"I was so busy rushing headlong into the future, loving libraries and

books and authors with all my heart and soul, was so consumed

with becoming myself that I simply didn't notice that I was short,

homely and untalented."

     From the introduction to Bradbury Stories ( William Morrow publ.)

                             by Ray Bradbury

                         

Since retiring in May this is the first time I have the luxury of  

sitting down at home and fiddling with my books. It seems to 

be a time to read, think and look, both forward and backward.

My books; mirrors to the reflections, loves, lives of so many 

others, both real and imagined, help as well.

"We live forward, but understand backwards'

                       from Reading Dante: From Here to Eternity

by Prue Shaw

" we are asleep over charts at running windows

we are asleep with compasses in our hands

and at the bow of the stone boat

the wave from the ends of the earth keeps breaking"

from The Estuary

by W.S. Merwin

I have been out of circulation for awhile, we went on

an Alaskan cruise with no internet access we cared to

pay for and then I had a cold and sat around feeling sorry

for myself. Now recovered and with lots of photos from

both the cruise and the summer at the cabin I will try to

post more often. I am not sure if the subject of Merwin

poems exactly matches the photos but they often mirror

my feelings, while observing and experiencing the world

with all it's history, complexity, colour and movement.

" I am the child who plans the Ark

back of the house while there is still 

time and rides bareback on the dark

horse through the summer night until

day finds us on the leafless hill

who stands at evening by the lake

looking out on it as I will

as long as I am here awake. "

    from Testimony

        by W.S. Merlin

"These are the stories the dogs tell, when the fire

burns high and the wind is from the north"

from City

by Clifford Simak  

A quick stop in Vancouver, which means the Sylvia Hotel on 

English Bay, and dogs on the seawall, 

and gulls on rocks 

and 

rocks without gulls,  

and sea

washed pebbles,

the mysteries of the deep, Cthulhu?  

the last flowers of summer 

Favorite eateries 



and funky boutiques.

"There is mystery here, but a soft, sure mystery that is 

understood and only remains a mystery because I want

it so. The mystery of the nighthawk against a darkening sky, 

the puzzle of the firefly along the lilac hedge."

from Time and Again

by Clifford Simak

"Recall, reader if ever in the mountains 

a mist has caught you, through which you could not 

see except as moles do through the skin

how when the moist vapours began to dissipate,

the sphere of the sun enters freely through them ,

and your imagination will quickly see how, at first 

I saw the sun again, which is now at its setting"

from Purgatory X11, 1-9

by Dante translator Charles S. Singleton

One morning at the cabin I looked out so see a stream of

fog running thru a low spot where the land dips between the

 ridge where the cabin sits before it rises again, slightly to form 

a finger like peninsula jutting into the slough. The fog moved out

through the brush along the edge of the slough becoming a water

fall of mist pouring down the bank to the water and eventually 

dancing like the narrows before burning off in the morning sun.

Fog is the stuff of magic and mystery.

"In the morning, mist comes up from the sea by the cliffs 

beyond Kingsport. White and feathery it comes from the deep 

to its brothers the clouds, full of dreams of dank pastures 

and caves of leviathan. And later, in still summer rains on the 

steep roofs of poets, the clouds scatter bits of those dreams,

that men shall not live without rumor of old strange secrets, 

and wonders that planets tell planets alone in the night. 

When tales fly thick in the grottoes of tritons, and conchs in 

seaweed cities blow wild tunes learned from the Elder Ones, 

then great eager mists flock to heaven laden with lore, and 

oceanward eyes on tile rocks see only a mystic whiteness, 

as if the cliff's rim were the rim of all earth, and 

the solemn bells of buoys tolled free in the aether of faery. "

from The Strange High House in the Mist

by H.P. Lovecraft

"Mine are the night and morning, 

The pits of air, the gulf of space, 

The sportive sun, the gibbous moon, 

The innumerable days."

from Song of Nature

by Emerson

On today's canoe trip eagle or osprey we are not sure?

It was big. Very Big. Roc?

"Our paddles keen and bright, 

Flashing like silver; 

Swift as the wild goose flight, 

Dip, dip, and swing.

Dip, dip, and swing them back, 

Flashing like silver; 

Swift as the wild goose flight, 

Dip, dip and swing."

The Paddle Song

" Fields around are yellowing into harvest

nestlings and fingerlings are sky and water borne"

from Wilderness Gothic

by Al Purdy

Some recent highlights.

The swallow chicks from the nests by the living room eaves

left the nest a couple weeks ago and were feed in the trees by 

the porch. You could really see the dominance of the larger

chicks.

Also shot for the living room window, a White-Throated Sparrow

feeds a Brown Headed Cowbird chick. The White-Throated 

Sparrow is considered a rare cowbird host according to The 

Birders Handbook by Enrlich et al.

A young coyote approaches us on our walk. The parents 

apparently stash them somewhere while they go to hunt. Like

teenagers everywhere they then unlock the door and go to the 

mall. A couple of rocks in its direction convinced it that people

and their dogs are not something to approach. 

This summer we went on four studio trails, where you drive thru 

the country and artists welcome you into their homes and studios

to share their work. It give you wonderful insight in how creative

people can be. We bought painting, pottery and quilts as well,

but we really likes these wooden items by three different artists.

I have long wanted to carve birds so I love the Wren I bought, now

I have to get busy.

Finally the local lake in the evening, my wife and her

family fished here on Sundays so it is a special place

for her.

"This is, I think,

what holiness is:

the natural world,

where every moment is full

of the passion to keep moving.

Inside every mind

there's a hermit's cave

full of light,

full of snow,

full of concentration.

I've knelt there,

and so have you,

hanging on

to what you love,

to what is lovely.

The lake's

shining sheets

don't make a ripple now,

and the stars

are going off to their blue sleep,

but the words are in place --

and the fish leaps, and leaps again

from the black plush of the poem,

that breathless space."

               from At The Lake

                by Mary Oliver

"Let it go

Let it roll right off your shoulder

Don't you know

The hardest part is over

Let it in

Let your clarity define you

In the end

We will only just remember how it feels 

Our lives are made

In these small hours

These little wonders

These twists and turns of fate

Time falls away

But these small hours

These small hours still remain 

Let it slide

Let your troubles fall behind you

Let it shine

Till you feel it all around you

And i don't mind

If it's me you need to turn to

We'll get by

It's the heart that really matters in the end"

from Little Wonders

Theme song from " Meet the Robinsons"

composed by Rob Thomas