Singer-Songwriter Nanci Griffith (1953–2021)

 

A good interview with Nanci

https://acousticguitar.com/remembering-singer-songwriter-nanci-griffith-1953-2021/

Grasslands Park Last week and I will start updating again.

 

"do u understand what heaven is it is the surround of the living" 

James Merrill

The Changing Light at Sandover

I can snap them for the porch. Mocking me, while the family hauls away my trees one twig at a time.

 

"Cocked in that land tactile as leaves

wild things wait crouched in those valleys

west of your city outside your lives

in the ultimate wind, the whole land's wave. 

Come west and see; touch these leaves." 

from Midwest

by William Stafford

If you took an Uber in Washington, D.C., a couple of years ago, there was a chance your driver was one of the greatest living Uyghur poets.

 

Let there be a man who lived through the winter
Let him fill his inner pocket with rain
and find a farmer
sowing his fields with wind seeds
and let him say to the farmer: “Here I am.”

Three Poems by Tahir Hamut Izgil

https://www.asymptotejournal.com/poetry/tahir-hamut-three-poems/

Atlantic article.

https://www.theatlantic.com/the-uyghur-chronicles/

Red-Necked Grebe by the grid road.

Above us, stars. 

Beneath us, constellations.

Five billion miles away, a galaxy dies

like a snowflake falling on water.

Flying by Night

Ted Kooser

link to the full poem here,

https://www.tedkooser.net/excerpts/flyingAtNight.html

On the way home from town

                                                   

(from) Deer Stolen by William Stafford

Deer have stood around our house

at night so still nobody knew,

and waited with ears baling air.

I hunt the still deer everywhere,

Cabin June 3 2021

 

Last year we did not stay at the cabin. Instead we spent two weeks at the farm and the rest of the time in Calgary. We have been here a week and I have some observations. It is incredibly dry. We have noticed green popular leaves falling from the trees and blowing in the wind. I have only seen one Franklin’s Ground Squirrel in front of the cabin. Whether the colony has been reduced or whether some are  still denning I cannot say. We have not seen the Snowshoe Hare so far. For many years we only saw one. Two years ago we had a pair who produced several litters. Typically they take longer to habituate to the presence of us, dogs included. (one just showed up and was soundly barked at)  I have not seen a Red Squirrel but we can hear them. I have seen a couple of Least Chipmunks.

Catbird

Red Necked Grebes have nested in the slough in front of the cabin every year we have been here. This year the only visible nest seems low in the water  and I have only seen one bird so I wonder if something has happened. There seem to be more species of ducks at least visiting the slough including Scaups, Canvasbacks, Buffleheads, Goldeneye, Mallards, Blue Winged Teal, and a pair of Ring Necked Ducks which is a new species for us. We have seen the Bald Eagle, Turkey Vultures and Franklin’s Gulls flying overhead. The first morning we were here I photographed a female Oriole on the porch and one or more pairs has been around most days. We also have had Hummingbirds, Goldfinches, Chickadees, and a female Rose-breasted Grosbeck at the feeders. There are Phoebes and a Robin nesting on the cabin. Again there do not seem to be any Barn Swallows. We have had three pairs nesting on the cabin in one year in the past. There appear to be Tree Swallows by the hayfield, as well as Kildeer, Song, Vesper and White-throated sparrows, a Catbird and a Great Blue Heron. The beavers are omnipresent the number of trees continue to decline. 

I initially came to western Canada to participate in an archaeological field school excavating at Fort George, a Northwest Company post. Every year at the cabin I try to read some history books to expend my knowledge of the subject. Primarily these books focus the fur trade in western Canada and the culture and history of the indigenous people of Western Canada including the events of the North-West Rebellion. Sadly the discovery in Kamloops did not come as a great surprise to me. I would recommend the book Loyal till Death Indians and the North-West Rebellion by Blair Stonechild and Bill Waiser if you want to get a sense of the attitudes leading up to the situation we find ourselves today. I am currently reading Waiser’s A World We have Lost  Saskatchewan Before 1905.