on the front line

portraits of the teacher as a gradually and inexorably maturing man. 

of course there are those who would question my definition of the term "maturing"!!!

this colour filled whole

a day of pure blue sky 

on my way home from time at the "y" with my one and only, i looked across the otonabee river and really felt the autumn through the colours emerging on the east bank . . . (far away, and when zoomed in closer) - gifts! i say gifts!

 and then in the door of my home, a quick over the shoulder glance at the stairway and the stained glass and english ivy somehow carried the colourful whole of this day into a sort of closure as the sun fell low below the horizon that much earlier than yesterday 

sometimes summer home

i'm missing my sometimes summer home this evening . . . barely three feet tall and just wide enough and long enough to contain my body, my gear, a bottle of wine and snacks . . .

it held the warmth, kept out the insects, was my home . . .

a sweet early autumn day . . .

a beginning day with an invitation to join my friends michael and andrea for coffee, fruit and fresh out of the oven apple scones! small joys that this approaching maturity - surely but gingerly - man welcomes.

the view from my seat.

a little closer to the river...

looking west . . . 

the skies later the same day under myself and my class walking to raise money for cancer research . . .

quietude

i have need to busy my heart with quietude.

rupert brooke

three moments

cloudplay

everywhere i look . . .

the earth is crying-sweet,

and scattering-bright the air,

eddying, dizzying, closing round ...

earth's still a-tremble there,

and winds are scented yet,

and memory-soft the air ...

words excerpted from "beauty and beauty" by rupert brooke

a rainy day

these are from yesterday -  a rainy day in late summer . . . .

Park(ing) day . . .

on september 20th a special event takes place all over the place and maybe even around the world!

Park(ing) Day . . . .

i am happy to say that i had a wonderful surprise on sherbrooke street as i was biking home and stopped in at the Electric City Bread Company for some of their astonishingly good breads and pastries, and saw that the good people at the  Avant-Garden Shop (more-or-less right next door) had joined in the annual Park(ing) Day event by transforming a metered parking spot into this lovely little oasis! hurray again for my cool little town!

fragments

driven by the forces of love,

the fragments of the world seek each other

so that the world may come to being.

pierre teilhard de chardin

autumn's hands

autumns hands are the softest of all the seasons as she cloaks her world in fog and the sun settles less and less on this part of the planet . . . .

there is no here and there

the morning fog erased the line between water and air .........

i know this . . .

i know this

in the way i have loved and love,

that there is this matter of surface beauty

that points quite deliberately

towards something

that cannot be reduced

to "something"

and actually escapes objectification.

it is

a state without condition

that resolves

under its own weight 

into something much more -

a something that has its own life 

and exists without condition

that through some miracle

 rises into the condition

of being and becoming a part of this state of existence

“the weight of the world is love. 

under the burden of solitude, 

under the burden of dissatisfaction 

the weight,the weight we carry is love. ” 

allen ginsberg

much

there is

in this entirely vivid time

some small consolation

in the fact 

that it is

that much easier

and that much more certain
to understand and appreciate

when what is real

is so much more apparent

the impending storm

as if they could sense the storm, the ducks all swam in silence against the current, working closer to shore where, in the lee of a long ago fallen and half submerged tree, they gathered and 

began to discuss the impending events.

cloud break

to the summit of heaven the clouds
are rolling aloft like steam;

there's a break in their infinite shrouds,
and below it a gleam.

words excerpted from cloud-break by archibald lampman

petals

a victory! to leave your loneliness
panting behind you on some street corner
while you float free into a cloud of sudden azaleas,
pink petals that have never felt loneliness,
no matter how slowly they fell.

excerpted from "the rider" by naomi shihab nye

the september webs

 the spider, dropping down from twig,
 unfolds a plan of her devising,
 a thin premeditated rig
 to use in rising.

 and all that journey down through space,
 in cool descent and loyal hearted,
 she spins a ladder to the place
 from where she started.

 thus i, gone forth as spiders do
 in spider's web a truth discerning,
 attach one silken thread to you
 for my returning.

e. b. white

the lovely cat

so very beautiful a cat!

"how we behave toward cats here below determines our status in heaven."

robert a. heinlein

portals

a visit to the distillery district in toronto for lunch . . . i love the bricks . . .

and especially

the cool portals

early september sunset

a heaven so clear, an earth so calm,

so sweet, so soft, so hushed an air;

and, deepening still the dream-like charm ...

emily jane bronte

i rode my bike down to cobourg right after school. there was a good headwind all the way, so i stopped in millbrook at the pastry peddler for some crazy good quiche and a huge pastry. i got back on the road down to cobourg, and rode up and over the oak ridges moraine finally ariving in cobourg just in time to wish my buddy rick baker good luck with his photography and prose exhibition down in rochester. that's right - i yelled across lake ontario and i bet rick heard!

the photograph is taken down at monk's cove in cobourg at that moment . . . .

sun light

we live so close

so closely

we become colour

we become music

light and shadow

both light and shadow
are the dance of love.

rumi

city lights across the bay . . .

one time more, my love, the net of light extinguishes

work, wheels, flames, boredoms and farewells,

the moon alone in the midst of its clear page

the room acquires the slowness of gold,

until we are only the one dark space

one drop in the flow of a vast slow river.

-

excerpted and reassembled phrases from

"one time more, my love, the net of light extinguishes"

pablo neruda

late summer evening in the rain

riding down the main street of peterborough in an evening of rain . . .