Photos

Jack Frost

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Jack Frost

Or, since I live in a bilingual province, should that be Jacques Frost? Whatever. He visited the garden last night and did his usual job on our tomatoes. There are a couple of survivors this morning and we have now rescued those, but last night we neither took the toms in nor covered them up.  Oh dear. The result?

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As for the hollyhock, it was looking very sorry for itself early this morning. But, with a little bit of warmth and sunshine, he rose to the challenge and, while looking a little battered, soldiers on and on.

A wounded warrior, this tomato, though. The birds will get him, or the deer, or something. The cat has been very worried about intruders recently, birds and others. Here she is, inspecting the back porch from her watch tower beside the sliding door.

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Hollyhocks

Hollyhocks

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We have never managed to grow a hollyhock before this summer, yet this one appeared from nowhere and quickly grew to more than eight feet tall. We didn’t plant it and we don’t know where it came from. Some little bird, maybe, on a migration journey from one garden to another. Who knows? What I do know is that these flowers are magnificent. This one has endured the summer’s heat, the occasional thunder storm, strong winds, and heavy rain. We had early frost in September, but it seemed to give the hollyhock strength and it blossomed on and on.

Right now, pine siskins and the occasional American goldfinch settle on our hollyhock and peck at the precious seed pods. Precious, because we have gathered some of the seeds, given others to a good friend, and offered some to the passerines who all too soon will be flying south. Those seeds we have kept we will plant. Hopefully, next year, we will have several of these beautiful plants growing in the garden.

The plant, incidentally, is more than ten feet in length. The vertical height is eight feet. Here, in this photo, it bends to touch its toes, hence the downward slant that it has taken.

Smurfs

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Smurfs at Mactaquac

There’s something special about our Fall, here in New Brunswick. At Mactaquac Provincial Park, just beside the Beaver Pond, a group of travelling Smurfs have avoided the hurly-burly of the camp ground and put up their houses in the woods. Lots of things handy: water, shelter, shade, and the Convenience Store just around the corner and down the road.

The New Brunswick Smurfs, if you can find them, are interesting people. This group has constructed temporary homes in different sizes for the adults and the little ones. We didn’t see Papa Smurf, or anyone else, while we were watching, but he’s probably in there somewhere, with the family, keeping them quiet and waiting till we move away. Then they can all come out again and nature watch in relative safety.

 

KIRA Video

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Kira Video

So, our July project, a video of the first KIRA poet reading his KIRA poem, is now completed. I read One Small Corner at KIRA and Geoff Slater, Jeff Lively, and Cameron Lively added video to verse in this blend of magic. Thank you so much: I really appreciate this visual rendition of my words. So much so, that for once, I am at a loss for words. I will just let the video speak for itself and myself. Just click on the link below and you will be transported to KIRA and Kingsbrae Gardens on a magic carpet. swift and smooth.

KIRA Promotional Video

Our September / October project is to inaugurate the first KIRA Boutique Retreat (Creative Writing). This will run from September 30 to October 6. I will be one of the facilitators, along with Geoff Slater, the artistic director at Kingsbrae and Jeremy Gilmer, this year’s writer in residence (July 2018). For a description of my own stay at KIRA last year (June, 2017), click on the first link. Click on either the second or the third link below for more information on KIRA and the Boutique Retreat.

KIRA: an intensive creative experience WFNB, August 5, 2017).

 KIRA – Kingsbrae Garden

KIRA Boutique Writing Retreat

Purple

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Purple

I write poems
in green ink,
but I prefer
purple.

Bruised clouds
on an evening sky,
dark depths
of a rainbow glow,
Northern Lights
singing at the deep
end of their scale …

or just a desire
to be different …
slightly different ..

as if that one thing,
the color of my ink,
might tip the scales
and turn me
from mediocrity
to celebrity

with a wave
of a violet wand.

or the click
of a pair
of ink-stained
fingers.

Fire Storm

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Fire Storm

Yesterday, it was difficult to breathe.
We inhaled dust and ashes as smoke
from forest fires scuttled towards us,
carried piggy-back on a strong west wind.

Today, the wind herds clouds into aerial castles,
pinnacles and pyramids piled upwards,
tall ships’ canvases painted dark, thundery,
raised by fierce wedges thrust beneath them,
lofting them into darkening skies.

Beyond a certain height, water becomes ice.
Particles group together. Hail stones form,
small at first, growing ever larger
until the very air can no longer bear
their weight. Golf ball big,  they tumble down
the sky’s steep ladder and fall to earth.

The dry drum roll of distant thunder rumbles.
A scissor-slash of light shreds black skies.
An executioner’s hay wain rolls towards us,
a runaway train destined to tear our lives
apart. It leaves us helpless, clamoring for safety,
our world torn apart, our earth sore wounded.

Death scythes away downing rich and poor alike.
Who now knows which way thrown dice will fall?
The dye’s sharp edge, once cast, cuts like a blade.
Hailstones clatter, battering us down.

 

Scratch Pen

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Scratch Pen

This old fashioned
scratch pen,
post office pen
with its pointed nib:
a mindless spider
weaving its web
of fine-spun words.

I dip the pen
into emerald ink
and my fingers
turn green with envy
as the nib sails on,
its pea-green boat
laden with meanings
that will never
arrive on shore.

Lost in life’s
traffic jam
of things to do,
I miss the mystery:

star-crossed words,
an empty ocean,
this one dip pen
scratching on,
while I dither
like a mother hen
checking her chicks.