Snail Mail

I love getting letters - real letters, the kind with interesting stamps on that are delivered by a mailman in a uniform - and today I got two from far away friends. We just have a regular mail box at our house - nothing like this old mailbox I spotted out on the West coast this weekend which would obviously have many stories to tell and secrets to share if only it could talk! Still, it's a real pleasure to come home from a long day at work and find warm thoughts from distant friends waiting to greet me.

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So now I'm going to settle down with a cup of tea and these letters to read...and wait for the snow to start falling.

Yes, we have snow forecast again for tonight.

Blowing in the Wind

Please scroll Down for Shadow Shot Sunday.
I posted a little early!
I was away on the coast this weekend.
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It really is spring there...even if folk who live out there are shaking their heads over the cold, damp late start to the season.
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There were daffodils, crocii and snowdrops.
The trees had buds and everywhere smelled of green.
I took this picture of tattered prayer flags flapping cheerfully in a stiff spring breeze.
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Spring for us looks a little different. We had 10cm of snow delivered in a snowstorm overnight.
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Green? We can only dream!

Shadow Shot Sunday

Click on this button to see more great shadow shots.

Spring Shadows

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I was a little early for Shadow Shot Sunday but thought I'd add some shadow pictures anyway.

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Trees that have yet to put on their spring leaves made intricate shadows on some of the old buildings in our neighbourhood when we finally got some sunshine this weekend.

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Spring snow - I wish!

I'm looking out my window at spring snow right now...but it's not this kind. It's the cold, icy kind.

The weather forcast is calling for a north wind and a high of -2 degrees.

Bring on the blossoms I say!

Spring Evening Downtown

On a blue-sky evening, with the late sun glinting off tall pillars of mirrored glass, even an end-of-winter, dowdy brown, grit-encrusted northern city can be beautiful.

Sunshine and coffee and grapefruit like summer

This morning the spring sunshine was shining brightly through the window of the family room... very brightly because it was glinting off the fresh snow.

But, hey! You can't have everything in life

...and the coffee was hot and fragrant

...and when we peeled the grapefruit they smelled like summer.

It felt like spring inside even if it looked like winter outside - I'll take that!

The Last Trees

They point accusingly -
the last trees.
Gnarled, broken fingers
that censure carpenters, loggers,
governments, builders,
buyers of furniture,
readers of newspapers,

and of glossy magazines,
of pamphlets and leaflets

of books.
Their crippled limbs
denounce us all.
Especially those of us who love to read.
Those of us who read so much.
Yet do so little.

Red Barn in Spring

The colours this old barn against the blue sky and the newly revealed grass blew me away. I felt the earth begin to turn more slowly and stood basking in the warm sun wanting to step back in time.

With Apologies...

This is just to say...

I have eaten
the apples
that were hanging
from the old apple tree
in the orchard

and which
you were probably
saving to bake
into a pie.

Forgive me,
they were ambrosial.
Dew-covered,
and delicious.

With apologies to William Carlos Williams and his delicious plums.

Crow

Fall.
Season poised on the edge of winter.
The wind spits ice.
Heady scent of wood smoke mingles
with the sharp taste of the first snowflakes.

In branches high above
a crow swaggers,
struts brazen-black in a white universe,
beak prow-thrust into the wind,
sleek tail feathers streaming.

That crow,
I envy his pizzaz.
Like a pirate king
he sways with the gusts that rock his Lodgepole pine,
Swaggering, wild and mad,
beak tocking a fierce tattoo,
Up here! Look at me!
Teetering at the precipice of the plunge,
perched on the narrow ledge of his madness,
eager to yield to the wind.

Buffeted by eddies, whirlpools, tides of air
Crow loosens his grip.
One black leg swings free,
Crow admires the cruel curve of his black claws,
regards with satisfaction
the glossy sheen
of his deranged plumage.

The whirl of snow is thicker now,
the forest quieter,
the bird a grey smudge my eyes can barely mark.

Then,
Crow lets rip.
A delirious "Caw!"
A lawless hubris that becomes the wind.
His throat - the source of the gale.

And Crow follows his voice.
Crow rattles his dissolute wings.
Crow surrenders/lets go/
Falls/pitches/tumbles/swoops -
Flings himself into the void.

And the wind is a soft mattress to land on.
A dervish kite to dance with.
An endless hillside to roll down.
A crashing wave to ride.

Hours later,
dusk falling,
An inky speck in the blank sky
tosses me a single harsh
"Cah!"
a challenge.

"Coming?"

Dreaming of Summer

A vast ocean, a shifting sky,

And winds that blow the ghosts of dreams.

To sit on a clifftop, the sun at your back,

Drifting aimlessly,

Rudderless,

Unemcumbered,

Across a steel-blue sea of possiblities

Is one of lifes great pleasures.

Railroads to Nowhere

On this railroad to emptiness,
the relentless

forward thrust of the tracks

is futile.

The journey to anywhere,
goes nowhere and.

interstices of time

gape open.
Moments when nothing is happening,

and nothing is anticipated.
When the hours shift

like sand beneath your feet.

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It is possible

on such a journey
to wander the constellations,

explore a single leaf on sticky insect feet,

open your beak -

drop twigs from the topmost bough.

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On such a journey a person might

revist a lost childhood,

float on an empty ocean,

might fly, fall, marry a pirate

sell their soul for peanuts.

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Or simply sit,

alone,

in a silent room,

(with whitewashed walls)

watching shadows

of summer leaves

dance.
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Let me travel nowhere
on rhymthmic wheels
as time unwinds.

Leave me the interstices.
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You keep the rest.