Trip to Drum - Fall colours

Wring all your memories for the future

Out of this hour and this warm wind-

Hands clasped tight, eyes gazing over

The valley of autumn choked with sun,

from The Soldier's Settlement

by John Glassco

Tree Swallow at the farm and the open road

"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
That two of us could fill our lives with delicate wanting:"

from Live with me on earth under the invisible daylight moon

by Milton Acorn

Somewhere in the Badlands Dec. 2019

 "And from the study of things underfoot, and from reading and thinking, came a kind of exploration, myself and the land. In time the two became one in my mind."

John Haines

Home again cont

“And this is what I learned: that the world’s otherness is antidote to confusion, that standing within this otherness—the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books—can re-dignify the worst-stung heart.”

From Upstream: Selected Essays

by Mary Oliver

I wanted to post some shots from the trip home. The roads were good and there was a lot of hoar frost transforming the landscape. We also saw lots of animals most I did not get photos of. We saw Pronghorns which I mentioned last post. A deer had just crossed the road as we went through. We also saw Snowy Owl, a coyote, partridges and two unusual sights, the first a Red fox amid a cloud of crows. The second a Bald Eagle with Magpies. I thought in both cases they were being mobbed but Helen though they had a been feeding from the same road kill. It was a vey blue and white day.

The combination of moving car and moving animal rarely make for a stellar photo. But I have including it because I was really surprised to see a Bald Eagle here. We were heading towards the tiny badlands town of Dorothy Alberta at the time. I did not realize that this portion of the Red Deer River Valley had Bald Eagles.

Road Trip to Spiritwood Last Week (Lunch with Pam)

"Do not think for one minute it is the Poem that matters.

Is is not the Poem that matters.

You can shove the Poem.

What matters is what is out there in the large dark

and in the long light,

Breathing."

from Let Me Make This Perfectly Clear

by Gwendolyn MacEwen

Going Home November (winter roads)

"I drive

west. I wend between snowbanks,

until the road delivers me

to a sleeping boat launch.

They stand on the frozen ramp;

watch me with coats that are

better than mine."

from Three Deer in Oquossoc

by Sonja Johanson

American Life in Poetry:

Column 713

"O Winter! bar thine adamantine doors:

The north is thine; there hast thou built thy dark

Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs,

Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car.'

He hears me not, but o'er the yawning deep

Rides heavy; his storms are unchain'd, sheathèd

In ribbèd steel; I dare not lift mine eyes,

For he hath rear'd his sceptre o'er the world."

from To Winter

by William Blake