Reader Rock Garden

"the shadow of
a mist shall yet
with but the time
this granite fret"

from Sky Spindrift
by James Wreford

We were very daring and went to the Reader Rock garden to see the flowers and have lunch with a friend. It was nice to experience some semblance of normality.

https://www.calgary.ca/csps/parks/locations/se-parks/reader-rock-garden.html

Boboli Gardens - Florence (How many translations does he have they ask?)

" So the brownout evening and the dark air
Let go the sleepy earthly animals
and I alone Got ready for the combat, both with the path

and also with the weeping.

Inferno, Canto II, Dante Alighieri
(trans. Mary Jo Bang)

Sunday in the Garden 

“All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, 
vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; 
and still, as he lived, he wondered.” 

from The Wind and the Willows
Kenneth Grahame

 

" To gaze at a river made of time and water 
and remember that Time is another river. 
To know we stray like a river 
and our faces vanish like water. "

from The Art of Poetry

Jorge Luis Borges

Calgary Flood June 2013

A you may have seen on the news Calgary has experienced 

a severe flood in the last few days. While we have had

a wet June and a record rainfall in the city Thursday and 

Friday the main problem was even heavier rains in the 

mountains  feeding the Bow and Elbow rivers as they flow 

towards Calgary. This has caused great great damage and 

some deaths in the small communities along the rivers. In 

Calgary some 60,000 - 100,000 people have been evacuated 

from the neighborhoods along the river and downtown will 

probably be closed for several days to dry out the powers 

transformers. Helen and I are fine our home is in a higher area

 and we did not even lose power. While I do have photos of the

 flood I think I will instead offer some photos taken in our 

yard earlier in the week when the rain was just the rain..

In the rain a young dog eats grass. The old dog well...,

This osprey surveys the flood.

"Here, where the world is quiet;

         Here, where all trouble seems

Dead winds' and spent waves' riot

         In doubtful dreams of dreams;

I watch the green field growing

For reaping folk and sowing,

For harvest-time and mowing,

         A sleepy world of streams."

                            from The Garden of Proserpine

                                                    Algernon Charles Swinburne

    

      

"No one can tell me,

 Nobody knows,

Where the wind comes from,

Where the wind goes."

from

Wind on the Hill

      A.A. Milne

"She cleared the garden of its weeds

And planted several thousand seeds.

Small creatures picked the flowers at dawn

And danced with them about the lawn.

Until they all, down to the least,

Where eaten by a monstrous beast."

                              From The Eleventh Episode

                                            by Raddory Gewe

                                                   ( Edward Gorey )

I had planned to stick to posts about the

trip to the cabin for now. However there has been a

lot going on and I could not resist an entry.

 roses are as seen from our bedroom window

the day we got back. When we left only a few

hardy roses like Teresa Brunet had bloomed.

"Delight in the small

those that inhabit

only a corner of the mind,

the ones shaped by wind

and a season: a slip of

grass, the nameless flower

that offers its scent

to a small wind."

Delight in the Small, The Silent

From Lorne Crozier's The Garden 

Going on Without Us

The juvenile robins as seen from the living room

windows were also interesting. I have been

trying to figure out if the difference in marking

is age or sex based.

"In the square

there is a wall where the old men sit and watch 

the young go by; he is seated in a row with them.

Desires are already memories."  

                   Invisible Cities

                             Italo Calvino

All week a flock of young House Sparrows emptied the

feeders. The today a pair of Grackles with four or more

young showed up and things got loud.

Only one chick appeared to be begging and the

adult ignored the others and carried the cleaned 

seeds to the called chick. One can only imagine 

what it was like to feed all of them

In these shots we can see that the chick's feather colours

vary among the brood I assume that is because they hatch

at different times.

"Whosoever he is that shall hope to cure this malady 

in himself or any other, must first rectify these 

passions and perturbations of the mind:

 the chiefest cure consists in them. A quiet mind 

is that pleasure."

                          Anatomy of Melancholy

                           Robert Burton

"Everything that slows us down and forces patience,

everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature,

is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.”

                                                                                  May Sarton

This weekend we weeded and set up the fountain

in the pond. We are trying to introduce for native

plants around the pond so this weekend we added

some small native columbines and shooting stars.

"I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,

I hear it in the deep heart's core. "

The Lake Isle of Innifree

       William Butler Yeats

"Where is nirvana?

Nirvana is here, nine times out of ten."

                                Spring-Watching Pavilion

                                  Ho Xuan Huong

Saturday it was fairly cold but I trundled down to the

library to pick up some books by A. R. Ammons.

First I passed  the front door rabbit who often sits bum

against the spruce at the foot of our front stairs.

Then I looked to see how my neigbours gardens

had fared in the new snow. It was one of those

days when I had a long to do list and no ambition. 

I still have a long to do list.

" The burdens of the world
on my back
lighten the world
not a whit while
removing them greatly
decreases my specific
gravity"

                        Correction

                         A.R. Ammons