LONGER BOATS

One of my favorite things about living beside of one of the Great Lakes is the glimpse I get from time to time of the freighters. I first fell in love with these elegant long carriers in my teens, when I was at a camp on the Michigan shore of Lake Huron, and the beauty and mystery of them has stayed with me. I haven't slept very well the last few nights, but the reward is in seeing the ships at night, one shining a light so bright it cast a faint glow on the darkened edge of my window. The other ship, further out on the lake, was lit at both ends and dotted along it's length, like one half of a set of brackets, lying on its back in the water. Perhaps a set of stars overhead formed the other bracket...but it was the middle of the night, and I was too hopeful of getting to sleep to explore the idea further. Now I wish I'd slipped a jacket on and gone out to see if my little camera zoom could pick up anything in the enveloping dark.



Post title comes from the very enigmatic "Longer Boats" by Cat Stevens, on the album Tea for the Tillerman.

BOUND BY THE BEAUTY

I haven't been participating in the poetry meme, One Single Impression, for a while, but I visit many blog friends who do, so I noticed that this week's prompt is "Reincarnation." As coincidence would have it, that's the subject of this post as well. I've been fortunate to live in some very incredible places in my life, always close to nature. The lyrics to Jane Siberry's song, "Bound by the Beauty" run through my head, when I think about all the beauty. I can't imagine what an afterlife would have to be like that I wouldn't still want to keep returning to the Earth. I wish that YouTube had a post of Siberry's song, or that I could embed an MP3 so you can listen to it, but you may have it on your iPod, or be able to access it through some service you belong to. I'll just put a link at the bottom, if you'd like a quick 30-second sample. This text of this post contains excerpts from the lyrics, mixed with photos from my current residence on Lake Erie's north shore, and my previous place in the Alberta foothills, west of Calgary.


I’m bound by the fire
I’m bound by the beauty
I’m bound by desire
I’m bound by the duty
I’m coming back in 500 years
and the first thing I’m gonna do
when I get back here is to see
these things that I love
and they’d better be here, better be here, better be here

First I’m going to find a forest
and stand there in the trees
and kiss the fragrant forest floor
and lie down in the leave
and listen to the birds sing
the sweetest sound you’ll ever hear
and everything the dappled
everything the birds, everything the earthness
everything the verdant, the verdant, the verdant
the verdant green



Then I’m going to find an open field
and lie down in the flowers
and then I’m going to find a guitar
and play play play for hours
and then I’m going to find a river
to see what kind of body in
and everything the granite, everything the kiss
everything the earthness
everything the verdant, the verdant, the verdant
the verdant dream


I’m bound by the beauty
I’m bound by desire
I’m bound to keep returning
I’m bound by the beauty of the light
the slightest change the constant rearrange of light upon the land
I’m bound by the beauty of the wind that blows across the earth
the unfetteredness the wheatness and through the flying hair
the slowness of the falling leaves across this warm November door
and the geese the flying southness the arms out evermore
I’m bound by the snow the soft fallingness
the everupward face...
the ever-upward face...
bound by the sunsets the rivers the music the beauty...


Bound By The Beauty listening LINK

NOVEMBER HOURS

In the four years I’ve lived here on the lake, this is the first autumn that the burning bush under my front window actually turned to flame. Last year a lack of rain caused the leaves to wither and drop early, and before that, temperatures dropped too quickly and steeply, and the green leaves seemed to turn brown over night. I guess each of the seasons is the same in general, but unique in detail. This fall, everything happened in the right amounts, the right sequence, and the colors of my bushes, in fact all the trees in the area really blazed forth.


I took a walk around my house early yesterday, checking things out. The lake was perfectly still, and a couple of con trails above the thin line of Pelee Island on the horizon made a face in the sky that looked like the morning was sleeping in. After the recent strong winds, the red maples had really thinned out, and the lawn was once again littered with their large leathery brown leaves. As I walked towards the breakwall, one leaf on the ground stood out among the rest as being a much darker charcoal color. On closer inspection, it turned out to be the leathery foot and partial leg of a Canada goose. It seemed so shocking, lying there in the daylight. Who was it that carried that goose leg, perhaps from a kill it did not itself make, only to abandon it beneath my tree? What nameless, featureless second-hand predation went on when my friendly, bright yard was given over to the dark? Darkness comes early this time of year, and I’m quite happy to stay safely warm inside and let the snuffling wild creatures take their turn. This morning I walked out again, and the leg was gone. Nothing ever goes uninspected, unclaimed for long in nature. Such incidents probably happen around my yard all the time, and I never even know it.

At sundown, the geese gathered on the motionless lake, and sailed across the pillar of reflected light. Perhaps since was so still, they lingered out there where it's safe, waiting for the moon to rise.

MOVING THROUGH ASTRAL DAYS

It’s hard to believe how late in the year it's getting—the ides of October are this Thursday. The days have slipped away one by one, like shriveled leaves from the elm and maple trees, until one day we look at them with the sky is showing through, and realize that autumn is over. So far this month we’ve had some somber days of light steady rain; days when the horizon on the lake disappears. There have also been some brighter days, filled with white clouds and patches of blue peeking through, but, on closer inspection, the clouds look a bit ragged around the edges, and their underbellies are a heavy gray.

This fall has been especially hard on the animals along my road. One morning I saw the car-killed bodies of two raccoons and three opossums. That’s quite a toll, but it still doesn’t take into account the numberless wooly bear caterpillars and migrating monarchs that died crossing the road. The only one who seemed to be grateful for the carnage was a lone turkey vulture who noticed one of the ’possums, and descended, rocking its V-wings from side to side as it circled ever lower. Of course, I didn’t have my camera that day. It would have been a shot to have, as it’s the first time in the four years I’ve lived here that I’ve actually seen a vulture feeding at roadkill—I’d wondered why they never took advantage this abundant food source. I slowed down to almost a stop; the bird continued to pick at its grisly meal, keeping a bald eye on me. Was it my imagination, or was the look on its face the shy, almost trusting look of youth and inexperience? As I pulled out slowly into the oncoming lane and crept past the bird, it hopped tentatively to the side of the road, then gently took to the air.

OCTOBER GALLERY (click to enlarge)

Top: Autumn color on the beach--orange with a lingering touch of green.


Summer furniture, rainy autumn day













Gray-out with phantom clouds












Migrating turkey vultures

GEESE and LIGHT

It's been a quiet morning here on the north shore. Out back, a flotilla of Canada geese drifted by in uncustomary silence, as the rising sun dappled the lawn and the breakwall parapet. Inside, a small ray of sunlight bent itself through one of the crystal sun-catchers that hang in the front window, and left its mysterious geometry on the wall beside the goose bowl.

THE NORTH SHORE CURVES LIKE THE MOON

The moment I saw the uploaded thumbnail of this in my photo file, it reminded me of something I made many years ago in an Introduction to Jewelry Making course. One assignment was to make something out of sheet silver, including a bezel. I designed a pin in the shape of a crescent moon, with an arm reaching out from the center, in the style of an old Roman or Celtic penannular brooch, only instead of ending with a sharp pin point, it had a slim silver arm that widened into a spoon shape at the end, where I put the bezel, with a small piece of amethyst set in. Then I put a regular pin fastener on the back. After the stone was dropped in place and the silver polished up, it looked more Art Deco than old world Celtic, but I was pleased. I remember the amethyst got cracked at some point, and the moon got a nick in it, but I have no idea where that pin is today. I haven't thought of it in decades, and wouldn't have yet if I hadn't taken the photo of the north chore curve into the Pelee peninsula.

Roman penannular brooch photo from www.darwincountry.org

BEFORE THE STORM

Beside the lake, days that bring summer rain also bring the swallows. One overcast day, as I drove over the bridge at the small local marina, and headed for home along the shore road, I could see the sky between the trees was filled with swallows, diving and looping in the nothingness of the air. Every time I see these birds flying before a storm, I'm reminded of what my ex once told me, that when he was a boy in Saskatchewan in the 1940s, the old-timers on the rez used to say these swallows the real thunderbirds. They told him that many people pictured the eagle as the thunderbird, because the eagle was so large and fierce looking, but that it was really the tiny swallows who bore that name.

The rain poured down suddenly and sent every living thing hurrying for shelter. Then later, as the storm tapered off, the birds returned to dance again in the newly-washed sky, and I dashed out between the drops and a snapped a few pictures of the birds as best I could.

WHO HAS SEEN THE THE HUMIDITY

We experience many different weather phenomena here on the north shore. Everything from simple dew to frost, fog, rain, snow, sleet; everything from gentle wafting breezes to gale-force winds. All of them leave some kind of visible "calling card" - only the wind is essentially invisible. Still, we are always aware of its presence, as Christina Rossetti so famously put it:

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads
The wind is passing by.

So even though it's not a solid thing to be seen, we feel like we actually do see the wind, too. But what about humidity? There is no visible difference between yesterday's oppressive morning and this one, which dawned bright and refreshing. Apparently, no on can see the humidity.

Then I thought about how it felt yesterday, when the humidity was way up there. I don't know what the actual percentage was, but what do numbers matter when the air feels so close it's like someone is literally breathing down your neck, and every other part of you. And people aren't the only ones feeling it. The cats stretched themselves out, being uncharacteristically quiet all day. The new dishtowel I put out felt limp, even though is just came from the dryer, my Bic pen slid differently across the paper, and the ink even looked different, darker, bolder, against the white. And when I didn't like what I'd written, and balled the paper up, it crinkled without making a sound. This morning, the summer humidity is back down to tolerable levels; I could tell that the instant I woke. Over coffee I started thinking about it. It may not be as poetic to think of a limp dishtowel in place of wind-tossed trees, but the evidence of humidity's invisible presence is just as "visible" as that of the wind. But I don't think I want to write a poem about it. And if I did, it would probably be a really cranky, whiny
one. High humidity isn't a thing to wax poetic about around here - just ask Elliott.

SKYWATCH FRIDAY – 5:41 A.M. (Lake Erie)

Waking early on a May morning, you can sometimes catch the banner of dawn as it unfurls along the last bank of nighttime clouds, and the pink full moon, grown wan from shining so brightly while you slept, is about to slip away unnoticed as the first birds begin to stir.



To view more skies from all around our beautiful planet, or to join in, visit SKYWATCH. Live links after 2:30 p.m. EST time or 19:30 GMT