metal roses

metal roses, handmade by my buddy james pronk - a master of metallurgical magic . . .

frostbow

Frost´bow`
n. 1. A white arc or circle in the sky attending frosty weather and formed by reflection of sunlight from ice crystals floating in the air; the parhelic circle whose center is at the zenith.

rainbow plume

the beautiful rainbow plume . . .

mid winter by the river

walking alongside the river in the early morning on my way to school . . .   the river steaming into the thirty five below zero winter air . . . the sun, full and bright but not warm . . . definitely not warm!

the beauty of a glassed in porch

early morning frosty windows on her porch . . .

snowshoes!

i bought myself some new snowshoes so we can go off the trails and into the woods

 to see what we can see and take photographs!!!!

deliquescent

a heart becoming a butterfly . . . 

caught in mid melt . . . 

deliquescent . . . 

“every moment of light and dark is a miracle.” walt whitman

a mid-winter setting sun

walking home through the light of a mid-winter setting sun . . . 

my street . . . 

hard wintering by the river

the light pours through . . .

a small river of light and colour temporarily frozen in time and space . . . . 

upriver in the january melt . . .

looking upriver through the successive stages of melt as evidenced in the retreating ice pack . . .

cheese making

i got to attend a workshop on simple cheesemaking recently that excited me tremendously . . .

tom spills the secrets!

tom. half peterborough boy.  half north carolina boy.

the dangling and slowly draining cheesecloth bag of to be becoming cheese . . .

oak leaf . . .

little autumn treasures keep arriving at the front of my home . . .

the view acros the river

there's something about black and white photography that separates it so thoroughly from colour . . .

here are some wartime houses on the southern edge of east city in peterborough.

the vinegar bottle

the blogger

a self-portrait of the fifty six year old gently maturing man. inside a life filled with astonishing fortune. kindness and grace literally walks into his life. 

he gets to be a teacher - this alone would blow the minds of all who knew him until he was thirty three (and some since!) 

a life coloured with the love of many and the remarkable presence of so many more . . . 

and perhaps most incredibly - the purpose of almost everything before is revealed in an instant and then everything in his life begins again from there . . .

caprice

this leaf lay in the snow on its own . . . there were no others like it anywhere nearby . . . it reminded me of how we travel through this place . . . how do we get to where we are . . . carried on the winds of caprice and fortune . . .  each entirely unique and astonishing . . .

open water . . .

when the river melts . . .

the very cold and snow

i can't stop my eyes . . .

i can't stop my eyes desperately seeking out colour in the greyscale that is a peterborough winter . . . .

busy

even deep into winter's stillness, 

there's a "busyness"that accompanies the visual presence of winter . . 

little wing

the crystal cave

guarding the entrance ….

to the little ice cave.

icy cold!

excessively cold . . . 

and yet absolutely beautiful . . . 

and somehow the pileated woodpecker doesn't mind at all!

thirty four below

it's cold walking these days . . . and nights!!!!

prayer

as part of a project my friend Ruth Hart Mowry is undertaking, i'm posting a piece of writing by the incredible american poet jorie graham. "the longing is to be pure. what you get is to be changed. more and more by each glistening minute, through which infinity threads itself . . . " whoa! in twenty five words or less . . . here's the rest . . . .

prayer

  

over a dock railing, i watch the minnows, thousands, swirl

themselves, each a minuscule muscle, but also, without the

way to create current, making of their unison (turning, re-

                                                infolding,

entering and exiting their own unison in unison) making of themselves a

visual current, one that cannot freight or sway by

minutest fractions the water's downdrafts and upswirls, the

dockside cycles of finally-arriving boat-wakes, there where

they hit deeper resistance, water that seems to burst into

itself (it has those layers) a real current though mostly

invisible sending into the visible (minnows) arrowing

                         motion that forces change--

this is freedom. this is the force of faith. nobody gets

what they want. never again are you the same. the longing

is to be pure. what you get is to be changed. more and more by

each glistening minute, through which infinity threads itself,

also oblivion, of course, the aftershocks of something

at sea. Here, hands full of sand, letting it sift through

in the wind, i look in and say take this, this is

what I have saved, take this, hurry. and if i listen

now? listen, i was not saying anything. it was only

something i did. i could not choose words. i am free to go.

i cannot of course come back. not to this. never.

it is a ghost posed on my lips. here: never.

jorie graham

happy new year!

climbing determinedly up and over the fence of this year for a peek at the year arriving . . .

a happy and wonderful new year to all my bloggy chums and family members!!!