The Mountains

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

from Sky Spindrift
by James Wreford

https://defendabparks.ca

Farm the Original House

"This book is a journal of certain experiences, not written in the experiencing moment, but rebuilt out of memory. As we age, the mystery of Time more and more dominates the mind. We live less in the present, which no longer has the solidarity that it had in youth; less in the future, for the future every day narrows its span. The abiding things lie in the past,"

from Memory-Hold-the-Door
by John Buchan

"Back there at the beginning, as I see it now, my life was all time and almost no memory. Though I knew early of death, it still seemed to be something that happened only to other people, and I stood in an unending river of time that would go on making the same changes and the same returns forever.

     And now, nearing the end, I see that my life is almost entirely memory and very little time." 

from Jayber Crow

by Wendell Berry

"The stories you remember feel like mirrors,

And rereading them like leafing through your life at a certain age,

As though the years were pages."

from A Private Singularity

by John Koethe

full poem available here

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/57386/a-private-singularity

"You find it in yourself: the ways that led inexorably from

Home to here are simply stories now, leading nowhere anymore;

The wilderness they led through is the space behind a door

Through which a sentence flows, following a map in the heart.

Along the way the self that you were born with turns into

The self that you created, but they come together at the end,"

from A Private Singularity

by John Koethe

full poem available here

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/57386/a-private-singularity

“Big Ben was beginning to strike, first the warning, musical; 

then the hour, irrevocable.” 

from Mrs Dalloway

by Virginia Woolf

"Time is measured in change

whether by the movement of

instruments or in the appearance

of our bodies. We often feel the 

need to escape to places where time 

will not follow. To the solitude of a 

cathedral or an untouched forest

floor. Here, as we contemplate the

scope of human existence, we

cannot forget that even cathedrals

crumble and forests die. The 

computations of astronomers bear

witness to the gradual alteration 

of the constellations as the stars

move across the firmament. The 

works of nature and man disintegrate

and are gone,  and nothing endures

on the vault of the sky of the surface

of the sea. Only the shapes of the

land seem eternal."

from A Vanished World, T

he Dinosaurs of Western Canada

by Dale A. Russell

"Centuries are nothing but what we make of them, 
figments of the rage for order."

from intro, interzone The 4th Anthology
by John Clute

"We seek to stay in the present, even as the ghosts 
attempt to draw us away. Our father manning the
loom of eternal return. Our mother wandering towards 
paradise, releasing the thread."

from M Train

by Patti Smith

Age

"Ah Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in
Are you aware the shape I'm in
My hands they shake my head it spins
Ah Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in

Dumbed down and numbed by time and age

Your dreams to catch the world, the cage

The highway sets the traveler's stage

All exits look the same."

from I And Love And You

Avett Brother lyrics

watching hockey, reading poetry, listening to youtube videos.

"I used to like being young, and I still do,

Because I think I still am. There are physical

Objections to that thought"

from A Private Singularity

by John Koethe

"Doctor, you say there are no haloes
around the streetlights in Paris
and what I see is an aberration
caused by old age, an affliction.
I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don't see,
to learn that the line I called the horizon
does not exist and sky and water,
so long apart, are the same state of being.
Fifty-four years before I could see
Rouen cathedral is built
of parallel shafts of sun,
and now you want to restore
my youthful errors: fixed
notions of top and bottom,
the illusion of three-dimensional space,
wisteria separate from the bridge it covers."

from Monet Refuses the Operation

by Lisel Mueller

   We arrived at the cabin a couple of days ago. 
These photos were taken by the trail camera attached
to the post by the porch steps. The bear appears for
several days after we left then nothing.

“ ...If there is to be a poet in these modern times,

he must go out for himself and must gain much

wisdom. He must look deeply into the world,

and far into time, even though he sees both the

world and time from some little microcosm like

Sheep Rock Spring.”

                                                from Sheep Rock

                                                        by  George R. Stewart,

"Am I going on too much? I value these because they happened,
and the sum of them is my lifetime."


From Roger Ebert's Salon.com article My Backup Mom
(discussing his memories of his family and friends)



I have been feeling the passage of time lately something I think
is quite common as one grows older. Certainly I find a lot
of writers discussing the past, memory, history, the passage
of personal time, the passage of institutions, customs. A poet 

I have been reading lately John Koethe excels at memory and 

passage of time in the city landscape.

 

"This is the life I wanted, and could never see.
For almost twenty years I thought that it was enough:
That real happiness was either unreal, or lost, or endless,
And that remembrance was as close to it as I could ever come.
And I believed that deep in the past, buried in my heart
Beyond the depth of sight, there was a kingdom of peace.
And so I never imagined that when peace would finally come
It would be on a summer evening, a few blocks away from home
In a small suburban park, with some children playing aimlessly
In an endless light, and a lake shining in the distance.

Eventually, sometime around the middle of your life,
There’s a moment when the first imagination begins to wane.
The future that had always seemed so limitless dissolves,
And the dreams that used to seem so real float up and fade.
The years accumulate; but they start to take on a mild,
Human tone beyond imagination, like the sound the heart makes
Pouring into the past its hymns of adoration and regret.
And then gradually the moments quicken into life,
Vibrant with possibility, sovereign, dense, serene;
And then the park is empty and the years are still."


from The Park
John Koethe

 

So staying with the theme of time a homage to the seasons.

 

 

 

I have loved science fiction since encountering it in the school
and public libraries I frequented as a child in Windsor. Lately
I have been adding SF anthologies from the 1940’s and
1950’s to my collection. I love the strange stores that appeared
in an pulp magazine were republished in a old anthology and
then disappeared forever. For example a running bathtub that
brings down the skyscrapers of New York? Tonight I opened
the mails and there was Science Fiction Adventure in Dimension
(time) but the first story I picked out was by a favorite author
Ray Bradbury and I encountered this wonderful passage set on Mars

 

 

 

Max registers his approval.

“There was a smell of Time in the air tonight. He smiled and
turned the fancy in his mind. There was a thought. What did
time smell like? Like dust and clocks and people. And if you
wondered what Time sounded like it sounded like water
running in a dark cave and voices crying and dirt dropping
down upon hollow box lids, and rain. And, going further,
what did Time look like? Time look like snow dropping
silently into a black room or it looked like a silent film in an
ancient theater, 100 billion faces falling like those New Year
balloons, down and down into nothing. That was how Time
smelled and looked and sounded. And tonight-Tomas shoved
a hand into the wind outside the truck-tonight you could almost
taste time.
He drove the truck between hills of time"




                                                         Night Meeting
                                                                            Ray Bradbury

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)

“Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.”

                                                                                       Walden

                                                                                             Henry David Thoreau                                               

Today the Grackles reappeared I would say returned but some I am sure have been with us all summer. Typically we see small flocks in the spring and again in the fall, gleaming black metallic knights with their bronze and violet feathers, the sunlight reflected a different spectrum with every turn and pirouette. This year a family also appeared in midsummer with their squalling chicks reflecting every phase of the transition from callow youth to adult.  I have seen the large winter flocks in Charleston but here they are more of a beautiful novelty and when I think of the house in Calgary they will have a strong seasonal association for me. I find that living in the city I often experience the seasons more through memory and art than through my day to day reality so the Grackle today are welcome guests.

The advent of fall here has started me thinking about the seasons. One trend that has saddened me lately is the calls for year round schools. As I am neither, parent or educator I see this not from a practical stance but through the rather romantic lens of childhood. As adults we live increasingly in a 24 7 world. Technology allows those of us who live in the cities of the developed world to even out the seasonal effects of climates on products, housing even the cycle of day and night. A winter vacation can be taken in the tropics a shift worker can start at midnight and go home to sleep with the dawn.  It is a reality we live in but one I would like to spare children, so much of the school I remember revolved around the seasons, our art projects of cutting out pumpkins and Christmas trees, the gathering and preserving of fallen leaves for science projects, even the stories in our readers and the pageants we performed often had a seasonal theme.

It is hard to imagine that these seasonal pursuits with have the same resonance  for children that live in the same world as their parents, where time off is the same two weeks squeezed in here and there for practically and convenience. The world we used to inhabit was a thing of grand sweeping gestures not a world anchored to the cheese paring of time.

“February and there are Valentines for everyone for once.

Easter eggs, paper tulips, it is spring and change is in the air.

And in the summer you ran thru an endless twilight

until the street lights called you home.”

                                        from Days of Construction Paper and Macaroni

                                                                                              Guy

“Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me

Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,

     In the moon that is always rising,

          Nor that riding to sleep

     I should hear him fly with the high fields

And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.

Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,

          Time held me green and dying

Though I sang in my chains like the sea. “

                                                                               Fern Hill

                                                                                 Dylan Thomas