Title: Dog barking with magpie

 

The magpie(s) have decided Nina is fun to tease, 

so they do. Here they are exchanging views. I have 

seen them teasing red squirrels and cats as well. 

They seem to get a fair bit of joy out of life. We 

always enjoy watching the young gangs of teenage 

magpies investigating the yard. One favourite target 

are the tags attached to young shrubs, they really try 

to tear them off. 

  

"You’re the one who flew down

to that river from the heavens,

as if your form alone were the only

holy message needed. You were alabaster

then in the noonday sun."

from Stone Bird

by Pattiann Rogers

"The moments of happiness—not the sense of well-being,

Fruition, fulfillment, security or affection,

Or even a very good dinner, but the sudden illumination—

We had the experience but missed the meaning,

And approach to the meaning restores the experience

In a different form, beyond any meaning

We can assign to happiness"

from The Dry Salvages

Eliot

Both Saturday and Sunday when I finally hauled myself out

of bed the temperature in the backyard had warmed up to 

about -28 C or -18 F. I am not sure how cold it was earlier

but even after the temperatures had risen to a balmy -20 or so

they still proved too much for the heated birdbath which has 

frozen over. The birds and the squirrels still appear at the feeder 

but only the magpies who have pecked a hole through the ice

can get a drink.

My reading on epiphany or revelation in poetry continues

yesterday it lead me to the works of T.S. Eliot, enjoy.

I am off the the library you can never have too many books 

around.

"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—"

from Little Gidding 

Eliot

"Now the long freight of autumn goes smoking out of the land.

My possibles are all packed up, but still I do not leave.

I am happy enough here, where Dakota drifts wild in the universe,

Where the prairie is starting to shake in the surf of the winter dark."

                         from Beyond the Red River

                                      Thomas McGrath

We have had a cold week,  for much of the time the 

temperature was in the high minus 20 Celsius range 

with a wind chill some 10 degrees colder. As bit warmer 

today, but for most of the week the view out the window

showed puffed up birds and frost wrapped trees. I did put

up some Christmas lights today. The show must go on.

 "Thus having prepared their buds

against a sure winter

the wise trees

stand sleeping in the cold."

                  from Winter Trees

                              William Carlos Williams

“That country where it is always turning late in the year. 

That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; 

where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and

 midnights stay. That country composed in the main of 

cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries 

faced away from the sun. That country whose people are 

autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people 

passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain.”

Ray Bradbury

The quotes present two views of autumn. The pond two

weeks ago, drained for the winter there were large numbers

of robins and a few ducks taking advantage of the food 

exposed by the expanse of mud this revealed.

"Though we have not yet had a frost, the chill of early

autumn has come into the house, perhaps in the tattered

carpet bags of the field mice moving into the the cellar for 

the winter. Falling leaves have begun to blow past the window,

the lovely yellow leaves of time."

                   Local Wonders

                                        Seasons in the Bohemian Alps

           Ted Kooser

 

“Seeing, in the finest and broadest sense, means using

your senses, your intellect, and your emotions. It means

encountering your subject matter with your whole being.

It means looking beyond the labels of things and discovering

the remarkable world around you.” 

 

                                                    Freeman Patterson

 

Lunch time Friday at the Research Park

 

 

“A human being is a part of the whole called

by us universe, a part limited in time and space.

He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling

as something separated from the rest,

a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.

This delusion is a kind of prison for us,

restricting us to our personal desires and to affection

for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to

free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle

of compassion to embrace all living creatures

and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

 

Albert Einstein

 

Looking at my older posts I see I started my blogs in Dec. 2010.

I had purchased my Canon Rebel in Nov. and wanted a forum

to share photos and quotes from some of my favorite poets.

After two years I still feel I would like to continue this exercise.

The passages I am quoting today are two of the strongest and most

impressive ( for me ) that I know and although already well known

I decided to reflect on them again even if they do not match 
the subject of my photos as much as I normally strive for. 
But they both speak to the our place in both the universe and in time.

They are also both testaments to the strength of rhythm and form.

"That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang."

From Sonnet LXXIII

Shakespeare

Thursday at lunch I was running errands, on my

way back to work I noticed that the flock of Crossbills and

Nuthatches I had posted photos of on Nov. 24th were back.

I did not have time or my camera so I went out to see if I could

find them Friday. However they were no where to be seen so

here are some photos of the usual suspects.

      

I did not really post any holiday photos this year.

So here are Shaun and Whateley wishing everyone

a Happy New Year. Thank you Rigmor for our beautiful
sweaters.

"I saw Eternity the other night,
Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
All calm, as it was bright;
And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years,
Driv'n by the spheres
Like a vast shadow mov'd; in which the world
And all her train were hurl'd."

from The World

Henry Vaughan

 

 

"I hear new news every day, and those ordinary rumours of war,

plagues, fires, inundations, thefts, murders, massacres, meteors,

comets, spectrums, prodigies, apparitions, of towns taken, cities

besieged in France, Germany, Turkey, Persia, Poland, &c., daily musters

and preparations, and such like, which these tempestuous times

afford, battles fought, so many men slain, monomachies,

shipwrecks, piracies and sea-fights; peace, leagues,
stratagems, and fresh alarms.

A vast confusion of vows, wishes, actions, edicts, petitions,

lawsuits, pleas, laws, proclamations, complaints, grievances are daily
brought to our ears. New books every day, pamphlets, corantoes,

stories, whole catalogues of volumes of all sorts, new paradoxes,

opinions, schisms, heresies, controversies in philosophy, religion,...

Now come tidings of weddings, maskings, mummeries, entertainments,

jubilees, embassies, tilts and tournaments, trophies, triumphs, revels,

sports, plays: then again, as in a new shifted scene, treasons,

cheating tricks, robberies, enormous villainies in all kinds, funerals,

burials, deaths of princes, new discoveries, expeditions, now comical,

then tragical matters. Today we hear of new lords and officers

created, tomorrow of some great men deposed, and then again

of fresh honours conferred; one is let loose, another imprisoned;

one purchaseth, another breaketh: he thrives, his neighbour turns

bankrupt; now plenty, then again dearth and famine; one runs,

another rides, wrangles, laughs, weeps...."

 

Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy 1652

 

 

"when the storm rages and the shipwreck of the the

state threatens, we can do nothing more worthy than to

sink the anchor of our peaceful studies into the ground

of eternity."

 

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)

These pictures are from Tuesday we had a bit

of snow so I took my camera to work and walked

around the Research Park to see what I could see.

My camera has been acting up recently it is a  

Canon Rebel T2i and I normally use a zoom lens

(ef-s 55-250 mm) but it seems to have a problem

with the auto focus if I point it at the sky or a distant

landscape with nothing in the foreground it whirs

in and out but never allows me to take a picture,

then if I point it down it will take a picture. You will

be relieved to know I do not intend to blog my photos

of my feet. Maybe a sensor problem?

The park was nice a very blue sky and

plants bejeweled with ice crystals.

This magpie was hiding from his friends

in the bushes and strangely quiet.

I guess it did not want to share.

I heard chickadees everywhere but could not get a

photo until I was going home. I did not see any

jackrabbits despite looking, very rare for the park.

Not much to see, nothing very dramatic going on

but a lovely day for a walk.

"Where stars past the spruce copse mingle with fireflies
Or the dayscape flings a thousand tones of light back at the
     sun—
Be any one of the colours of an Earth lover;
Walk with me and sometimes cover your shadow with mine. "

Live With Me On Earth Under the Invisible Daylight Moon

Milton Acorn

"The birds are in their trees,
the toast is in the toaster,
and the poets are at their windows.

They are at their windows
in every section of the tangerine of earth-
the Chinese poets looking up at the moon,
the American poets gazing out
at the pink and blue ribbons of sunrise."

                                         Monday

                                            Billy Collins