ice cream!!!

i can still vividly recall my first ice cream! it still excites me when the first ice cream of the season makes its way to my tummy!!!!

still with us . . .

the visual features of spring have yet to reach

the way-up-high realms of the trees

it's a true test of patience 

and faith in the cycles of life

the first little flower

each petal 

a word in a verse

ever wishing

mikalojus ciurlionis, sailing boats, 1906

ever 

wishing for wind

and stillness

for me

the hull

the sails

the soft ropes

the water worn keel

all

ever wishing

for a fullness

and calm

hazard as an opportunity

“if man sees hazard as a misfortune rather than an opportunity, he will seek to close the door to freedom rather than keep it open. ”


john godolphin bennett

day's done . . .

i look; morning to night i am never done with looking.

looking i mean not just standing around, but standing around
as though with your arms open.

and thinking: maybe something will come, some
shining coil of wind,
or a few leaves from any old tree –
they are all in this too.

and now i will tell you the truth.
everything in the world
comes.

at least, closer.



mary oliver

excerpted from "where does the temple begin, where does it end?"

little wash'd up drift

as i wend to the shores i know not,
as i list to the dirge, the voices of men and women wreck'd,
as i inhale the impalpable breezes that set in upon me,
as the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closer and closer,
i, too, but signify, at the utmost, a little wash'd-up drift,
a few sands and dead leaves to gather,
gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and drift.

walt whitman  excerpted from "elemental drifts"

st. george's day!

having been born in england i still carry allegiance to some of the customs and traditions that accrue to that privilege. one of those is my acknowledgement of st. george's day. in england, st. george's day also marks its national day. it is celebrated on april 23rd, as that is the traditionally accepted date of saint george's death back in 303 a.d.

now why is george so famous. well it's something to do with him slaying the dragon. i checked into this and the wikipedia entry suggests that this extraordinary event took place in libya.

here's a jolly george giving a bit of stick to a diminutive dragon . . .

this is more like it . . . notice the remains of previous victims, the mightily chuffed female onlooker . . .

 

time was, st. george's day in england was celebrated to almost the same degree as christmas with feasting and jolly frolicking and whatever else fit the day. unfortunately, it has now faded into the mists of simple recognition. there has been a fair bit of rumbling and grumbling around george's fade into obscurity with some people clamouring for the return of the day on a grand scale and others asking the (to me) more reasonable question, why would england celebrate the death of a guy who had very little connection with the country. others such as edmund, cuthbert, and alban really have much more merit as a national saint in my own view.

anyhow, to all my english visitors. happy st. george's day!

the boulder outside the art gallery

the paths

of all the little places

worn through use

much like my heart

running to 

and from 

everything

and less

while always

hoping for more

fossil shell

the shell that did not keep from the sea
even the echo of the smallest wave

words excerpted from "silence concerning an ancient stone" by rosario castellanos

oh my!

in my mum's kitchen . . .    yes - they are real !!!!!!

and my mum has just written in to tell me that they are blue zebra primroses and not pansies (referencing my response to rick baker)!!!

thanks mum !!!

my dad's lakeside bench

love one another, but make not a bond of love: 

let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

khalil gibran 

this poem

this poem 

since feeling is first

who pays any attention

to the syntax of things

will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool

while spring is in the world

my blood approves,

and kisses are a far better fate

than wisdom

lady i swear by all flowers. don’t cry

–the best gesture of my brain is less than

your eyelids’ flutter which says

we are for each other: then

laugh, leaning back in my arms

for life’s not a paragraph

and death i think is no parenthesis

e. e. cummings

the sea

“for whatever we lose (like a you or a me), 

it's always our self we find in the sea.”    e.e. cummings

heckler handling

we all get heckled in our jobs - in different ways - and i love the way this baseball outfielder managed a heckler at a recent game . . . .

an early morning walk

spring on lake ontario's north shore . . . 

random

i am drawn to the random assortment of flotsam and jetsam on beaches. each object has a history. a history that is still unfolding. these twigs, pebbles and pieces of wood will be - well what in one hundred, one thousand years?!

monk's cove (i)

an early morning moment . . . driftwood, waves, water-rounded pebbles and a man . . . revelling in his fortune . . .

trees fall down . . .

a severe ice storm settled over my city on thursday evening with the result that there were several trees and branches and power lines and whatever else left making their way to the ground. 

strength

“it is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.” 

vincent van gogh

blue calm

the evening and the sky are settling in. 

the speed of colour

somedays life moves at the speed of colour . . . 

tree talk

the trees have gathered together for a chat. it's a little warmer than usual, the wind is howling across the front and back porches, and the squirrels are corkscrewing up and down the tree trunks in search of food, friends, some place where there is no wind perhaps. there are great negotatiations going on between the wind and the clouds and the trees and the ground, negotiations mediated by big brother sun who is occasionally peering in to see what the commotion is all about . . . . hi brother!

a brave chilly face

love is a world

a life without love is a waste. “should i look for spiritual love, or material, or physical love?”, don’t ask yourself this question. discrimination leads to discrimination. Love doesn’t need any name, category or definition. Love is a world itself. either you are in, at the center…

either you are out, yearning.

shams tabrizi

ice rain

on yard duty yesterday.

one of the grade two girls likes to hold my hand as i walk back and forth across my area and she says "it wants to rain but it's forgotten how. see. see it's frozen rain."

as ice pellets fall in a thick stinging smear that peppers the skin of my face.

this

you

rise

complete

contained

a winged wholeness

i can't question

spring river

“Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.”   the buddha

sidewalk chalk (i)

the sidewalk chalk is out! surely that means summer is coming soon . . . . .

the shadow of my self

portrait of the blogger as a large man with a small head!

still . . .

it clings with feathered ice fingers . . . the last vestige of winter, early in the morning . . .