Thinking of you. Always.

Jean's dad, André, would have been 80 today. My heart hurts.



I'm posting some pictures of André's incredibly beautiful and peaceful garden and yard in Ancaster. His garden was a true inspiration to me, and still is. These were taken close to three years ago. I see him in every one of these images. In every sun flare, every bit of dappled light, every blade of grass, every soft petal and each and every speck of earth. And when Jean and I are working in our garden, we can feel him. It is so comforting. We miss you and love you André. So very much.










Angela, thank you so much for introducing me to this poem. It resonates with me too.

Fern Hill
By: Dylan Thomas

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house
and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and
cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was
air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the
nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking
warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace.

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would
take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

This is just to say..

3 poems I never tire of reading. Beautiful and simple.

This is Just to Say
William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold


Love
Czeslaw Milosz

Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills -
A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.
Then he wants to use himself and things
So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.
It doesn't matter whether he knows what he serves:
Who serves best doesn't always understand.


Bird
Pablo Neruda

It was passed from one bird to another,
the whole gift of the day.
The day went from flute to flute,
went dressed in vegetation,
in flights which opened a tunnel
through the wind would pass
to where birds were breaking open
the dense blue air -
and there, night came in.

When I returned from so many journeys,
I stayed suspended and green
between sun and geography -
I saw how wings worked,
how perfumes are transmitted
by feathery telegraph,
and from above I saw the path,
the springs and the roof tiles,
the fishermen at their trades,
the trousers of the foam;
I saw it all from my green sky.
I had no more alphabet
than the swallows in their courses,
the tiny, shining water
of the small bird on fire
which dances out of the pollen.

Kate Ingold

I'm so happy Kate Ingold came into my life. We met in Oaxaca, instantly connected and have been friends ever since. I love it when that happens, it's rare. Kate is a beautiful artist and poet and all around incredible individual. She is a constant source of inspiration for me. No matter where she's living, what she's doing or how busy she is, Kate always manages to carve out time to write and make art. Oh and she's got a blog too!

Here are some of her pieces. She's represented by Roy Boyd Gallery in Chicago.


Eternally Beautiful and Everlasting, Multi-Media on Archival Paper, 2006


To Protect the Unknown from the Unknown, Multi-Media on Archival Paper, 2006


Untitled Study, Multi-Media on Archival Paper, 2006


Half the day I searched for what was lost, Multi-Media on Archival Paper, 2005-2006

exvoto
by kate ingold

half the day I searched for what was lost:
book of stamps
keys to the house
your wedding ring
I found a half-born blue jay by the back door
feathers more like fur
eggshell splinters scattered over
a burning body

held in the crux of my hand
the jay shivered as a new-born
the heart fluttered
beat asymmetrical rhythms

above me in the still-bare arms of an ailing tree
two jays screamed
took flight
left me
to wash my soiled hand

Oh those Germans.

Der Erlkönig (The Erl-King) is another of my favourite poems. It's haunting, dark and twisty and reminds me of German fairy tales I read growing up. I use the term 'fairy tales' very loosely. Ever heard of the German classic Struwwelpeter? Oh man! It's complete with color drawings of kids burning to death and having their thumbs (which shouldn’t be sucked) chopped off. And of course there's the Brothers Grimm. Could anything be further from Disney?

Anyhow, back to The Erl-King. There are many translations out there but this is the version I remember from junior high.

The Erl-King
By: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Who rides so late on a night so wild?
A father is riding with his child.
He clasps the boy close in his arm.
He holds him tightly, he keeps him warm.

"My son, you are trembling, what do you fear?"
"Look father, the Erl-King, he's coming near!
With his crown and his shroud, yes, that is he."
"My son, it is only the mists that you see."

"O lovely boy, O come with me!
Such games we'll play, how glad we'll be.
Such flowers to pick, such sights to behold;
My mother will make you clothes of gold."

"O father, O father, do you not hear
The Erl-King whispering in my ear?"
"Be still, my child, lie quietly;
It is only the wind in the leaves of the tree."

"Dear boy, if you will but come away
My daughters will wait on you every day.
They'll give you the prettiest presents to keep
They'll dance when you wake and they'll sing you to sleep."

"Look father, O father, do you not see?
The Erl-King's pale daughters waiting for me?"
"My son, my son, I see what you say,
The willow is waving, its branches are grey."

"I love you child, so come without fear or remorse
And if you're not willing, I'll take you by force!"
"O father, dear father, tighten your hold!
The Erl-King has caught me, his fingers are cold!"

The father shudders, he spurs on his steed,
He carries the child with desperate speed.
He reaches the courtyard and looks down with dread,--
For there in his arms, the boy lies, dead.

The ones you don't forget.

I've been reading a lot of poetry lately. I started thinking about some of the first poems I read that have really stayed with me throughout the years. In grade 7 through 9 I had the good fortune of having one of the most amazing English teachers, Mr. Brown. He got me interested in all different types of literature and poetry.

Here is one of my all time favourites. It's tragic, insightful and moving. And it introduced me to the magic that is Robert Frost.
Thanks Mr. Brown!

"Out, Out-"
By: Robert Frost

The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behind the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And nothing happened: day was all but done.
Call it a day, I wish they might have said
To please the boy by giving him the half hour
That a boy counts so much when saved from work.
His sister stood beside them in her apron
To tell them "Supper." At the word, the saw,
As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,
Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap—
He must have given the hand. However it was,
Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!
The boy's first outcry was a rueful laugh,
As he swung toward them holding up the hand
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all—
Since he was old enough to know, big boy
Doing a man's work, though a child at heart—
He saw all spoiled. "Don't let him cut my hand off—
The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!"
So. But the hand was gone already.
The doctor put him in the dark of ether.
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And then—the watcher at his pulse took fright.
No one believed. They listened at his heart.
Little—less—nothing!—and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.