scruffypants

my neighbour's cat.

she patrols my property.

brings me birds.

right now she is trying to figure out

how to get the snow out

from between her toes . . . . 

i shall foot it

i shall foot it

in the silence of the morning,

see the night slur into dawn,

hear the slow great winds arise

where tall trees flank the way

and shoulder toward the sky.

carl sandburg

moving into march

the wooden edge of a flowerbed returns to this plane of existence

as the accumulated snow and ice of the past month or so recedes

tracks

degrees of sophistication

indicators of necessity

a measure of intention

sunday late february

late february

a late february early evening sky

the soft feeble light

warms my lips

thoroughfare

the many dialects of a thoroughfare

the wind

the wind brings assymetry

the speed of life

sometimes

we race by

ourselves

what we see

“life is what we make of it. travel is the traveler. what we see isn't what we see but what we are.”

fernando pessoa   .   the book of disquiet

this my self

when i saw the confluence of the cuneiform metal, 

the starred and dried leaves 

and the slender shadows stretched across the snow

i felt an echoing 

of the architecture 

of my self

tracks from above

crossing a bridge and looking down at the tracks in the snow.

sometimes my dreams take me above my self 

and i see

the scatter of my life with the same distance

connecting and drawing the lines of all that has passed

while comfortably unsure of where i came from 

and where i am going 

fair

there is for me a necessity - the necessity of fairness. 

fairness is a word i love for its multivalent nature. 

fair - beautiful without condition. a sort of innocence. 

fair - an equivalency of experience that doesn't compromise the presence of a person in the presence of another.

my own definitions. 

my own sense of rightness.

look up (i)

i like that my town takes care of its heritage without being too protective. 

these are lived-in buildings.

under and over . . .

little moments on my walk home in mid february . . .

the high risk shot . . . walking under late afternoon pigeon land . . . 

across the otonabee river . . . the ice comes and the ice goes . . . 

and across jackson creek where it joins the otonabee river . . . 

life as it is

it was and is

and becomes

layers of passing

an overlapping of ambitions

a rending

tearing

seeming disconnection

but always with layers

that allude 

to an apparent

and necessary

wholeness

window shopping

the blogger as a window shopper . . .

oh, my friend,

all that you see of me

is just a shell,

and the rest belongs to love.

rumi

snowy

my home in february . . . .

the view from the street

the side stairs

down by the fence line

the blogger

the blogger in his winter monkey hat walking up the main street of his town . . . 

crary park

the park, by the side of little lake - which isn't a lake at all but a widening of the river  . . . 

no matter.

it's always a special place that i bicycle or walk through each and every day.

february 8. 2013

a pale vanilla sun peeks between some winter branches as a snowstorm moves in from the southwest.

i'll walk to school today.

imagine my fortune!

i get to choose between a bicycle or walking

in order to get to work!

beside the railway

it's the little fragilities
and
the withered vulnerabilities

that hold me in admiration.

there

regardless
of its apparent loss of purpose

a winter killed plant still holds its place
hard next to an unused railway track

leaving

check the weather outside . . . 

out the front door . . . 

and onto the driveway.

in a winter storm

in the summer, a sailboat will tie up to this mooring post.

paper man

i just watched this. it's sweet!!!

winter marina

the marina docks in winter time. 

the parapet of a bridge

looking over the parapet of a bridge.

underneath the bridge a river emerges. 

not a big river, but a river that begins north of my city and then is hidden under city streets, emerging briefly in places and then diving back underground. 

i think on its history sometimes and try to imagine its place in the lives of the animals, the first nations people who knew it as a source of water and food, the early settlers who learned to see it as much the same,  and now am i thinking on the times i spend in a funky cafe next to a fifty foot stretch that emerges and babbles almost joyfully. . . . 

this morning i am looking over the parapet of a bridge.

the river beneath me is frozen over, but at its centre where the current is strongest, the ice is thinnest, revealing the colour of the water beneath it.

so like people.

[month of] february

[month of] february

the winter moon has such a quiet car

that all the winter nights are dumb with rest.

she drives the gradual dark with drooping crest,

and dreams go wandering from her drowsy star.

because the nights are silent, do not wake:

but there shall tremble through the general earth,

and over you, a quickening and a birth.

the sun is near the hill-tops for your sake.

the latest born of all the days shall creep

to kiss the tender eyelids of the year;

and you shall wake, grown young with perfect sleep,

and smile at the new world, and make it dear

with living murmurs more than dreams are deep.

silence is dead, my dawn; the morning's here.

hilaire belloc