   unstable guest who cannot stay..."

                                                        Little Cosmic Dust Storm
                                                     John Hanies











Sunday, April 1, 2012

Our house decorating stalled by colds, which have
also left us house bound I was reduced to watching  nature
out my window. As is often the case a White-Tailed Jackrabbit
rested under the spruce. It decided to give us a hand with
the spring cleanup. The pictures taken thru our window seem a
bit fuzzy I still need to get my camera looked at.


“Every spirit builds itself a house; and beyond its house, a world;
and beyond its world a heaven. Know then, that the world exists
for you: build, therefore, your own world.” 
 
                                                                    Nature 
                                                                         Emerson
 

"For all men live by truth and stand in need of expression"

                                  The Poet
                                           Emerson


"The Universe is the externalization of the soul"

                               The Poet
                                        Emerson


"But man postpones or remembers; he does not live
in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past,
or, heedless of the riches that surround him,
stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be
happy and strong until he too lives with nature in
the present, above time."

                             Self-Reliance
                                      Emerson