Clouds

"Live with me on Earth among red berries and the bluebirds

And leafy young twigs whispering

Within such little spaces, between such floors of green, such

     figures in the clouds"

from Live with Me Under the Invisible Daylight Moon

by Milton Acorn

The slough at dawn.

"There were now and then, though rarely, the hours that brought the welcome shock, pulled down the walls and brought me back again from my wanderings to the living heart of the world."

Hesse, Hermann. Steppenwolf

Fot the last couple of years a group of Franklin Ground Squirrels has occupied the front yard some 12 feet or so from the porch. (They actually share it with Red Squirrels, Least Chipmunks and Snowshoe Hares, the dogs bark alot) They wander the whole property waddling from one bird feeder to another for whatever has spilled. They are renowen for getting habituated to humans and our pretty much ignore us. They also ignore the three yapping dogs in the run, feeding quietly despite the hysteria. This morning as we ate breakfast on the screened porch there was a shrill, piercing, almost mechanical squeal. Helen noticed the nearby Franklin had, after uttering it's alarm call, assumed a straight upright stance as it watched a raven fly by at the edge of the slough. Always something new around here.

Dawn, Vancouver, British Columbia

"This is not 

a photograph, it is a moment 

in the daily life of the world, 

a moment that will pass into 

the unwritten biography 

of your city or my city 

unless it is frozen in the fine print 

of our eyes.

from Salt and Oil

by Philip Levine