"Then morning showed

Infinity's proportions, 

The proper height of the sky.

Becoming small

We were grown again."

from Growing up

Dorothy Livesay, Selected Poems [1926-1956] 

Helen began taking one of the dogs on a longer walk once she retied. 

Now that I am also home we can all go out at once taking long daytime

walks thru the neighborhood enjoying the small parks and the lovely 

mid-60's houses. Monday was a day of bugs and blossoms.

  

  

Tuesday was a horse of a different colour. When I let the dogs 

out I quickly joined them with a camera, initially not 

even bothering with a shirt. It was a unexpected treat with

snowflakes on the tongue and heads poking thru the snow.

I did eventually get dressed and leave the yard but it was the 

first glimpses that proved the most enchanting. When I came

into the house I knew I would turn to my slender volumes 

of the works of Canadian poets to look for quotes. although

 when I did I was attracted not to the poems about snow. 

But the poems about youth and magic.

"When the day bends over backwards

to bring forth the light

I must know by whose permission

I inhabit this place

in the holy congregation of animals

 and mortal stones."

from Magic Animals, 1972-1974

by Gwendolyn MacEwen 

"The blue jay scuffling in the bushes follows
Some hidden purpose, and the gush of birds
That spurts across the field, the wheeling swallows,
Have nested in the trees and undergrowth.
Seeking their instinct, or their pose, or both,
One moves with an uncertain violence
Under the dust thrown by a baffled sense
Or the dull thunder of approximate words."

from On the Move 'Man, You Gotta Go.'

by Thom Gunn

In many locations a Blue Jay would not be noteworthy

but here I do not see a lot of them. I suspect the Magpies

may fill a similar niche. But I have been stuffing the feeder

with peanuts just to lure the jays. Once they arrive you can 

certainly tell they are there, the house resounds with their

raucous calls. They are such a beautiful blue.

And a quote from an old favorite.

" Forked sticks upon the air,

Half-dead trees, where two

Blue jays shriek the summer sky

To a deaf world, their blue

The only water here.

The sun is axeman among dry

Slashing: he would clear

Kindling from these rocky hills:

The logos as belated pioneer,

One cry with the fanatic jay. ..,"

                          Blue Jay in Haliburton

                               D.G. Jones